My wife’s convertible Solara is her pride and joy in the summer time. We bought it back in 2017 and it has proven itself to be a reliable and fun car. One issue it had was related to an aftermarket spoiler the previous owner had installed.
In 2021 we waited to take the cover off and there had been a number of hot and humid days. When we removed it, the clear coat on the spoiler was popping off. The factory paint on the car was just fine – the spoiler on the other hand looked tough and by the end of the 2022 Summer driving season it really looked bad so I knew I needed to surprise her by refinishing it.
The clear coat was peeling all over the top of the spoiler but not the bottom.
I do own a full set of automotive paint sprayers but I didn’t feel like getting them out and set up just to do a spoiler. I decided to go with AutomotiveTouchUp.Com who I had bought touch up paint from in the past and had pretty good luck with. The only issue I have ever had with them is that you will wait around four weeks for them to make and ship your paint.
The paint code for a Toyota is one the door sticker and her Solara was “Absolutely Red – 3PO” which describes the bright red on the car very well. I knew I would need primer, that base color and clear coat. I always buy extra just in case so I bought two cans 12-oz cans of each and then I waited for it to show up.
Before you do anything – read their instructions. I went with spray cans so I focused on that section – click here.
Getting Ready to Paint
The first step was to remove the spoiler from the car. This was done by removing the body push pin rivets and moving the interior cover out of the way. Don’t be surprised to find out some of the rivets are missing or broken on an old car. You can easily get them on Amazon along with a tool that makes removal very easy.
Those little push pin rivets do the job and the tool you see makes it really easy to pull them out. If you don’t have a tool use a small blade screw driver or flat edge to get under the pin-part of the rivet and lift it up.
You don’t need to completely remove the cover – just remove as many as you want to get access to the onme screw and one stud on each side that holds the spoiler.
You will see something like this on each side. Remove the machine screws first and start to back off the nut on the stud. If the spoiler stays in place, then remove the nuts completely and the spoiler will lift straight off. In my case, my wife held the spoiler so it wouldn’t fall off when the nuts were removed.
I took one look at the old stuck on seals and left them alone. Trying to remove them would only tear them up. I decided to leave them alone, re-use them and if there was a leak then I would decide whether to replace them or just put a bit of black silicone RTV gasket glue around the two holes to seal it. I didn’t want to jump right to that because if I needed to remove the spoiler again, it would tear up the seals. You can buy black rubber seal material in sheets and you cutt out whatever shape you need but I wanted to avoid that path if I could.
I put the spoiler on two wood sawhorses to do the refinishing work. Note, I added blue painter’s tape to the sawhorses right after this was taken.
I have a 5″ Dewalt orbital sander that I used with 150 then 220 grit sandpaper to remove all of the bubbled/loose clear coat. I wasn’t worried about removing everything down to the bare bare material underneath but did want a solid surface on the top and edges for the primer to grab hold of.
Painting the Car
With the surface prepped, let’s get into the painting process.
This is red primer – not the base paint. I did three coats with wet sanding at 150 grit. No matter how hard and long I shook the rattle cans, the primer would spatter / blow larger drops into the paint vs. the fine mist you want. To be honest, I was regretting not just getting out my spray guns at this point.
I applied five coats of red paint. Light coats are the way to go and what you are looking for is a nice even rich color. I was still fighting the spattering even with the paint. So I did wet sand a few times. There instructions tell you not to do this but they also didn’t have their paint spattering everywhere.
This had six coats of clear coat. I did not wet sand between. The trick is to build up a relatively thick clear coat so you can wet sand it even and then later polish it.
Let it cure for an honest day so that it is hard enough to wet sand and then use rubbing compund to polish it. Water acts as a lubricant in the very fine 1500 grit sandpaper. If you don’t use it, the grit will fill with material and be useless. I keep a bucket of water next to me and keep dunking it in there. In this photo you see a sheet of 1500 grit sand paper that I wrap around the foam block to support it when I sand. I sand the clear coat using 1500, 2000 and 3000 grit sandpaper.
This is a random orbit 6″ bonnet washer. The terry cloth surface holds the rubbing compound and you keep moving around the clear coat removing all of the fine scratches.
The result turned out great. One important thing to remember – it looks and feels cured but it isn’t. There normal one part clear coat needs 30 days to cure the rest of the way. If you wax it, you will probably watch your finish peel right off so be sure to wait.
It wasn’t perfect but way, way better and my wife as thrilled.
The spoiler had rubber bumpers under the front part where it was close to the body. I bought these little 1/4″ tall rubber self-adehsive bumpers at Ace. They looked identical to the originals and will prevent the spoiler from hitting the body for whatever reason.
