Light-bar upgrade for LE and SE

He obviously lacks any self awareness. I wonder if he was banned from the Gen4 board so he moved over here.
On all the forums I'm on this is the only one where the person continues to post on a board where they don't belong. It's akin to a Ford owner going over to the Chevy forum and posting crap about Chevy's
Whatever, The Blue Tool

 

Make it so

 

LOL. I came to the chat for some tribal knowledge & community. I didn’t expect a cage fight on a Prius forum.

As for the light bar, I’m disappointed too. I’m looking for a work-around. I really question the new cars conforming to light standards.Not just my LE but Tesla’s.

I got rear-ended at 2500 miles & am firmly convinced that an extra running light (light bar) would or could have prevented the accident. I am praying my neck does not come back to haunt me years down the road. Drive safe. Pull over to text…please.

 

shucks and i was hoping there might be a chance to insert a brake light led strip behind the center plastic piece which would have been much cooler than the stock light bar.

 

What do you mean by opaque?

Because the back of my Canadian SE has the same colour material as the actual brake lights plastic.

 

Your Canadian SE has transparent material for the sides of the brakes but the center is a bit more white/opaque and doesn't refract the light the same way. Try it with a flashlight, I also have a Canadian version.

 

Oh I see. Interesting. Ah that's ok. I've seen a bunch of differences between ours and the US one so I was curious.

 

So Ive seen photos of the US XSE trim, and white bar looks exactly the same as the Canadian SE trim on the prime. From the photos the brakes light plastic has a clearer piece and the central bar is more opaque...

I really do wonder if, just like the footwells, we have the wiring but no LEDs....

It's too cold to go trying to remove clips to look in there for fear of cold plastic snapping... But maybe in the summer

 

stumbled on this prius xle diagram.
the part number of the tail assembly (1) that includes the light bar is 81581-47080.
note: there is also a difference between the le and xle third brake light harness. not certain on their differences.

 

so I have been looking into this as well. Apparently, the JDM version of is like this.

 

That Japanese video isn't adding lights, it's adjusting the wiring to make an already-fitted light bar light up as a brake light (presumably as well as acting as a tail light).

The switch is presumably to disable for any sort of vehicle inspection, cos possibly not a legal configuration.

 

Ah I see. From other videos, I realized that the tail light bar is always on when you have day time running lights on.

 

Are you sure? Could be that's true in the US, but it's not in Europe. Here DRL are independent of the rear lights.

But the rear lights usually do come on in dim conditions due to the automatic headlights function.

 

Actually I am not 100% sure, in this video it's still sort of bright. I guess he turned on his light hence the light bar is on ?

 

It looks like they're upgrading from the JPN base though which is even more basic than what we get in NA.

I think what it may come down to is that the light is already in the trim piece on the upper trims?

The reflector is also different in other markets.

I saw an XSE prime here in Canada and funny enough shining my camera flash light at it, it looks to be the same opacity as what's on the Canadian SE trim.

The fact we have the wiring but not the LEDs for the footwells here too, makes me think the part difference might be whether there is a light strip or bulb already in the higher trims and not already in the one here. The only way to know for sure would be to remove it or get access to the Canada TIS repair data. Since it's clear just visually alone that the hatch trim is different here than in the US on the SE model. As far as I know the US LE model has a red reflector, we have a white one.

Mind you, I really don't care enough about the lights to spend serious money on it, otherwise I would have just gotten a higher trim. But its really an interesting thing to think about. Why they wouldn't include stuff as simple as lighting on a lower trim I also don't understand lol

 

I posted this in the other thread but just in case: Xグレード センターテール1文字化(Z化)（トヨタ プリウス・60系）by りぐっち@カロッツェリア信徒 - みんカラ

The red lenses are HEV, the white ones are PHEV. I'm pretty sure that's worldwide and one of the ways they decided to differentiate the the Prius from the Prius Prime. The Prius is LE, XLE and XLE Limited and the Prime is SE, XSE and XSE Limited.

For the lens on the XSE Prime and SE Prime in Canada, that's interesting. When I shine a light on my SE centre bar from the outside, it doesn't seem to get reflected far, if at all, in the rest of the lens. I haven't seen any other Primes to check. If you want to make a video or take some pics, I'd be interested to see!

As for the difference, it's just bulbs and wiring missing if you check the install guide in Japanese. That and the cover being plugged but could maybe be popped out. It's for an HEV but I assume it'll be similar for the PHEV. Toyota probably wanted to differentiate between different trims to make more money and needed to find a way how. The footwell lights and bulbs for the rear bar are cheap but make a slight difference. Then you add heated seats in some countries, larger display, cooling seats, etc.

 

Multiple reports of the plastic trim cracking on its own probably means nobody wants to try it and crack the trim. At least that's my reason for not taking mine apart. It's also not guaranteed you can pop the covers out on the lower trim and that the reflectors inside are present. I suspect you can pop the covers where you'd put the bulb but I also don't think the reflectors inside are the same than the higher trims. I could be wrong, and I don't have another higher model Prime on hand to check, but by using a flashlight the centre bar on my SE doesn't seem to reflect light.

If someone wants to sponsor me a replacement centre brake light, I'll give it a shot