New owner of 2004 Prius

I just purchased a 2004 Prius with 222,001 miles on the ODO. It's in extremely rough shape, but has potential. Here's a brief list of what I am going to fix over the next few weeks.

All the colored interior plastic is chipping and generally beat up looking. My plan is to strip it down to the bare black plastic and hopefully that will look okay.

It has a factory JBL head unit, but I'm replacing that with a double din Pioneer unit.

The front door cards are trashed, and hopefully I'll find some decent replacements when I go to the junkyard.

Both front speakers are blown. I'm not sure about the rears. I have some Kicker 6-3/4" speakers from the car I just sold, and I may install those in this car when I replace the head unit. I'm planning to tie back into the factory amp.

The driver's seat is way too close to the steering wheel for my comfort, so I bought a set of lengthened seat rails from the store here. Looking forward to putting those in!

The rear hatch release trim panel is broken and held on by duct tape. The rear spoiler is cracked also. They're probably the result of the same incident. I'm headed to the junkyard today to hopefully find acceptable replacements.

The headlights are all clouded over. I may get a refurb kit and spruce them up, or replace them with some new units. I'm not entirely sure, and need to do more research before I really decide what to do. For now, they work, which is fine.

The paint on the hood is trashed. I may sand it down and repaint it, or I may go off the deep end and get a carbon fiber hood. Not sure how I'm going to deal with that yet.

The glass lens on the left fog light is missing, but the light still works. The one on the right is cracked. I am looking at options to replace - light output is first priority, but I'd like them to be super efficient also.

None of the interior lights work. I tested the contacts with a meter and they all have power, so I am just going to order the right (168, DE3175, DE3022, etc.) SMD LED bulbs. I'm surprised there's not a "kit" available to get them. Maybe I just missed it and one of you nice people know of a good kit. I don't want cheap lights.

The courtesy lights on the door are out. I was going to replace them with ghost/puddle lights, but I can't find one that doesn't promote the Toyota brand. I'd rather have a volleyball (I play a lot - lol) or some sports team.

The steering wheel feels like it has a very small diameter. I'm looking for options - either on ebay or some other car sites - but they all seem like the factory steering wheel is the only option if I want to keep the SW controls.

I know I'm late to the Prius game, but I'm excited to start modding this cute little car. I'd like to turn it into a not so cute car.

Feedback is appreciated!

 

My trip to the junkyard was pretty good. Things I picked up:

Driver's side door card. The one I have has a kicked in speaker grill. The window was open, so the armrest fabric was soaked. Not salvageable. However, the top and bottom are in good shape with bunches of scuffs. I figured it would clean up nicely.

Driver's side light housing above sun visor. Mine is broken.

Driver and passenger sun visors. Both in excellent condition. Mine are drooping.

Rear wing. Mine is cracked and held on/together with duct tape.

Center console interior box. I read in another thread that some models came with an aux input in the console. Bingo! I found one. I dismantled one in the junkyard and pulled the console. I figure when I replace the head unit, I'll wire the aux wire into that port.

I also ordered a bunch of interior SMD LEDs, as well as boring regular maintenance stuff like wipers because the ones I have a total crap.

 

Thanks dolj! I'll add that span of years to my search. The one I grabbed all that stuff from yesterday was a 2005. It seems easy enough, I just need to find the process for remove it from the dash (or removing the dash, since that needs some work also! lol).

 

Continuing the theme of tracking my maintenance and modifications to the car, I got the following done today:

Changed the oil and filter. 222,010 miles.

Started to strip the finish off one of the 4 pieces of dash trim to see what just a black finish looks like. If all goes well, I'll post up pictures tomorrow of a stripped piece of trim. I'm hoping it's plain black underneath that odd bronze color. If it looks good enough, I'll also strip the color off the door panel control panels.

Replaced all the wipers.

I ordered a bunch of different LEDs to see what will look best, both inside and out. I'll report back what I find out.

Dismantled the door panel, reattached the top piece of fabric, and reattached the top and bottom pieces. I also pulled out the arm rest and stripped off/cleaned up the plastic. Ordered the leather covers for the arm rests and the center console.

Dropped off the rear wing at the painters and I'm having it painted gloss black.

Ordered a new right side rear tail light - the one currently on the car only has 2 LEDs working in the upper light array. I thought about getting some smoked tails, but I'm not ready to drop that much money. I found a good used online for $30.

I had ordered a new key fob from a reputable ebay reseller and with the help of my daughter, successfully programmed it! She's taken a liking to it. I may let her drive it.

Started to solder the PAC RP4.2-TY11 to the wires for the Pioneer head unit. I need to research some of the navigation connections. It doesn't seem like the colors are obvious.

 

Debadged rear hatch and replaced rear liftgate handle/panel. It had been held on with duct tape.

Replaced right tail light - 4 of the brake light LEDs were out.

Replaced rear turn signal and back up light bulbs with LEDs. 7440 JDM ASTAR ones. Of course now they hyperflash. Ordered tapturn relay.

Added extended seat brackets for the driver's side. Good quality, but I wish they were "floor level" on the backside. The left one is about 1" above the floor, and looks odd. But since I never/rarely have to ride in the back, I don't really care. lol

Received a blank case to replace the original beat to crap remote. Just pulled the internal board and battery out of the origina; case and put it into the new one. Interestingly, the old one has metal where the screw is attached to hold the battery in place, while the one I just ordered did not. The screws just screwed into the plastic, which seems like what most of the aftermarket remote keys are coming with these days.

 

If it was not part of the little board, no not specifically. Crap. I guess I'll be dumping my recycle bin and finding the halves to see what I might have left behind. It seemed like a PO glued the remote together and when the rubber buttons started falling off, he or she taped them on. It was a struggle to get the remote split apart, and at one point it started breaking into smaller pieces. The RFID chip may not even be a single piece anymore.

 

Dumped the recycle bin and went through every piece of trash in there. There was no RFID chip. I've tested the remote in every way I can think of, and there doesn't seem to be any functional difference between the "repackaged" remote and the one I just programmed (from Toyota). I can use the buttons on the doors and hatch to lock/unlock the car, and start it without it being in the key slot. Aside from using it as the master to program another key (which I might do anyway just to have a spare), I'm not sure what else to test.

 

Is the rectangle above the circle the RFID chip?

 

Cool. Thanks for the heads up to both dolj and ericbecky.

Now to continue to with the documentation of improvements to this little car.

Today's haul:

Dashboard (with center speaker, combination meter, light cluster, and airbag) from a 2006
Factory backup camera and about 2' of wire from a 2008
Park button from the same 2008
Lower column surround with the "Key" and "Tire" buttons from the same 2008

When I bought it, the dash board was totally messed up. So the dash I bought today will get installed.

I ordered a refurbished CM from Texas Hybrid Batteries, and Matt also sent me a refurbished light cluster. Installed both in the new dash, and of course, my daughter decided to take the Prius to the beach! Now I have to wait a week to pull the old dash out and put the new dash in.

In the mean time, I get to research how to get the factory backup camera wired up. I also bought an aftermarket camera with a little higher resolution to replace one of the license plate light assemblies with a combination camera/license plate light. Since I plan on replacing the factory head unit with an aftermarket one that has backup camera input, I think I'll make one an actual backup camera wired to the head unit and use one as a rear facing drive cam. Two decisions - which one to make the backup camera and which one to make the rear dashcam. Next up is to find a dash cam with a second input that can accept a feed from a 3rd party camera.