Summary
Because I had the sprayers, I regretted using the rattle can approach with the spattering that I could not get rid of for whatever reason. The time I thought I would save by not setting up my finishing automotive paint sprayer I lost doing extra sanding to get a relatively smooth finish.
In terms of color, they did a great job matching. I’m writing those blog almost two months after painting and it is nearly an exact match. Only at certain angles and lighting do I think I might see a difference – it’s that close. I’ve used them for other vehicles for bottles of touchup paint and their matching is always really good.
Here’s my advice – if you don’t have a good car air sprayer, these rattle cans (spray cans) from the company will do the job. Just be prepared to do extra wet sanding but not between the clear coats.
What is the ultimate gauge of success? My wife is really happy with the results.
3/2/24 Update: The paint is still holding up just fine. No bubbles, peeling or fading.
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A number of years back, Toyota decided to move from the old spin-on canister-type oil filters to the use of cartridges encloused in a housing. The cartridge is really just the filter element so that’s what get’s tossed, burned, recycled or whatever and the housing is re-used. The problem is that they made the cap of the housing out of some form of polymer and it can crack or chip over time.
In the case of my daughter’s 2013 RAV4 XLE, the polymer cap was chipped near the bottom (closest to the road) and was starting to crack. We bought it when it was returned to the dealer at the end of a lease so who knows who was doing the oil changes or how much they cared.
At any rate, it puzzles me why Toyota went with Polymer. Maybe they wanted to to be softer than the aluminum. Maybe it was cheaper …. not really sure. On one hand you could validly argue that the cap lasted almost 10 years. On the other … it’s polymer and can crack. After asking around, friends recommended I move to an aftermarket aluminum housing to avoid future problems.
RJSPHH figured out that by having the same cap and different filter tubes internally, they could cover quite a few Toyota oil filter caps for Avalons, Camrys, RAV4s, Tacomas and more – you actually need to go to their Amazon listings to see all of them. The Toyota oil cap part numbers this particular model can replace are:
I’d recommend you confirm the part number your vehicle uses by looking up the part number on the Toyota parts website or by using your favorite parts website. This way to can verify both by year and model as well as the OEM filter canister part number just to confirm. For example, I used the Toyota site and confirmed the housing or “cap assembly, oil filter” as they call it is part number 15620-36020. I could then confirm that number on the Amazon listing. That was good because they didn’t list the XLE trim level in the Amazon post. Sometimes those details matter and sometimes they don’t – in this case it didn’t.
How To Assemble It?
In the Amazon listing, they tell you which of the three lengths of tubes to use. You can also just set your original housing assembly next to the new RJSPHH unit and figure that out in a hurry too.
They do have a brief video and assembly in the video. I watched that and the only thing that threw me for a minute was the actor was holding an o-ring at one point when putting the base plate in that the spring sits in. I’m pretty sure that was a spare o-ring for the small cap that can be removed to drain the oil from the canister first if you want to. You don’t use it when installing the tube.
The cap is nicely wrapped and you can see the three tubs that come with it. All of the parts are well made and do not feel weak or cheap.
The drain plate on the left goes on the bottom with the flanged portion facing up to cup the spring in place. The tube of the correct length is then pushed down, rotated into position and released. The filter cap is then assembled.
When you push down the tube, rotate it so the tab goes between two holders on each side of the casting.
I like using Wix brand filters. Here is the 57047XP cartridge for the 2013 2.5L Rav4. It comes with new O-rings both for the the main canister of the cap as well as the small drain plug / drain cap on the end. Even though the Chinese cap came with new O-Rings, I saved them for later just in case and used the brand new O-Rings from Wix.
By the way, make sure the drain cap/plug is on. In case you didn’t know it, that cover with the 3/8″ socket square in it comes off and is used to drain the cap. It should have an O-ring behind it and that o-ring is something you replace when you change the oil. Make sure the O-ring is there and that plug is snugged down so the O-ring can seal.
If you don’t have one, get the correct oil filter wrench to engage the cap assembly correctly to remove it. This is a Motive 2320 that I have used for years and it works great. There are many other wrenches out there as well.
Summary
This is a solid part. It fit easily with no fitting required on my daughter’s RAV4 and we haven’t had any problems. If you are looking to replace a polymer unit on your Toyota vehicle and are considering this one, I have no hesitation recommending it.
Note, I have to buy all of my parts – nothing here was paid for by sponsors, etc. I do make a small amount if you click on an ad and buy something but that is it. You’re getting my real opinion on stuff.
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My wife and I ran into a first for us – she went to unlock our 2008 Toyota Highlander and it wouldn’t unlock with either remote. Yeah, I figured the battery was dead as we hadn’t run it for maybe two months due to the pandemic crap. We put it on storage and I really hadn’t thought about the battery … until the doors wouldn’t unlock.
