Coastal's Auto Door Lock

Mine's scheduled for delivery tomorrow morning. If it's as easy as it's supposed to be, I'll put it in after work tomorrow and let everyone know by Monday.

 

I wish that Coastal would put the installation instructions on their webpage - it would inspire a lot more confidence that it's an easy installation, which would lead to more people ordering I'd think.

Dave

 

I agree. If I can't but still want it, I'd show them to people at a stereo place or a mechanic friend and see if he would be willing to do it. And if ultimately I couldn't I wouldn't have to buy/return it.

Alpha

 

Now Now, Brad. Let them all know who will be installing it for you. Brad and I are going to be getting together soon to make that install possible. We only live like 30 mins away from each other.

 

Coastal Dave and Kelley donated one to our Prius Club as a give-away for a raffle, so I took a good look at it and the instructions. This is a lovely piece of engineering and packaging!

I can assure you that this is an easy task at about the same level of complexity as installing a new hard drive in your computer. It involves pulling the plastic cover from the rail alongside the passenger seat, but like the rest of the car that's a snap-on piece. There's no trickery to the electrical part of the installation.

The circuit board in the one I saw is 1/3 the size of a business card, encapsulated in heat-shrink tubing as a flat module.

 

This is news to me. :wink: :idea: :lol:

 

That is great. There has been so many incidents where the worlds saddest violin has come into play with me. This one is by far the funniest.

 

This is exactly the feature that I turn OFF when buying a new car. But, then, I don't have kids.

 

Did you have install this behind the right pasenger vent? Were any wires removed or does it clip on to empty spots?

Thanks,
Bryan

 

The auto lock requires accessing two connectors. A grey connector found behind the right passenger vent, and a blue connector behind the plastic plate on the passenger right-hand side below the glove box. The kit provides wire taps that simply snap onto existing wires. No new wires or pins are required.

 

So I would gues that removing the glove box as you would to access the cabin air filter, makes this alot easier?

Thanks,
Bryan

 

You need to remove the bottom glove box and the right side vent. That will allow you to access the grey port, then you need to get to a blue one like mboileau said. First you need to remove the passenger side skid plate then the kick plate. That allows you access to both ports, then you are pretty much done.

 

Not to oversimplify though, the grey connector is a real b*tch to get to with your hands. A long screwdriver and the needle-nosed pliers are essential.

 

The first time I got to the plug (EV Button) I did have a little trouble, but I also, Don't recommend using a tool to get it open. The second time, on Brad's, I had a little more experience and was a lot easier to get off. I used the Screw Driver to separate the wires out of the middle and the needle nose pliers to close the clamps on the wires.

-Brian

 

Don't panic guys! I simply can't seem to get my hand through the big hole, past the wiring harnesses and onto the connector. It may simply be because I've installed the XM radio and there's an additional cable harness running right in front of it. All I'm doing is using the long screwdriver to gently depress the tab that I would otherwise be pressing with my right hand, and then using the needle-nose pliers to hold onto the grey connector piece itself (not the wires) to dislodge it from the mating connector. Remember, I already cut the dickens out of my hand reaching in there last time!