2019 Tacoma TRD Pro Grill

What kills me is that there was a TSB for the 2018-2019 to fix this problem by installing some sort of gasket between the sensor and grill. How in the hell do you roll out a 2020 model without fixing what has been wrong for 2 years.

 

I know it’s the OEM grille and still expensive but one of my local Toyota dealers (Puente Hills Toyota) has the 2017 grille “on sale”!

 

I expect after a few months/years of hanging on the wall with that price, it will compliment a cement gray Taco well with all the dust it will collect.

 

I got my OEM grill from Lowe toyota in Apriol for $269 shipped with the plastic piece for the sensor

 

I understood you fine. Have you ever considered that all of these aftermarket companies are using inferior materials that may interfere with sensor's capabilities? Maybe that's why you were getting "clean sensor" message, where otherwise you wouldn't with the OEM garnish? Who knows what your system learned NOT to see with the aftermarket garnish. I am not an engineer who designed the system, just sharing my .2 cents. Your truck, your decisions.

BTW: the guy in the video is an idiot.

 

Do you or anyone else have a quick link on hand to this TSB?

Did I miss something here? I cannot find in any of oogielaflick's posts whether or not he had swapped his grill before going on this CA->NC trip. Despite the claim that the sensor is crap no matter the grill, I feel that this is an important detail left out.

 

Read his post #14

 

I completely agree, but Toyota's prices for plastic are beyond ridiculous, so based on many posts, I went with Taco Garage and their Aftermarket Garnish and it has been flawless. (I did buy the Toyota OEM Letter Overlays because of fit and adhesive concerns).

 

mad hornet grill and garnish.

TL/DR
Looks tight, works perfect, no issues. plug n play? uhm....not exactly

For one the mad hornet grill lettering is different than some others that I've seen. Look at @johnnyroid 's screenshot post #21, the center of the grill (that big empty space in the grill) There is a single molded piece that goes in there (grill and lettering). The letters are molded to the horizontal pieces, that piece is screwed to the rest of the grille. TOYOTA is painted grey. You cant remove the individual letters, but it was easy enough to put together. Once its all together it looks fine.

The garnish on the other hand was a little tricky. I didn't call Mad Hornet support, but after close inspection, it was clear that I had to modify the garnish and/or the grille, it didn't just pop in. I would suggest removing the TSS sensor from the car, install it to the grill first, then install the garnish at a table or workbench. You need to see the fit up close. After you flip it around a few times you'll see right away, the shit is not going to fit right.

The zig zag sides needed to be shaved down...ok no biggie...a little flat filing...done. The posts and the clips (on mine anyhow) also did not fit correctly. I couldn't get the garnish to sit flush, so I had to trim down the bottom clip stoppers to get it closer to flush. The top wouldn't go in at all (it looked like the garnish posts were larger than the holes in the grille), so I cut off the two posts at the top, tapped it and used screws to hold it down instead. Once I did that...Boom...flush and secure. I read the biggest issue with false positives is that the garnish rattles and/or its not sitting flush (read this from a yelp review) a guy here in the bay area sells tons of these apparently. So I followed his lead and sure enough, never had a problem.

In hindsight, I would tell anyone interested to go OEM. Why? because A. none of the aftermarket grilles I've seen are clear coated, OEM grilles are. and B. not everyone is willing to go through what I did to make it look tight. So if youre not interested in fiddling with it...OEM.

Most people would have seen my situation and said, "it doesnt fit, return it" or "theres a mold imperfection blah blah". The day mine came in the mail, I sat on my couch with an emory board, and from the back side, filed down all the molding imperfections on the entire grille. There were plenty of spots to sand down, most normal people wouldn't even bother with em, but I cleaned all that up. I took my time with the garnish fit. It sits more secure than an OEM garnish, on an OEM grille. So if you're willing to take some care and save a few bucks then go aftermarket. If you want to rant about your "OEM only" choices and how it was "plop plop plop installed" then go OEM.