How to get in the highlander with just the key fob?
Okay, I tried both key fobs and my wife was right – no sounds of any kind came from the Highlander. There was a key slot in the door so I figured Toyota must have had some kind of plan. We bought the car… truck… thing, used and never needed to get in manually until now.
I knew with other keyless cars that I had seen in the past there was a backup key that could flick out of the fob so I took a close look at the fob for the Highlander. There was a small rectangular button on the side with the image of a key on it.
I pushed on it and nothing happened. I then looked at the attachment where the key ring connected and noticed it looked really beefy. The button wasn’t the key, it was a rocker that unlocked the key to pull out.
There’s the release button right there. Push on the circular dot for that end of the release to push in.So push the dot in and pull from the end and the key slides right out of the end with your key ring.So there’s your skeleton backup key. Just reverse the operation to push it back in.
Not Home Free – Expect to Lubricate the Lock
Okay, I saw one key slot in the driver’s door and thought I was home free. Nope. Wouldn’t turn. Not only that, there were no other key slots because I thought I would simply try another one.
There’s the one manual key slot to the right of the handle. You do not want to break your little key off in there.
Okay folks, piece of advice here from past mistakes – don’t crank on the key or you will break it and then you are completely out of luck and will need to pay a ton to get help. I busted a key in college trying to do just that and had to enter from the passenger side and slide across for almost a year before I could afford to have the door fixed.
Push the red tube all the way to the back of the lock and start spraying as you pull it out. Why that way? I tend to find I make less of a mess. I am still standing their with a towel to wipe up the black goo as it runs out. I sprayed and tried the key three times. After the third spray and testing, the mechanism freely turned. This stuff works great for sticking door and ignition key cylinders by the way. I keep it in stock.
So, if the key will not turn, spray lubricant in the slot. You will get a ton of conflicting advice on the Internet. What I have always used is Lock-Ease. Put the little red tube on the nozzle and hose down the inside of the key slot starting as far back as you can. Try and turn the key. If it still will not turn then spray it again. What I have found is that most of the time things turn fee with the first try and almost always by the third. I think the solvent that is carrying the lubricating graphite helps free up what is sticking and then the graphite takes it from there.
Okay, so the door was open and now I could open the hood. The battery read 0 volts – empty and introduced a new hurdle.
Why Smart Chargers Aren’t Always
So this takes us to the topic of smart chargers. The designers built in all kinds of safe guards including the need for a voltage to be present before they start. I really like my NOCO Genius chargers and was using one of the G26000 models. Here’s what I tried:
Just attached the charger – it would not switch to charging
Went to boost mode – it would sense the lack of voltage and switch off
I tried turning on the 5A 12 volt supply mode and that was just enough to make the security system chirp and reset over and over … crap.
So much for the easiest ones. That meant I needed to try and trick the charger. I brought my 96 Landcruiser over and connected good old jumper cables to start charging the “dead” battery and also hooked up a digital meter. It showed the alternator was cranking out 14.09 volts and as soon as I disconnected the positive cable from the Landcruiser, the meter showed the volts dropping down through 13 volts down into the 12s and so forth over the space of a few seconds.
Now this is the trick, for about 5-7 seconds the “dead” battery would appear to have enough juice for me to connect and start the NOCO. So, I staged stuff and had the gear ready to go. I charged the battery for a minute or two, disconnected the positive jumper cable from the Landcruiser, safely moved it out if the way and quickly attached the NOCO charger and it started charging. I jumped the dead battery just enough for it to show a charge to the NOCO that then turned on and did the rest. By the way, I am not faulting the NOCO. They are great chargers and I own three of them right now.
I really like the NOCO G26000 charger and definitely recommend it and their other chargers. Here. the battery is past 50%. It just so happens my camera caught the flashing 75% light while it was illuminated.
After about 12 hours the battery was fully charged and I then set the NOCO to repair mode to desulfinate the plates. The battery appears to be okay and we’ll see what it looks like come this fall when the temperatures start cooling off — the colder it is the harder it is for batteries to work and the marginal ones fail.
Lessons Learned
First, I now know where the spare key is. Second, I plan to hook up my smaller NOCO G7200 charger and run the cable under the power out of the hood so I can periodically top the battery off. Modern vehicles have a ton of electronics in them so I am not overly surprised it ran out of juice.
I hope this post helps you out!
If you find this post useful, please share the link on Facebook, with your friends, etc. Your support is much appreciated and if you have any feedback, please email me at in**@ro*********.com. Please note that for links to other websites, I may be paid via an affiliate program such as Avantlink, Impact, Amazon and eBay.
