Gentex 453 Mirror and temp sensor install in 2014 Off Road - Pictures

Hey guys,
Sorry to bring up an old thread, but after reading the forum I took the plunge and ordered a gentex 261 mirror kit and installed it in my 2015 SR5 stock tacoma.. It is pre-wired for the mirror, but the mirror I ordered did not come with the toyota plug.. So what I did was cut the toyota plug off in the head liner and wired the mirrors power to the 12v switched power on the headliner
. But now when I start the truck the airbag light and traction control stay illuminated.. Also the factory alarm is no longer working... I have no idea what is going on.. Figured you guys would be able to help.. I have an appointment with Toyota ,as it's still under warranty but was hoping you guys would know a possible solution.. The truck only has 10k miles on it and no issues before hooking up the mirror.. I checked all the fuses and non are blown. I disconnected the battery for 15 mins and no change... any ideas?

Thanks!
Chris

Found it was indeed a fuse.. in the main fuse box, there is a 7.5 amp fuse labeled ECU-B.. it powers the alarm, and various other small things.. replaced fuse all is good

 

glad to see folks are still working on this project I am planning to do it also just haven't had time

 

I just did this in my 15. It was painfully easy and makes me wonder why Toyota just didn't include this from the factory. My sensor had a tab on it that pressed into an existing hole on the vertical bracket in the center between the grillle and radiator. No drilling and works like a charm.

 

I bought my 07 with this mirror installed and noticed sometimes the auto dim doesn't work, anyone else have this problem?

 

It's function is dependent on the incoming light on the back of the mirror (i.e. oncoming headlights/traffic lights/street lights) and incoming lights on the sensor on the front of the mirror (i.e. Incoming headlights behind you). Add in the light dampening effect of the tinted rear glass, and you can see that there are several variables at play.

I took a pair of sunglasses from the dollar store, snapped out the lens, ground it down to the size of a $.50 piece, and glued it over the sensor on the back of the mirror by tacking it with two tiny dots of super glue (I could pop it off no problem). I found that the dimming feature works much better with less light coming in that sensor.

Basically, due to bright street lights/oncoming headlights in town, the mirror thinks it's light outside, even when headlights are coming at you in the rear. So, sometimes it doesn't dim.

That's not to say the mirrors don't work. But I've found it to work much better with my mod.

 

Had no idea there was a dim sensor on the back facing oncoming traffic. Ill give your sunglass fix a try, thanks!

 

The mod is working awesome. It basically makes the whole "system" a lot more sensitive. The only time I have trouble is around sunset AND if the sun is behind me at the same time. Then the mirror will dim a lot, while it's still pretty light outside. But over all, it seems to function much better in all scenarios, whether that be in town or on the highway after dark when you need the auto dim the most.

I actually bought three $1 pair of sunglasses. One super dark gray, one kind of medium brown, and one very lightly tinted. I popped out one lens from each and just carried them around with me in the cab for a few days. And then I'd hold the lenses over the sensor in some different lighting conditions at different times of day/night and with different levels of brightness both in front and behind me. I settled on the medium tint. With the darkest lens, the mirror was dimming too much.

Ha I actually got it dialed in really, really well... if you do this, you should be good to go-- you basically wanna go with as dark of a lens as you can that doesn't trigger the mirror to dim in broad day light. Or if you just barely see it start to go dim in daylight, that's ok too- it won't go all the way dim.

These mirrors aren't an all or nothing deal- the mirrors dim on a spectrum. Hold your finger over the sensor during the day and you can "trigger" the dim and get a feel for what's going on. You may have to try a couple different lenses before landing on your "perfect tint". I did this mod in my brothers truck and had to use a different lens than the one that worked in my taco.

 

I just did the Gentex Homelink mirror mod to my '14 Tacoma, and I found the directions on the first page of this thread to be excellent. I followed them as accurately as I could, and I was able to get the mirror installed in about 2 hours. Most of that time was spent fishing the temp sensor wires through the firewall! The write-up is spot on, so thank you @MustDrive.

 

You are welcome, and I appreciate your kind words. I've learned a lot from others on this site, and I am glad I could help you.

 

Awesome write up... I'm wondering if this same kit from the original write up is still for sale somewhere

 

Fantastic write up! This mod has been on my to-do list for a while now. One of my biggest pet-peeves with my 2014 TRDOR is the useless weather report via the digital radio tuner. It's pulling weather from an hour away, or it has no signal at all. That was absolutely useless when I was traveling through Arizona, Utah, and Colorado recently where the temps were probably changing between freezing and low 90's within 1 day. Sometimes quickly as I would gain or decrease in elevation. It's nice to have an accurate true temperature gauge that tells me exactly what temperature is outside the cab.

 

Just installed my mirror & am very happy to have a temp readout now. I got a mirror from a Nissan so had to splice the power wires but it was a breeze. Thanks @MustDrive for the great writeup.

 

Subbed

 

Just bought the mirror (Compass, Temp and Homelink) from Bob, fantastic kit that was put together along with great installation instructions and documention for setting up the mirror. This mirror is identical to the mirror in my Avalon Touring Sport SE. The used mirror looked new and worked perfect! Thanks Bob, you are highly to get a kit from. Thanks to this write up as well and the install was a breeze. Took about 2 hours taking my time, but actually as mentioned above most of the time was spent fishing the temp sensor wires through the firewall. If there was no temp sensor I would have been done in less than 30 minutes. Not sure why toyota never included a temp sensor on these trucks as they have been on toyota cars since 2002.

 

Bought the Gentex 177 mirror (compass, temp, autodim) from Bob (copper_z71 on ebay) end of March but finally got around to installing today. Kit was very complete and install was really straight-forward. Fishing the temp sensor wire through the firewall grommet was actually pretty easy. Used an angle cut length of wire coat hanger to pierce through the grommet, taped the wiring to it and pulled the wiring through. Only modification I did to the kit was to cut down the wire cover at the mirror by about 1/2 inch to get it in place. Mirror and install looks and works like brand new factory installed.

 

How accurate is everyone's temperature with the sensor location according to the directions? My temp seems to be off by 6-10 degrees.

 

Mine has been spot on. I put it right behind the grill. So far, it has been tested to 119 degrees Fahrenheit accurately.

 

I am doing this with my 2015.

 

subd

 

easy install, love it