I will say that the Mad Hornet grille does have all the intricate details of an OEM (ie ridges on the some of the grille trim, etc). Watch TheTacoGarage's youtube comparing OEM vs Aftermarket. I believe I paid $110 bucks for it with a garnish. They did make a mistake and forgot to send the garnish, so it took 3 weeks to get that. They also sent me the wrong grill. Mine came with the Raptor lights already on it. They used epoxy or some shit, so it took some time to pry those suckers off the grill without damaging it. Thats when I decided to emory board the whole friggin grill. Overall the grille looks tight and I'm very pleased with it.

 

To each his own, I have a '17, so the TSS garnish whatever is not an issue, and not really sticking up for mad hornets (they don't need me to), but I'm completely satisfied with their product. Their website clearly states their grills are for '16 and '17's, and would have to have a slight modification to adapt for the TSS. Regarding the letters, I'm not sure I understand your beef, but I actually like the one piece screwed into the grill. I guess it's a matter of preference. Overall, it seems to me from reading here extensively, the biggest complaint for folks that buy them are TSS fitment issues which are irrelevant for model years which the product is intended, even though they clearly explain how to adapt their product for later model years. Had mine almost a year, and still looks great, sorry you had issues with yours, but I'm glad you like it.

 

Not anymore it can't. Toyota decided to be sly and the OEM garnish is now around $300, so for an OEM TSS Pro grille you're looking at close to $600-700.

 

Even with my stock grille I still get TSS errors in heavy rain, snow, etc. OP.

 

Yep. I paid about the same. Just need to do a google search of dealers that let you order online through their parts dept. A lot of these aftermarket grilles are as much or more than OEM. I think starting in 2019 or so the Pro grilles went way down in price. The aftermarket distributors did not bring down their prices to match.

 

Have you actually searched around different dealerships? They are not all the same with their prices. I verified this when I was looking around for my OEM Pro grille

 

That’s where I got mine too. I can’t believe that people are paying more for the junk aftermarket ones when the OEM can be found for as much or less

 

I indeed, swapped my OEM TRD Sport grill a week after I got the truck last April 2019. I had the PRO grill sitting in my bedroom even before I took delivery of the truck! And yes, it was obviously then on the truck when I took my CA-NC-CA trip back last october of 2019. I now have almost 15,000 miles on the truck, and the sensor is working just fine now, but man, it took a lot of miles and it "learning", before it started working OK. But the dang thing is WAY too sensitive to average everyday use. A couple of weeks ago, I was driving in Northern CA and I went to the Drive-Through Tree state park and took a few pics of driving my truck through the redwood tree. Anyway, because that is on dirt trails, the front of my truck got dirty, especially the sensor. Not bad, but enough for the sensor to quit working or, the PCS OFF light to come on. I went to a gas station, and wiped off the sensor cover, and everything was fine. But it really is a pain in the butt and it should not work this way, or be this sensitive. If I was driving along a road where it had just been raining, cars in front of me would naturally throw up stuff that would almost instantly mess up the cover and the PCS OFF light would come on. It shouldn't work like this.

 

No I just looked at one place they used to be $300 or so, then Toyota wised up and made the garnish as much as the grille. When’s the last time you looked? If you find me one that’s OEM with garnish for less than $500 ill give you a finders fee.

 

It took me all of 2 minutes to find both pieces for a total of about $275. Both are OEM. How much of a finders fee? You need my info for PayPal or Venmo?
It’s not Toyota that’s raising the price of the garnish, it’s the dealership parts dept.

 

That garnish is not oem despite the claimed description, it's fleabay "Master piece usa" please, nice try, try finding an OEM garnish from a reputable source, LOWES toyota, Olathe, TRDParts4u, etc. for that price, bet you cant.

 

Actually it is. With the proper Toyota part number. The seller has nothing to do with if it’s genuine or not. Don’t be mad bro. You don’t really have to pay me anything
You should be happy that you can have OEM for this price. Unless you were just wanting to get in to an argument, which I will not do on a forum