I’m going to leverage my inner Forrest Gump – used cars are like a box of chocolates. You never know what you are going to get. In this case, it was our 2008 Toyota Highlander. I decided to check the air filter just in case and noticed both that the vacuum lines had cracked and that someone had done a “creative” fix on a 4mm vacuum port that had snapped off.
So this vaccum line was just resting in the hole. There’s some white glue – maybe silicone and som odd metal insert.
If there’s one thing I have learned with modern computerized cars – don’t mess with their sensors or vacuum lines. You can get odd random codes thrown, lose performance, fuel efficiency, etc. So, I knew this needed to be fixed. The big problem – the vacuum fitting was cast into the airbox!! By the way, the air box is the car part that holds the air filter in this case – the air filter housing is another way of thinking of the part.
Let me start by telling you the expensive and time consuming way – buy a replacement air box. Yeah, this is going to cost you a bundle. A OEM Toyota air box will run you $275-400, used is about $100-185 and aftermarket tends to be under $60-90 and maybe iffy quality. Then there is the labor to do the actual swap – it’s going to either take your time or you are going to pay a mechanic to do it and the cost is going to go up fast. There is an easier and faster way.
My Recommended Approach
The magic fraction for today is 5/32″. Why? Because 5/32″ is almost exactly 4mm. If we get a small brass, aluminum or stainless barbed 5/32″ hose fitting with a threaded rear, we can easily fix this. I live in a rural area and this isn’t something I can easily walk into a hardware store and find so I did some searching for NPT to 5/32″ hose barb and found both 1/16″ NPT and metric fittings plus some were brass, aluminum and mystery metal. I discounted anything plastic/nylon because I wanted a stronger fitting.
Another reason I went with 1/16″ NPT is that it can fill a pretty big hole all by itself up to about 0.31″ given the taper plus I could then use a 1/16″ to 1/8″ bushing adapter if I needed to go larger.
After much digging around using Google and Amazon, I opted for an Aeromotive #15630 hose fitting made from 6061-T6 aluminum that I did order off Amazon [click here for the Amazon listing]. There was a no-name generic brass one but no spec so I didn’t go with it. By the way, searching for fittings like this really shows the limitations of general search engines to find parts. I spent a ton of time filtering through tons and tons of search results that turned up the wrong products. What a headache.
Aeromotive 15630 fitting that has 1/16″ NPT thread on ne end and a 5/32″ hose barb on the other.
Installation
The first thing to point out is that the molded vacuum fitting is above the air cleaner so you can safely work on the box without removing it from the vehicle! Any debris from drilling or sanding will land on the filter and you can vacuum it out later. If you have a used car, peak inside and make sure the air cleaner is there and intact.
If you have just the old busted remains of the hose fitting to contend with then Dremel or sand the area flat. You want the installed barb to be able to sit flat against the wall of the box.
Next, pick a drill bit that is just the same size as the tapered bottom of the thread. NPT thread is tapered so the bottom has a smaller diameter than the top. If the air box was steel, we would use a letter “C” drill bit to make a 0.242″ hole. Notice how this is slightly smaller than 1/4″ but I am betting most people do not have lettered drill bit sets so you pick a close size and run with it. We do want the hole slightly smaller in order to thread it. Because this is plastic, we are going to push forward with the metal adapter fitting while turning and let the thread on the adapter cut the thread into the plastic. We aren’t going to bother tapping it first. That’s right – don’t buy a tap to do this uness you are a tool junky and perfectionist, which is fine if you are – I get accused of that a lot.
I’d recommend you start with a bit smaller than 1/4″ where the bit is slightly smaller than the bottom of the adapter, drill the hole and see if you can press it in. If not, go to a bigger bit. If you mess up and have a slightly too big hole, all is not lost – read the “Well crap” section below 🙂
Let’s say that everything goes great and you can screw the fitting into the plastic – Once threaded in, it’s done. Just screw it in and quit. Don’t put too much torque or you can strip it. That works just fine unless the previous guy bubba’d it, which takes us to the next part of the story.
Well crap….
In my case, I had a box of chocolates moment. The previous owner or a mechanic had drilled the hole out and installed some small metal bushing that was hidden due to the white silicone on it. I have no idea what it was from. Once I discovered and removed it, the hole in the air box turned out to be just a tad bigger than the entire 1/16″ tapered thread. Argh… not what I wanted to deal with.
Dear bubba, thank you for hiding this under the white silicone. You just made my fix a bit more complex but not impossible.
Okay, I wanted to get this job and had three options, go to the hardware store and try and find a 1/16 to 1/8″ bushing, install a 1/16″ NP threaded nut on the back to hold it in position, which I also did not have, or glue the hell out of it and call it even.
