Aftermarket center console options?

Anyone on here put a different center console in their Tacoma? I've got a new to me 2003 Double Cab, and while the stock center console is "okay", it's looking worn as hell. Since you can no longer buy new ones from the dealer, this got me thinking... Has anyone put an aftermarket center console in their Tacoma?

I'd love to see pictures, hear how it fit, etc. Just looking for different and perhaps more comfortable / usable options.

 

You’ve confirmed the parts you’d want to replace are no longer available, yes? I say that ‘cause I had no problem ordering some replacment 2003 console pieces about a year and a half ago.

 

Yes, new center consoles are available in charcoal, but the oak ones are discontinued unfortunately.

 

Ah -- got it. I bought a few new charcoal pieces as I transferred an interior in that color into the 2003 I now have from the 2001 I had. And vice-versa, so there's now a Lunar Mist Metallic Tacoma out there with an oak interior...

There were a couple of trim pieces needed for that conversion (like B-pillar upper trim that changed between 2001 and 2003) that aren't available in charcoal. I found several of them via Yota Yard in Denver. Quality exactly as described over the phone and fairly priced.

 

I thought about just changing this oak interior to charcoal, as the oak interior seems to wear terribly. It appears that the oak plastic parts are not actually colored plastic, they are black plastic that has been painted "oak".

I sent an email to Yota Yard (thanks for the link!) to see if they have a console by chance.

Like I said though, maybe I should just buy a replacement console in charcoal and convert the entire interior. Might be hard to find some of the parts I need however.

 

Partially true. There are parts that are painted black plastic, like door window switch bezels, but most of the stuff is shot in an oak-colored plastic compound. Same thing for charcoal. I'm not sure about wear durability. I'd have guessed that related a lot more to previous owner's habits than the color of the interior.

If you get into an interior swap, lemme know. I did exactly this between my 2001 -> 2003 to convert the newer truck to charcoal. It's very doable, but it's a helluva lot of taking apart and putting back together! There are a few esoteric details that differ within the Gen 1.5 trucks, I came to learn.

 

It may just be that oak shows wear more than a darker color, since it's lighter. I suppose a better idea would actually be to use some of that VHT interior dye paint. I know a number of people who have used that to change interior colors, and shockingly it holds up really, really well. My buddy turned his interior from tan to black, and it's going on 6 years now with no signs of wear.

I didn't know that about the trim pieces. My window switch bezels are all worn and you can see the black plastic underneath. I figured that all the plastic parts must have been painted, but this makes more sense now what you're saying.

I'll let you know about the interior swap if I go that route. Admittedly it would be easier if I had an entire donor vehicle. Of course being as though mine is a double cab, I think it makes things a bit more difficult, since the double cabs don't seem to be as common. For instance, I can find front door panels all day long, but rear ones... I have yet to find a set!

 

I can't imagine doing this without a donor vehicle. My charcoal and oak interiors sat next to each other in my driveway and I had the luxury of all the time in the world to do the conversion. Everything got changed in my project, from instrument panel to carpet to headliner. Luckily the color and condition of the charcoal interior I had was terrific. It helped me make the decision on the newer truck, as I discounted the beat up oak interior from the start and focused on body and frame (which as a Colorado truck were perfect.)

It woulda been a real headache -- probably more cost and effort than I could have justified -- if I had to source or scrounge all the charcoal bits for the conversion.

 

That makes a lot of sense. It may be worth it to see if I can find a wrecked double cab Tacoma with a really good condition interior. If I could find something like that for 2-3k, I could buy it for parts, swap interiors, and probably make most of my money back and have a fun project.

Because I agree with you, doing it without a donor vehicle would be time consuming and difficult.

 

I sold my Lunar Mist/oak oddball combination for about what the charcoal would have gone for -- that 2001 a year or so ago had 134k mi and superb maintenance. The shop where I have my bigger work done heard I might be selling and one of the owners bought it for his nephew. It never got advertised for sale and sold for fair market price. Tacomas are like that.

The silver exterior/tan interior looked better than it might sound.

 

That's exactly what my interior looks like now. The door panels and seats look more "tan", but the dashboard and center console are a very dark brown (which I assume is oak).

Do I have some sort of oddball combination here? LOL

 

Nope. That's what an oak interior looks like.

Here's the charcoal interior being finished up as it was moved into my Super White 2003 DC. You can see the dash and console colors are distinctly different from an oak interior.

 

Oh yeah, it looks like grey door panels with a darker grey center console and dash.

The oak actually looks great on my maroon Tacoma, I'm just not sure I like the way the lighter color interior wears as oppose to something like black for instance.

Is the carpet easy to get out once the seats are removed?

 

... and here's the 2003's oak interior going into the Lunar Mist Metallic 2001. Note the instrument panel color. Because the 2001 originally had a pushbutton transfer case and the 2003 had a J-shift, the charcoal pushbutton stuff stayed. (That's how I knew some of the console trim was still available, at least in charcoal).

 

Yeah, the carpet is easy once the seats, console, lower dash center, sill trim, kickplates, and lower seat belt anchors are out. Just a lot of undoing and redoing is all.

The headliner is harder, as it's a tighter fit and the piece doesn't lend itself to flexing without damaging it.

 

Note also that the front seat belt pretensioner connectors changed between 2001-2003, so the front belts from one year will not transfer to the others. That's one of those esoteric differences between the years.

 

Okay, so it's pretty much the same as every interior I've ever removed before (I've taken out quite a few on past vehicles). The easiest interior to remove is that of a TJ Wrangler... those interiors come out so easy it's almost a joke (minus the dash of course)!

One more reason a donor vehicle would come in handy I suppose!

 

I'd definitely recommend a donor from the same production year. I was able to make the 2001 <-> 2003 swap, but it was a little trickier due to a half dozen or so pieces that are different between the years.

 

I turned a 99-02 4runner console into a custom sub box

The front needed some trimming to match up with the stock shifter console. I had to make a custom bracket at the rear. You can see that progress in the thread:
https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/project-boom-console-v2-0.645998/

 

Good advice, I'm glad you shared this info, otherwise I would have had no idea whatsoever!