Simpler solution for disabling the DCM telematics - Silencing Antennas

You might find this thread of some interest as to the location of the DCM in the 4th gen Tacoma. They reference this thread with the disconnecting of the antennas which we know is not 100% successful. The most recent harness is much better. The pictures of the module show the location of the connectors to be similar if not the same, but there are some differences in the plastic box molding.

 

So is any of this telematics on a 2017 base SR?

 

No. Don't believe it started until the 2020 MY.

 

Great thanks!

 

Does the DCM disable harness throw a check engine code or anything?

 

I installed it and no CEL issues. It does work and the SOS light does not light up at all now.

 

With the one caveat, the FOB remote start will not work. IIRC from this old thread.

 

No biggie. The FOB remote start feature works so poorly, it won't be missed.

 

What a thread...
I've gotta say, I have a 2016, have no worries about these nanny features, have no earthly idea what half the words in this thread mean, but spent the last 2 days reading through the entire thing! Much respect to you guys who have taken on the challenge to understand these systems.

That being said, after reading the thread in its entirety, I came to the conclusion that OP's solution advertised in Post 1 doesn't exactly do what he thought it'd do, and another member (possibly others who didn't post) is out the money for buying into it. Thats not cool. As of right this second, the ebay listing yields no results, so hopefully OP permanently took it down. I'd like to think that OP's intentions were pure and his contributions to this topic didn't seem ill-willed, or to just sell a product, but he hasn't been back since February, so it could be argued he just came here to sell a product; I mean, its the classic 2nd and 3rd post being a sales ad, and disappearing immediately afterwards. Obviously the thread should remain active, bc you guys are doing the Lord's work here, and the thread has gone shockingly productively - but does anyone else think the OP (and post #9) should be edited (whether by OP or a mod) to remove the ebay links? Given newness of account, its a BST violation to begin with. Given the product doesn't do what its advertised to do, that seems like strikes 2 and 3 to me. Thoughts?

 

Oh Yes, this thread has taken many turns and is hard to understand.

Your next new vehicle, and mine, will likely have a DCM or something similar, so we may not be out of the dark yet.

I also had the idea of disconnecting & terminating the antennas and thus disabling the DCM cellular communications; just had not gotten around to it yet. Thorough testing by others found this to not be a complete solution - I especially thank that one "tin foil" contributor @Disgruntled Scientist for all the testing. I do believe the OP had good intentions, although he did come from another forum spouting the same research and promotion. Doing business and truly satisfying people is a lot harder than it seems. For 30 years I was a one man company proprietor. A recent drop out here on this forum is daveeasa (FBC Store closed indefinitely | Tacoma World) whom may have found out the same. My thoughts are the OP encountered expenses (which he wished to recoup) in procuring the stock he was selling on eBay and when that stock expired the listing ended; IIRC he had a few other non Toyota related products for sale as well on his page - just products he was interested in and spent time developing. I'm sure we have all heard of companies starting in a garage, I don't disparage him for trying. Although, taking money from others and not delivering is dishonorable - if that is what happened - there could be behind the scenes happenings we are not privy to. I was disappointed he ceased communications and did not admit failure.

As far as receiving strikes two and three, not necessary as the antenna *termination is dead. He did bring to the table a modification anybody could do with the right products and he supplied links to those products on Amazon - I will think well of him and presume they were not for profit links. If the Amazon links are for profit, the moderators would know and could take those down as well.

I think a better solution to somebody spending two days reading through this long and tedious thread would be to put a warning or disclaimer or consensus at the beginning of the first post. That post should detail just what was learned and what works. Perhaps even detailing what has not been learned.

I for one am thankful for this thread as it got me off my butt and found my best solution - removing the SIM card. I have all my features that I want/need/desire to not be interrupted, with no transmission over the cellular network to Toyota corporate. The DCM is still receiving data from within the vehicle and storing it for physical download at some future time; some may consider this a bad thing. I am yet undecided.

What this thread has failed to disclose:

1) If the Wi-Fi, which I believe is also on the DCM, is capable of connecting to your local Toyota service center downloading the same data as you drive in the service bay or just drive by a Toyota dealer. I suspect not, but... it could easily have been engineered.

2) What happens with just *disconnecting the antennas without terminating them? I have seen in Techstream errors from the DCM by disconnecting them; good engineering practice dictates that a transmitter would not be permitted to transmit when there is no antenna connected. The solution maybe as simple as disconnecting the antennas - three little plugs! Now that would bring back the title of this thread to reality! The DCM would detect the antennas are disconnected and to protect itself would not transmit when there is no antenna. This can be thought of as what happens to an improperly engineered audio amplifier when there is a mismatch or no speakers attached and you turn the power up - the amplifier blows up. My thinking is the DCM is smart enough to know when there is no antenna connected and not to self destruct by transmitting.

3) If disconnecting the antennas does not work sufficiently then shorting the cellular outputs most certainly should terminate transmission. This would most likely cause permanent damage to the DCM.

NOTE: The DCM detects both the OPEN and SHORTED conditions in the cellular antenna outputs and sends that information to Techstream.

 

I definitely agree; I did not read through this thread getting any intuition that the OP was ill-willed. He's obviously put in the research to contribute to this subject, and definitely started a truly badass thread for people such as yourselves to take and run with it. It just seems that if you look at it on the surface and disregard his contributions outside this forum, he came to advertise a product on this one, the product didn't solve the solution he advertised it to do (albeit useful and a great start!), and if those links go back live, others could find themselves in the same boat as the member here who bought the product for nothing and is out the money now. But again, this thread is full of such complexity, I wanted to ask others thoughts towards that as I fully admit I could be misunderstanding some of the equation; my interpretation of the thread lends me to think OP or a mod should edit the 1st post (and Post #9) to remove the ebay links if the product doesn't accomplish the goal so other members don't fall short in their pursuit you guys are working diligently towards. But wanted to ask all your thoughts towards that instead of just reporting it as a BST violation, as again, I didn't exactly interpret it as ill-willed, just something that unfortunately didn't work. I guess the hope of airing this line of thought out in the open instead of just reporting the post is hopeful that the OP will return and edit Post 1 with a disclaimer such as you said.

 

@Toycoma2021 - to clarify, you have removed the 8-pin SIM chip and disconnected the battery, correct? What's the reasoning for disconnecting the battery?

I thought I wanted to just do the bypass harness, but your solution seems like a better option for me and it'll be easy to remove the SIM.

 

The battery was easy to do and I was in there multiple times. Quite frankly it was probably a leftover effort from all the things this thread went through. I also have the USB connection from the DCM to the Radio disconnected too, at the DCM end. Again easy and IIRC it gets rid of a display on the radio.


Are you experienced with Surface Mount Components? If so the SIM is easy to remove.

 

Yes, a lot of experience with SMC. I missed the USB connection - can you tell me to the post number, please? Does the USB or battery connections really matter?

 

The USB connection is not covered by this thread. I just wanted to make sure as many connections to the truck were severed and did not want to view the icon on the radio concerning the DCM; that is if my memory is correct - it has been some time since this thread started. Battery shouldn't matter.