Show and Tell / Installation Tips: Bought an AliExpress Instrument Cluster [2003 LX470]

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Joined
Sep 20, 2022
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Location
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My instrument cluster was starting to fail and I was contemplating having it repaired by Tanin Auto or buying it new. I struggled to find any new ones for less than $1200 and TaninAuto wanted about $800 for the refurbishment.

I found this (https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256...t_main.16.75a818029S31Zz&gatewayAdapt=glo2usa) after checking every 6 months and this one finally showed up. I YOLOd it and bought one. It took a couple of weeks and finally arrived.

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Installation was very simple and basically doing what you do to remove the original but in reverse. Two caveats. The controller for mine had no port and through back and forth on whatsapp, the engineer for their company helped me find the right wires to connect.

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I spliced them up and connected both the USB port and control to the back of the head unit. I routed them out of the slot where the factory locker comes out of left of the steering wheel.

Sorry for the bad pic here but here's what it looks like. Plug and play.
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The screen booted up and looks gorgeous. Everything seems to work fine except for the VGRS light always being on and the coolant temperature gauge not working. I have some back and forth with their engineers and they create a patch file to address it. I can't attach the file but I do have it if someone needs it. The patch file resolves everything including the gear indicator

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Continued. Here's the tape picture.

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The cluster boots up and I think it looks amazing. I took these at night be warned.

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I took a video if anyone wants it. The oil light is actually the light that comes on when you need to change your oil.

Some notes: To access the factory settings menu, the code for me was 0169 and I used this to change it from kilometers to miles per hour. I'm going to see if I can set the mileage tomorrow.

I love this thing and am very happy with it. Ask me anything.
 
wow. that is a really interesting option. I have the same issue with my 2004 cluster, and havent wanted to spend $800 to get my fuel gauge working again.
Let me know if you have any questions but I feel like it was worth it and I think it looks great. It isn't a perfect device but it's good enough for me
 
Thanks for sharing the post. At least i know someone actually did it and it works. Were you Ever able to enter your actual mileage for the odometer?
 
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that sounds scary haha! hmmmm
Yeah, how I see it is that any Joe schmo can have the mileage on their cluster adjusted for $100 so it's really just not that big of a deal these days. It sucks but I guess there's no foolproof way unless you have a brand new car which I think is a lot harder to fake out
 
The LED backlights on my cluster are failing, I plan on soldering in new LEDs but if I stuff it up this will be a good alternative!
 
Not sure want a cluster that has to "boot". Better than nothing I guess.

Our OEM clusters also " boot". You can tell because when you turn off the car the gauges go to zero but in an analog system things like gas and temp would remain where they should be.
 
Our OEM clusters also " boot". You can tell because when you turn off the car the gauges go to zero but in an analog system things like gas and temp would remain where they should be.
Not really. They run a fixed practically unchangeable program. They don't have a general purpose os. From the looks of it this is an android phone. I suppose pedantically you are correct but the number of things that can go wrong are many orders of magnitude higher and the components are more fragile as well as easier to subvert.
 
The link in the first post didn't work but I ran into this interesting cluster with map display capability.

 
The link in the first post didn't work but I ran into this interesting cluster with map display capability.


Here's a new link. Someone asked me about it a while back but I forgot to update the post
 
The link in the first post didn't work but I ran into this interesting cluster with map display capability.

That actually looks pretty cool
 
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