This is what I had on hand at the time and worked great. I could have used any quality black silicone RTV glue/gasket maker and gotten the same results. I tend to either have Permatex or LocTite brand products that I use the most.
First, I scuffed the surface around the hole with 100 grit sand paper so the glue could get a better grab on the surface. The second thing I did was to spray brake cleaner on the area to remove any trace oils that might prevent a good bond.
I was wearing nitrile gloves and also sprayed brake cleaner on the fitting to make sure it was clean. Gloves both keep your hands clean and also prevent you from getting oils from your skin on the parts — assuming the gloves are clean of course. Having a clean surface makes a HUGE difference in terms of how well any glue is going to stick.
Next, I applied a bead around the top of the NPT thread of the fitting and pushed it into the hole. Since I was wearing nitrile gloves, I just took a finger and smoothed the glue out a bit and let it cure for about an hour or so. You want it cured enough to hold the adapter in place – you don’t need it fully cured yet. With warmer weather it will cure faster and in cold weather it my take a long time and need a hot light or something to warm it up above 70F to get things done. Depending on what I am working on, I try to get somewhere between 60-110F. The warmer it is, the faster it will cure but don’t burn it or melt the plastic either!
This is the first pass. It’s not pretty but it will dry strong enough to hold the fitting in place while the second thicker coat is applied.
I then put a second layer of black gasket maker on and fanned it out to get a good grip and to securely hold the fitting. I then let this all cure overnight. I’ve learned long ago not to rush faster than what the adhesive’s manufacturer recommends or you are liable to ruin an otherwise good job.
Here is the second heavier coat this was meant to reinforce the part.
So, once it was fully cured I then needed to change the cracked vacuum lines which are what I noticed in the first place.
4mm Vacuum Lines
What got me started on all this in the first place was noticing that two 4mm vacuum lines were very cracked where they slid onto their respective hose barbs. This happens as rubber ages and gets brittle so finding them wasn’t surprising.
This is one of the ends that was badly split.
Fixing this is easy. You just need either real 4mm vacuum hose or 5/32 vacuum hose. You can either go with one formulated from rubber or more expensive silicone. The advantage to the latter is that it ought to last longer.
You can see the two pieces I replaced because the new silicone hose is shiny black and a thicker diameter.
Conclusion
Going this route saved us a ton hundreds of dollars and has held up just fine. I did this repair last fall and have not had a single problem. Yeah, the glue does make it a big of a bubba fix but it is revsersible and the fitting isn’t going to fall out. The black gasket maker has held the little barb in just fine and the hose is very supple and shows no wear at all. I hope this helps you out as well.
2/12/24 Update: My repair is still just fine. A reader pinged me that none of the Amazon links worked so I went through and updated them.
7/28/2023 Update: Everything is holding up just fine and we’ve put quite a few miles on the car since this was written in March of 2020.
4/9/2021 Update: Still holding just fine. Not one problem to report.
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Okay, while researching what to do with my 2008 Toyota Highlander’s flaky alarm, I ran across some good videos you can watch on how to diagnose the switch and even how to replace the microswitch. As for me, I wrote up how I bypassed the sensor by creating a loopback plug from the old sensor’s wire. My approach still allows the rest of the alarm system to work just fine and can be done in less than an hour with little to no cost. With that said, let’s take a look at these really well done videos that helped me think out my approach – especially the first one on diagnosing the switch.
Diagnosing the Switch
The following is the best video I found on diagnosing the problem and he even disassembles the latch to show you what is going on in detail – it’s very well done. This video helped me figure out my approach and kudos to Ozzstar for making it:
If You Want To Replace the Microswitch
This next video is really well done and is specific to the 2008 Highlander. He ordered the same Panasonic automotive grade micro switch that Toyota used: ABS1413409 from Digikey.
I hope this helps you out.
If you find this post useful, please share the link on Facebook, with your friends, etc. Your support is much appreciated and if you have any feedback, please email me at in**@ro*********.com. Please note that for links to other websites, I may be paid via an affiliate program such as Avantlink, Impact, Amazon and eBay.
We recently became the new owners of a 2008 Toyota Highlander. It was in great shape and I thought we got a pretty good deal on it. The previous owner disclosed to us that the hood alarm switch was flaky and the car alarm would go off randomly.
After we bought the Highlander and returned home I did some research that night. There is in integral microswitch in the hood latch assembly that detects if the hood is open or closed. The alarm system will not arm if it detects that the hood is open and it will sound an alarm if someone tries to open the hood. Uhm… ok. My first thought was “you can only open it from the inside lever that is protected by the door alarms so why have this one?”
Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on your perspective, the switch is a known problem. It’s also one of the rare times where I will say Toyota did a bad design. Putting a basic microswitch in the front of a car where it will get wet all the time and corrode, not to mention the impacts and grease/oil from the latch itself, is not really that good of an idea — at least not to me.
After reading and watching videos, it seemed like there were three options:
Replace the whole hood latch assembly that includes the sensor. Third party, these latch assemblies were about $56 on Amazon and $50-60 on eBay. Original Toyota would be higher, of course. Pro: It is pretty easy to remove the assembly and install this one. Con: It’s a relatively expensive and will fail sooner or later unless someone fixed the switch design and sealed it better.
Replace just the microswitch. You can get the unit real cheap from Digikey and other suppliers plus there are Youtube videos that show you what to do. The previous owner did this and it worked for about two years he said. Pro: Real cheap (under $10 including shipping). Cons: Takes time and will not last without figuring out some better way to seal the original design.
Simply bypass the switch. As mentioned earlier – you can’t open the hood from the outside so what are the odds that someone will successfully break into the car and then open the hood without setting off the alarm? The risk is real low – low enough for me to go with this option. Pro: Easiest of all and is a permanent solution. Con: The hood alarm sensor will no longer work. This is the one I went with.
I’d like to point out that just unplugging the sensor is not an option. Doing that will make the computer think the hood is open and the car alarm will not arm at all. This means you must pick one of the three options listed above. I opted for the last one – I bypassed the sensor by creating a loopback plug – a fancy term meaning I joined the input and output wires together thus making it look like the switch was always closed so the computer would think the hood was closed regardless of whether it was or not.
What I want to do next is walk you through what I did. If you are not comfortable with basic wiring, I’d recommend against your trying this just to be up front. Always ask yourself if you can reverse what you are about to do or can you recover if something goes wrong – if the answer is “no”, then don’t do it. For example, don’t cut wires off right next to a fitting – leave yourself some pigtails in case you need to reconnect them.
One last comment – these directions are just based on my 2008 Highlander. Different years and models may not be like this. Research your vehicle before doing anything like this.
Bypassing the Sensor
So, to bypass the sensor we just need to create a circuit that normally exists when the switch is closed. First, I needed to get a better look at the location of the wiring so the cover needed to come off.
The plastic cover between the grill and the frame needs to come off. It is held in place by Toyota push-type retaining clips and two 10mm screws. The screws are to the front on the left and right sides. Note that two of the clips on the right side are bigger than the others – this will help you with reassembly later.
I use a small flat screw driver to pop the middle part up. You then grab hold of that, lift up and the clip comes right out.
Just remove the clips and then the plastic cover simply lifts off. I found one more that anchors the grille in the middle of the grille vertically and I removed it. That gave me ample room to work and I did not need to remove the grille given what I planned to do.
I did not take as many photos as I should have so let me explain. With the plastic cover off and the middle anchor clip removed, I had plenty of access to the switch and wiring to see what to do. The wire assembly runs from the hood latch – and there is only one wire – do not pick the hood cable used to open the hood. The wire runs from a small switch in the latch assembly and then plugs into a connector shortly below it.
I inserted a small blade screw driver to release the plug from the socket. To be safe, make sure you confirm the wires that you plan to cut lead up to the sensor and are *not* the wires going to the harness / wiring loom.
Why care? Because if you cut the wires on the sensor side and connect them together, you can easily replace the hood latch assembly and go back to having a sensor if you want. However, if you cut the wiring loom, it’s gone. You can manually splice in but it simply is not an elegant approach.
Note I am saying wires and when you look at the plug it looks like just one black wire. What you are seeing is the insulation tube that is black. Inside are two thin green wires that run from the plug to the sensor switch.
I’ll not get awards for artwork but hopefully this will give you an idea. When I faced the front of my Highlander, the wiring from the sensor was on the right hand side. You need to confirm this just in case. It is the wire to the sensor switch wire that you want to cut and not the wiring from the harness. On my 2008 Highlander, the harness wiring was on the left.
Once I was certain which wire to cut, I reached in with some snips and cut the wire leaving a couple of inches to work with. DO NOT CUT THE WIRES FLUSH TO THE PLUG!! You need a short length of the wires to connect together to make the circuit loop back.
To make work easier, I took the short wire with the plug on it and worked at a bench where everything was handy, I stripped a bit off the end of each wire, twisted the bare wires together, soldered them, bent them over the small wire pigtail and then used heat shrink tubing and electrical tape to secure everything. Total overkill but I never wanted to bother with this again.
