2018 TRD PRO Grille w/ TSS-P Radar Info/DIY

I did the same expensive route as my truck hauls a very important person - me. Didn’t make sense to cheap put on a safety issue.

 

Did you order the star lock nuts for the sensor too? If not, what did you use?

 

No, the garnish came attached to the grille with those star lock washers.

 

Hi everyone I’m new to this Forum and I wanted to ask members that already did the swap from a standard grille to a TRD PRO grille. I have a 2018 TRD Off Road with TSS. I bought a China grille and I needed to know a couple things.

Besides the new grille is there any other additional parts required to make the swap? I read in another thread that a guy had to order a wire harness ext to fit the TSS down on lower part of grille.

Do I need the plexiglass piece to protect sensor or will it be ok with the cover that came with new grille?

Here is some pics of my new grille front and back. Thank You for any support or guidance you can give.

 

@Twitcher im on the same page as you brotha.. makes no sense to me to compromise safety...

 

@Jax8025 no you don’t need anything else.. just buy the OEM glass garnish

 

I'm calling BS on the "hauls a very important person - me" line. If your primary concern was safety you would own the highest rated safety vehicle out there. You bought your truck because you like the looks/performance/utility of it, I seriously doubt you gave much consideration to its safety rating. The reason I, and many of us do not want to use the Toyota Garnish is simple, it's ugly. We, just like you, like the look of our truck and would rather not hose up a great looking grille with that jinky Toyota Garnish. Frankly I could care less about the TSS, my 16 did not have it and I'm still alive to tell the tale, if there was a way to make the annoying yellow icon go away I'd never give it a second thought. Sadly I'm OCD with stuff like that, thus I have the crappy stock Garnish on my bench as a gateway of last resort. Bottom line, if safety is the deciding factor for you and you're willing to put that ugly ass Garnish on your truck to get it, good for you, but how about you stop busting the chops of the guys who are trying to do what makes them happy.

 

He said nothing at all about what YOU should do. He said what he did and why.

 

if its so much trouble.. them they should all buy 17's ... plenty of them out there with low miles...

 

So got the OEM 2017 grille and OEM garnish, what's the best way to remove the insert on the 2017 grille? Thanks

 

It pops right out.. you might have to cut a little bit.. it’s melted on

 

It's OEM, starlock washer prevents me from popping it out, worried I might break something.

 

They should remove with no problem.. I had no issues

 

Just installed my ChinaPro grille yesterday! The truck looks so much better!

I got mine from Areyourshop on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B077MYSNYR/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
They're out of stock right now but hopefully back in stock soon.

I went with the OEM garnish because I didn't want to deal with errors from the TSS. So far I know that adaptive cruise is working perfectly. Haven't been in a situation to see if collision avoidance is still working but I don't see any reason that it wouldn't. I haven't had a single error since installing the grille.

As far as the quality goes, it's okay. It's a little too small and there are some gaps between the grille itself and the edge of the shroud. But as you can see in the picture, it would be difficult to tell unless you were really close. It'll do for now and if I decide that it's not good enough I'll shell out for the actual OEM grille.

I can say that the truck gets a lot more looks now! Tacoma guys especially, you can see the wheels turning in their head wondering whether they need to try to buy the pro grille for their truck too
I say they do! Pro grilles all around!

Cost:
Grille $129 (free shipping)
Garnish $63 (Including shipping)
Total: $192
^^^^^ and worth it so that you don't have to deal with errors!

 

I have the OEM 2018 Grille. The head salesman at a local Toyota dealership was nice enough to let me order one as long as I had a TRD PRO VIN. I was honest with the guy and asked if it were ok if I found a used 2018 TRD PRO VIN and he didn’t mind at all. So I found one using cars.com app. It was a black one that was local here in NC at another dealer. I also ordered the 2018 OEM Garnish on eBay. But, as many others in here I don’t prefer the look of them. So I hunted down an OEM 16-17 garnish from another member in here. For lock nuts I used these.
Found them from the TW Facebook page from another member. They work perfect. They were purchased from Lowe’s for less than a dollar for 4.

So before I used the 16-17 garnish, I installed the 18 garnish and examined the orientation of everything. I was mainly worried about how close the 18 garnish was to the sensor. So I ended up using the OEM front license plate bracket like others have only I cut 2 rectangular pieces. They were cut bigger than the opening for the sensor close to 5”x4”. I glued those 2 pieces together using some Hondabond I had laying around. The combined piece matched the 18 garnish in how close it would be to the sensor. I then glued that piece to the 17 garnish, also using Hondabond. Put everything back together. Been driving over 1200 miles with zero errors and everything works as it should. The “block” is in there solid and flush and won’t rattle at all. BTW Hondabond is a really tough, hard glue used for sealing gaskets on Honda engines. It’s grey in color. I have the 18 garnish laying around in case this route goes sour.

Here’s the finished look.

 

Looks great! I tried to do the plastic piece thing with that type of garnish and it failed on and off randomly for me. Not saying it will happen to you since 1200 miles is a whole lot of insurance!

I'd love to see some more pics of your install.

 

You need the OEM garnish piece, I got mine off of eBay. You'll also need locking washers which I got from a local hardware store because I got sick of waiting. My dealership called me 2 months after I installed that my nuts showed up! Some people like the extended wiring harness to keep the wires hidden, but it wasn't an issue for me. I wanted my bro grill to look as OEM as possible so I painted the "t" and the "a" with black trim paint from duplicolor. Let us know how it turns out!

 

Finally, I have time to install the grill with the garnish and the longer cable. No warning lights. Works perfectly. I think it added an extra 5 horsepower. LOL..I want to thank everyone who provided the instructions on this thread.

 

How do you go about removing the lock nuts that are on the faux grill to put in the oem garnish?

 

@06toyoboy it should come right out.. you might have to cut it if it’s melted together.. show me a photo of it