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LED door sill installation

Discussion in 'Gen 3 Prius Accessories and Modifications' started by Prius Drive Thru, Jul 10, 2009.

  1. Prius Drive Thru

    Prius Drive Thru Road Warriors

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    If you're like me, and hopefully that's not the case, you pay someone to work on your car. I won't get into the sordid details but a combination of mechanical incompetence, lack of tools and being a service provider myself, means that I would prefer pay someone qualified to do things to my car.

    To wit, when I received the box with the new LED door sills in it I was excited. "Was" excited. Until I called around to the local dealers to have them installed. One couldn't do it at all anytime soon and thought it would cost between $90 and $150 to install. The other dealer quoted a $90 install price but couldn't do it before next week.

    But I'm leaving on a trip on Tuesday so I had to explore other options.

    I went the install guide Danny was kind enough to send. It actually looked straight forward enough but when they started talking about t-taps my eye glazed over and I got to thinking.

    I called a local car stereo shop. They said they'd take a look at it. So I brought down the parts and printed the install guide. Twenty-one minutes and $35 later I had really cool new illuminated door sills installed.

    As I said, I'm a service provider. I understand paying a professional to do something. I'm a photographer and I hear all the time, "I can take pictures myself for free." And they can. I suppose what keeps me in business is that I can do it better than most people and I have a bit more equipment and a lot more experience so my results can be significantly different from an amateurs. And while this analogy is far from perfect it just goes to explain why I don't mind paying someone a reasonable fee to provide a service for me.

    In the end, once again, I'm left shaking my head at dealers who charge exorbitant rates, need long lead times and give the customer the impression that what they are doing is inexplicably difficult.

    By the way, if you haven't seen them, the illuminated door sills are bad nice person cool.

    Just my take.

    See you out on the road.
     
    #1 Prius Drive Thru, Jul 10, 2009
    1 person likes this.
  2. eglmainz

    eglmainz New Member

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    I too, have the Illuminated Sills, and I agree that they are really sharp looking, they really finish the car off nicely.

    But the idea of a Stereo Shop install is great! I would have never thought of that. I hope that others can takes advantage of that too.
     

    Attached Files:

    #2 eglmainz, Jul 10, 2009
  3. Edward Walsh

    Edward Walsh New Member

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    Hi:

    Can totally relate to what you are saying! I don't mind paying someone to do a job for me and have it done right instead of trying to 'save a buck' - I use to own a Computer Repair, Networking Business and once in a while when you tell them what it might cost they say my friend's son could probably do that (or so they thought)!! :)

    I am getting the Door Sills as well - but what baffles me is here in Canada the price for these Door Sills - Illuminated is around $250 plus tax and that INCLUDES installation at the Toyota Dealer. One dealer told me the time for installation is listed at .6 hour. So hopefully I will be just as happy as you are with yours and in as much as I wish I was like HTMLSpinnr and do it myself (did you see his installation photos? Excellent!) I think I will leave it to the 'professionals'!! If you get a chance take some pics and post them of how they look on your 'baby'.

    Edward
    Marystown, Newfoundland
    Canada
     
    #3 Edward Walsh, Jul 10, 2009
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  4. eglmainz

    eglmainz New Member

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    Here is a pdf version of the install notes for Toyota Technicians. I hope that helps someone.

    ** Edit - due to copyright reasons, the Toyota instructions cannot be posted. Please visit techinifo.toyota.com to obtain the instructions **
     
    #4 eglmainz, Jul 10, 2009
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  5. HTMLSpinnr

    HTMLSpinnr Super Moderator
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    The instructions are pretty straight forward. Even with taking photos/video (couldn't use the video due to angle), I had this done in ~1 hour.

    ** Moving to modifications forum **
     
    #5 HTMLSpinnr, Jul 10, 2009
  6. FireEngineer

    FireEngineer Active Member

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    Gee Russell, I could have done them for free as a demo at Hybridfest.

    Wayne
     
    #6 FireEngineer, Jul 11, 2009
  7. bpollard

    bpollard Junior Member

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    what is the cost for these from the dealer? Are there cheaper dealers out there that will give you a break on parts ordered online?
     
    #7 bpollard, Jul 12, 2009
  8. rcsting

    rcsting Toyota Fanatic

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    #8 rcsting, Jul 12, 2009
  9. Daishan

    Daishan New Member

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    Can someone PM me a link with the instructions? I want to take a look at them so I can see if I want to do this myself.

    Thanks in advance!

    -D
     
    #9 Daishan, Jul 13, 2009
  10. e320kbb

    e320kbb New Member

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    I too would appreciate looking at the tis before buy/attempt the install.
     
    #10 e320kbb, Jul 17, 2009
  11. EZW1

    EZW1 Active Member

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    Did anyone determine if these sills will fit a 2nd Gen?
     
    #11 EZW1, Jul 17, 2009
  12. shiner

    shiner New Member

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    $200 and about an hour of my time later, I have illuminated door sills! Didn't care for the installation quotes I was getting, so I installed them myself. The "worst" part of the install was tapping the driver side wires, and it really wasn't that bad. Unless you're really worried about clipping a wire, I think most people should be able to handle this install.

    Can't wait for nightfall. :D
     
    #12 shiner, Jul 24, 2009
    1 person likes this.
  13. DrJon

    DrJon New Member

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    These do look cool but.....,

    I'm getting a Barcelona Red Prius. Any way to change the blue led to red?
     
    #13 DrJon, Jul 24, 2009
  14. kawita

    kawita Junior Member

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    Just got the sills today, now if I only had my Prius.
    Thanks for the PDF!
     
    #14 kawita, Jul 24, 2009
  15. jsharpe

    jsharpe Member

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    Likewise, or at a minimum confirm that the harness wires to attach to are white with red stripe, and white with yellow stripe, I would be very grateful.
     
    #15 jsharpe, Jul 24, 2009
  16. Daishan

    Daishan New Member

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    Can you or someone PM me the PDF information? Thanks!
     
    #16 Daishan, Jul 28, 2009
  17. jsharpe

    jsharpe Member

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    Well I finally broke down and purchased a 2-day TIS subscription. What a pain. Definitely not friendly for downloading. The instructions already posted here along with the accompanying pictures are all you really need to do the install with one notable exception. The colors of the wires to tap into on the drivers side are different from those on the passenger's side and there are several with the same color combinations (white/red).

    The driver side wires to tap into are white/red white/yellow. They are the two together toward one end of the white connector (pins 24 and 12 respectively) The colors of the wires from the sill plate match the harness wires (i.e. red to white/red and yellow to white/yellow).

    The passenger side wires are white/blue and white/red (pins 12 and 24 respectively) They are adjacent to one another toward one end of the connector and the wires from the sill plate also match the wires on the harness (blue to white/blue and red to white/red.
     
    #17 jsharpe, Jul 29, 2009
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