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The stock ambient lighting is beyond pathetic and not really even noticeable even at night. It's absolutely a waste, it does not put out enough light and it's white.
I just don't want to ruin the factory feel. Most aftermarket work well for some time. I've had a bad experience with my Audi car play and hence try to stay away from such mods. What do you think? Are there quality in aftermarket mods? like original finish etc?
Added photos and instructions for the doors, and 2 additional notes:
- My kit has the option for 2 zone colors, by happy accident when I did the 2 front doors and both the dash lights, I "messed up" so the driver's side and passenger side were 2 different colors. Was great since it allowed my girlfriend to have her green side, and I get to have my blue side. But the intended effect is to have the top of the car be one color, and the footwell and door bin lights be another. So I'd advise before you put everything back together to test which zone it is by plugging it in first, and making some kind of indication for which zone is which. I personally just cut the tags off the cables that were the color I wanted, since I have no desire to add the handle, door bin, or speaker lights.
- The lights are pretty poor in the daylight. Which is fine, but I ended up setting my headlight sensitivity to -2 since even at 0 or -1 it's pretty washed out looking. But at night, they're very beautiful and vibrant.
Can we buy the ambient lighting kit from the factory set itself vs. putting in an aftermarket edition? The factory quality will be better. Does anyone have those part numbers?
I don't know about the quality of the lights but I am Extremely Disappointed with the Lexus ambient lighting. It is TERRIBLE and is just very dim and weak. Even in the darkest lighting situation, you can barely see it. I'd Highly recommend that you do aftermarket just for that reason. Other than having the wiring available to wire in an aftermarket kit, they shouldn't have even put the setup that they did in. It's that bad!
I'd like to install an aftermarket setup that allows me to control the color and dim it if I felt like it, like James and LS500Fan did. Theirs look Great and have the versatility that would give me the options of color and brightness.
Just my thoughts but if you Really want the OEM ambient setup then Please don't let me stop you. I think that you'd regret it once you see the end result though.
Yes, the factory ambient lighting is embarrassingly useless. Do not even bother looking up part numbers for the factory stuff, it belongs in the garbage. And, I'm pretty sure it will be way more expensive than the aftermarket stuff. I used a "universal kit" that was around $120 shipped to my door. The fancy kit shown in this thread I've seen more like $400 to $800 range (there are different options).
Yes, the factory ambient lighting is embarrassingly useless. Do not even bother looking up part numbers for the factory stuff, it belongs in the garbage. And, I'm pretty sure it will be way more expensive than the aftermarket stuff. I used a "universal kit" that was around $120 shipped to my door. The fancy kit shown in this thread I've seen more like $400 to $800 range (there are different options).
Not sure where you're seeing $400-800 as this "fancy kit" cost me $220.18 after tax.
I find prices all over the map on Ali with what appears to be the same product from different sellers. I'm using CDN $ so it's higher. Shipping may be higher to here too.
Added the "Driver's side dash" section. Hopefully will have the door portion up this weekend, but my Resonix stuff hasn't even shipped yet, so it all depends on when those arrive. I'm wanting to wait until I'm doing the 4th door when I've refined the process since there are honestly A LOT of screws, and when I did the driver's side I honestly just started unscrewing everything until I got the result I wanted and I don't feel that's very useful information.
As for the "Passenger's side dash", it's easily the most difficult part, so I'm wanting to refine the process before I recommend people rip out their entire dash as I did. I'm pretty sure I found a very simple solution, but it's still a bit of work and I want to dedicate a proper amount of time to it.
Is there any update on the passenger dash removal?
Is there any update on the passenger dash removal?
So I'll be honest I meant to go back and redo it since there was a slight rattle for the first week behind the infotainment, but I've had no issues since so I don't want to mess with it. But if you want me to I can do a quick write-up on how you have to go about it.
So I'll be honest I meant to go back and redo it since there was a slight rattle for the first week behind the infotainment, but I've had no issues since so I don't want to mess with it. But if you want me to I can do a quick write-up on how you have to go about it.
That would be appreciated! I wanted to start this mod as my first mod on my Lexus but I’ve been hesitant to buy the kit without knowing how to install the passenger dash panel
You did a good job James AZ. I like the green. it's different. They make a similar kit for my car but really i don't want to start ripping into things. The interior is so tight, so perfectly aligned, so noise-free, I don't want to mess things up. Maybe if i get bored one day!
James, thank you again for sharing your groundbreaking work on this.
I'm toying with the idea of replacing not the lighting, but just the wood trim on the dash and doors -- the black leaves me cold. I'm thinking that 90% of the same disassembly instructions might apply to that job as to this one.
My hope is that the passenger side of the dash might be easier for a trim-only job than for one that involves wiring. Could you share what's involved in doing enough of a teardown to access and remove the trim (in other words, what you did minus the wiring part)?
James, thank you again for sharing your groundbreaking work on this.
I'm toying with the idea of replacing not the lighting, but just the wood trim on the dash and doors -- the black leaves me cold. I'm thinking that 90% of the same disassembly instructions might apply to that job as to this one.
My hope is that the passenger side of the dash might be easier for a trim-only job than for one that involves wiring. Could you share what's involved in doing enough of a teardown to access and remove the trim (in other words, what you did minus the wiring part)?
Disassembly in this is exactly what you need to replace the trim pieces. It's pretty easy. The only thing I noticed during teardown was I always ended up with one screw that broke in half at the threads, not sure what screw, but it wasn't needed for the ambient kit trim piece lol
Thanks for the reply. Where do I find the tutorial?
Oh I meant the pictures provided by James in the first page (his tutorial). They were helpful to get my kit installed. The disassembly is straightforward and he summarized the steps pretty well overall. From what I noted there are 15 screws on the black plastic trim, 4 screws on the yellow plastic trim underneath the black plastic trim, and 4 screws total on the white plastic trim (but you only need to remove 3 as the 4th one is the door lock post).
Follow his steps from the rear door and they pretty much apply to the front doors. As for the dash trim pieces, those just simply pop out from the side, I would remove the side panels too just in case and to give yourself more space.
11-07-22, 10:33 AM
