Toyota Matrix DIYs

I did this mod today with the LED installed. Everything works great! Now whenever I back up, instead of getting the BEEP BEEP, this nice little LED lights up on my dash.

First I removed the shroud that that the chrome piece is connected too on the instrument cluster. It just pulls straight out.

I then removed the phillips screw at the top of the instrument cluster. After tilting it back, I used a slotted driver to press on the 2 clips on the bottom of the cluster and unsnapped them. I unclipped the wiring harness and removed the cluster from the dash. It’s a little tricky so be careful not to scratch the clear plastic cluster cover on anything!

Here’s the wire I clipped on the cluster harness. It’s the 5th from the left (with clip facing you) and it’s red with a black stripe.

I soldered and shrink tubed the (+) wire from my LED to the clipped wire that used to connect to the harness. I shrink tubed the exposed clipped wire coming from the harness to prevent shorting. I then grounded the (-) end of my LED to the screw holding the dash panel in.

I installed the LED in the “blank” button below the recirculate button on the A/C panel. Here’s a side view:

If you decide to install an LED there, you’ll have to pull the shroud off the stereo, A/C panel. It’s clipped on like the cluster panel trim. First pull the bottom clips out, then tilt it upward and rock the top clips out from the dash. To access the back of the blank button, you’ll need to unclip the harness holding the thick black cable in. *There’s a coil spring inside that may pop out when you unclip it. Once you get that unclipped, be careful of a lever spring that may drop off the recirculate switch. This happened to me and it took me about 15 minutes to figure out where it went so here’s a pic of the spring underneath the recirculate button:

After installing the LED, I zip tied the wires down to prevent rattling, then snapped everything back together. The hardest part was getting the instrument cluster behind the wheel and back into the dash.

This whole mod took about an hour, but could take only 15mins if you don’t want to install an LED. Just clip and insulate the red/black wire.