Here’s the finished result. The front of the car is to the left. Part of the hood latch spring is to the upper right and we are looking down at the newly made loopback plug. As far as the alarm system is concerned, the hood is closed. The red color is the heat shrink tube I had on hand. I folded the heat shrink tubing over at the end and then applied electrical tape to seal it.
I installed the newly created loopback plug back into the socket. I then tested the system by turning the alarm on with the key fob, putting the key fob out of signal range in the garage and waited for the system arm. Once the alarm indicator light went solid on the dash, I simply reached in through the open window and tried to open the door from the inside and the alarm went off. Yeah, I had to run back to that fob to shut it off 🙂
If the system thought the hood was open, it would never have armed by the way. That’s why you can’t just unplug the switch. I then reinstalled the plastic cover by installing the clips and then pushing the middle piece down to lock it in place. By the way, remember that the right two clips are bigger than the others. The two 10mm screws went back in with a dab of non-seize on each just in case they ever need to come out again.
That was it – the alarm is happily armed and protecting the Highlander as I write this and not one single false alarm since. I hope this helps you out.
5/23/2020 Update: This has worked great for me. Not one single problem since.
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Have you ever noticed that things go bad at the worst time? In my case it was during heavy snow. I was plowing wet snow out of the way and had a few hours to beat when the temperatures would drop and turn the melting snow into a block of ice.
My plow truck is a 1996 Toyota Landcruiser that has a rear mounted plow made by a long gone firm named “Super Plow”. It works pretty good when snow stays under 18″ so I plow a few times during a storm to keep it knocked down.
I was plowing, put the truck in park and got out to see what I needed to touch up. I got back in and it would not shift out of Park. I could tell that the shift lock button was not going in as far as it should. First, I tried turning the steering wheel left and right – no luck. The lock would not release. I then put the truck’s transfer case in Neutral and rocked it some – nothing. I dropped the blade to make sure there weren’t any stresses – nothing. Well, that meant the selector solenoid wasn’t moving out of the way. Argh!! Of course I was stuck right in the middle of the driveway.
I called my buddy John Freehling up who is a real mechanic and will forget more about cars than I will ever learn. He told me that there ought to be an emergency release somewhere near the lever and to do a quick search on the Internet to find out just where, which I did.
You get access to the emergency release by using a blade screw driver, knife or something, to pry the little rectangular lid that is located to the upper left of the shift console. You then can insert a screw driver to gently push down and release the shift lever. Bingo! Problem solved. I then got the truck back to my garage and went in and read on the computer instead of my little phone screen.
The access plate is at the upper edge of the console. You can see the small plate sitting in the boot of the transfer case lever. You need to reach in and press the release each time you want to take the lever out of park.
The Work Around
Now, it is literally subzero weather right now and I’ll work on permanently solving the weather this weekend when it warms up. Until then, I found a great solution on the web – cut a carpenter’s pencil off so it sticks up slightly – just the body – you don’t need it to be pointed. I put my pencil in and gave myself about an inch protruding and cut it off in my bandsaw.
Getting out of park takes two hands – I push down on the stubby pencil with my left hand, push in the lock button like normal and pull the lever down with my right. Again, you just need it to move the shift lever out of park – not all the time. It works just fine. I was able to finish plowing my hose and my mother-in-law’s no problem.
What might the problem be?
Troubleshooting and fixing this one ought to be pretty straight forward when it is warmer. Here’s what I am going to try in order:
Push down on the brake pedal. If the lights turn on, then the brake pedal switch is good. If they don’t then the problem is most likely the brake pedal switch. I read an interesting post where the guy said unscrewing and removing the brake pedal assembly makes it very straight forward.
If the brake lights come on, make sure they all come on. If not, one blown bulb could potentially cause the problem.
Related to #2 – Check brake light fuse and replace if blown.
If the light all come on, check for power at the solenoid because odds are the solenoid failed.
So, we’ll see what the final fix is but I hope this helps anyone stuck and unable to get the shift lever lock switch to depress and let them shift out of park.
2/3/19 Update: It blew the fuse — As you see, the truck’s plow is on the rear. I smashed the trailer light hookup assembly pretty good and it must have shorted somewhere. This summer I’ll use a hole saw and cut the rear bumper to install a trailer electrical assembly that is better protected vs. under the bumper. So, the truck’s brake lights and shifter are working again.
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We are a Toyota family and most of our cars were bought either used or very used from private parties. At any rate, a few years ago I bought a 2002 Toyota Camry XLE with a 4-Cylinder engine. The other day my older daughter said it was making a funny noise in reverse so I checked the dipstick. Wow. Not only was it low but the ATF looked awful. For comparison, the below photo with the brownish ATF on the white paper towel is on the left and brand new ATF is on the right. Wow!! (Yeah, I wrote wow twice because I was stunned.
So I told my daughter to ride with her sister in our old 92 Corolla and that I needed to work on their car. First thing I did was to look at the fluid a couple of times – it was brownish but not black, no metal flakes and no bad smell.
In reading the manual, Toyota wrote that the transmission fluid should be good for the life of the car … right. I guess it depends on how you view that, or at least how they view it. I’m sure I checked the fluid when we got the car and it wasn’t this color but I’m not in a habit of checking it regularly unless I see drips or a puddle under a car or truck.
This car had almost 195,000 miles on it and we put about 50,000 of those miles on it. I figured a change was past due. So, before I did anything, I decided to do some reading first.
Picking Valvoline Max Life ATF
I knew there were a ton of different automatic transmission fluids (ATF) out there and that getting the right one was key. The transmission was designed to use Toyota ATF T-IV and there are different brands that claim to meet the spec. The problem is that the wrong one can cause headaches. One particular formulation kept coming up as I read about what others used – Valvoline Max Life ATF:
Note in the next photo you can see that Valvoline says this can replace Toyota T-IV as well – it’s not just guys on the Internet. By the way, if you feel uncomfortable with what I am saying, definitely do your own research and you’ll see tons of favorable posts about using this fluid.
Okay, so I bought two gallons of the above. The automatic transmission in the car uses about 4.1 quarts. I used a 10mm allen bit in my Onyx 3/8″ impact wrench and drained everything I could from the pan. I then put the plug back in and added two quarts of fresh Max Life and let it run for about 30 seconds and shifted through the gears (I was up on 6 ton jack stands with rubber wheel chocks and the parking brake on).
I then removed the plug again and drained the fluid. I then removed the return line, started the car for maybe 30 seconds if that – I turned it off when nothing else was coming out. I then buttoned it all back up.
In theory the transmission was empty. I’ve had issues in the past where I assumed that was the case but it was not so I didn’t want to assume anything. I added two quarts and moved it to a perfectly flat spot on my driveway. I could just barely see a hint of ATF on the tip. I added a bit more to get it short of the cold empty mark.
I don’t trust the cold measure on the dipstick. With an automatic transmission it must be up to its operating temperature to get a good reading in the hot zone (the bottom mark is for cold is a ballpark – get it hot and then test as you absolutely do not want to overfill an automatic transmission). As it gets hot the fluid expands hence my wanting to know at temperature where I was at.
How to Check the Automatic Transmission Fluid Level
Now, to check the ATF level, Toyota does not tell you in the operator’s manual and I frown on that. With the car flat, let it idle (or drive it 10 miles if you have fluid in it – I had an unknown level so I didn’t want to get on the road) and let the engine and transmission come up to operating temperature (158-176F). Then, with your foot on the brake, shift the gear selector from park through all the gears, stopping at each one and then back up. With the car idling and the transmission in park, check the dipstick.
To make sure the engine and tranny were hot enough, I used my BAFX plug in OBD II probe that connects to the Torque app on my Android phone via Bluetooth.
I kept adding smaller and smaller amounts of ATF and moved the selector lever per the above before I would test the level again. I got it close to full in the hot range and then stopped. As mentioned, I did not want to go past full. By the way, when you are reading a dipstick with during filling, you must wipe it off each time to get a good reading and you may find that you get a better view of the fluid level on one side or the other of the dipstick.
In case you are wondering, I did not do the transmission filter. It would have taken a ton of time and I figured I would start with the fluid and see what happened.
The end result – it shifts beautifully. I could not be happier — even my wife thinks it shifts smoother and feels better. To wrap this up, I wrote this post in case one of you has questions about what transmission fluid is a good substitute for Toyota Type T-IV, and also how to properly check the automatic transmission fluid level.
6/1/2019 Update – Still no problems. Our 1992 Corolla sprung a leak in the transmission fluid cooling line so I had to both install some fuel like to patch the corroded line plus I had to refill the transmission fluid. That was about 2-300 miles ago and that is working fine too. Bottom line, I do think this fluid performs just fine in place of Toyota Type T-IV fluid.
9/10/2018 Update – The Camry XLE has been on a number of 200-400 mile highway road trips at highway speeds and shows no signs of shifting problems. The family agrees the car shifts smoother. I have now replaced the ATF in our 2004 Solara SLE and 1994 Corolla with Max Life ATF also and all are running well. The Solara has close to a 1,000 miles on it now. I’m very pleased with Max Life and will continue using it in my Toyotas. By the way, I now use an EWK Fluid Evacuator for getting the ATF exactly where I want it. Here’s the post about that tool.
2/23/2020 Update – No problems at all with any of the vehicles we’ve used Max Life ATF in. This includes a 2008 Toyota Highlander.
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