drahpla

Hi,

See the attached, but note the following:

The diagram showing the OBD connector is upside down, showing pins 8 and 4 on the opposite side of the connector to what they actually are in real life.

The engine must be running. The light stalk must in the high beam on position (i.e. the pushed forward position).

Despite the instructions being (seemingly) perfectly clear, I could not get the ECU reset process to work. I was at my parents' this weekend gone, and, being as they are one of the few places I visit that has a perfectly level and flat parking area, I thought I'd give it another go.  With the engine running, and the light stalk in the high beam position, the initialisation process worked. So, either those elements are required, or I did something wrong in my previous attempts. Either way, I hope this is useful to someone at some point.

I use my 3.5 as a daily driver. I get better economy than my old 2.0 litre Lexus used to give! It fits under height barriers and in normal car parking spaces, but it's got a terrible turning circle. Engine and gearbox are sublime and it's very comfortable. It's a very relaxing vehicle to be in.

Yes, very interested.

My AFS is working properly - I can see the lights moving around when I manoeuvre at low speeds, and the check light comes on and goes off again when I start the car. However, since changing out the coilovers the car came with for a set of stock suspension the car sits much higher and I am being flashed multiple times on every night drive.

Trying to follow the AFS reset procedure kindly supplied by @Chris.ac just doesn't work. I even bought a blank OBD plug and hard soldered pins 4 and 8 together to make sure the connection was made, but still nothing. The AFS light does not blink and the light position remains stubbornly high. Has anyone else carried out this procedure? Did it work? Did you have the engine running, or do anything else not mentioned in the instructions?

Is there anyone that fancies trying to do it anyway just to see if the procedure works?

Any help gratefully received!

Are they not in Japanese?

I believe the head unit and DSP are still highly valued in Japan, but I don't speak Japanese and am not sure anyone in Japan would by second hand electrical goods shipped by a foreigner that doesn't speak Japanese. However if anyone knows a route to market then I'd be interested in hearing about it.

Any idea which colour wire it is? From browsing forums related to other Toyota models it seems like it might be the brown one. I could experiment but it would be easier if someone knew 🙂

The new Android head unit I've got has got 2 CAN bus inputs. Since every manufacturer has their own protocols, I'll need a Toyota Alphard specific decoder. Has anyone ever purchased one? If so, where from etc.

Yeah. Every speaker is some kind of gold-plated connectored, heavy magnet behemoth, with custom enclosures grafted into the doors, dash and boot.

That's a more polite version of what I said when I realised what I'd started!  It's great to see that march of progress though - in the last ten years, stuff like in car TV, video and music playback, sat nav, speed camera detection and so on, has gone from requiring all that gubbins to just a phone and a head unit.

Forgot to mention - the install included the fabrication of a false floor for the passenger footwell with a plexiglass window  lookinginto an LED backlit 'box' to allow you to see some of the components in action. Also a custom-made centre console to hide 3 amplifiers and some large caps, and an auxiliary battery, 3 miniature monitors and a normal monitor (there were 6 screens in all, dotted around the car). Somebody loved their hifi. A pity that I don't own any CDs or DVDs or I might have left it alone. 

So far I've removed nearly 40kg (!) of aftermarket boxes and wiring. There's still a load left. The original owner must have spent a fortune getting it installed, and doing so would have required removing the entire interior of the van. Nuts.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/stores/UMIWE//page/DC04C8E4-F799-49AB-A4EF-D372CB9507A9

It's this, the 9 inch version. Although it seems to be no longer available, which is odd, as I only bought it a week or so ago. There are many similar-looking models from other no-name manufacturers which appear to share the exact same screen but do not have anywhere the same connectivity options at the rear, so presumably the guts are different.

I do actually have a front camera, but it was part of an extensive aftermarket Japanese audio system, which I've removed. I've yet to either a; find the camera wire, b; install the new head unit I've bought, or c; figure out how I might make the front camera work with the headunit once I do install it. On the old system it had a switch that could bring the front camer in at any time.

Having only front corner parking sensors and relying on that bizarre little mirror thingy to see if you're going to hit something at the front seems, well, a bit silly!  Is it possible to get proper sensor coverage at the front by buying 2 more sensors, mounting them either side of the number plate, and wiring them in parallel with the others?

They adjust from ridiculously low up to slightly above standard ride height. Set to standard height they are more firmly damped than the stock suspension but it's not crazy stiff and there's much better body control. Set low they are ridiculously jiggly (intolerable in my view, but then I'm old), presumably because there's little to no stroke left in the damper.  I swapped them out for stock suspension and kind of wish I'd kept them on but at standard ride height. However I've had the car rust proofed at Before n After now, which included the new suspension, so I don't want to swap them back and disturb the rustproofing coating. And I also don't want to pay the garage to undo the work I just paid them to do!  £100 for the set.  I'm in the east midlands near junction 20 of the M1.

Yes, it's a GGH20. 

My car came with a custom audio install, including a bizarre custom-made binnacle. I want to fit a regular double-DIN headunit. I was about to order the original binnacle from Amayama and then look for a double-DIN adaper, but then I found this, in UK stock, and cheaper:

Toyota Alphard 2008-2014 double din car radio facia with fixed pocket - InCarTec

Toyota double DIN radio fascia adapter panel, side fixing brackets - InCarTec

I just wondered if anyone had purchased this already and had an opinion on the quality vis a vis the OE piece? Or if anyone has an alternative option?

Cheers.

The closer I look at my car, the more sure that I am that it never passed a genuine MOT!

Cheers. Great find. He made that look nice and easy. I'll go out and take a look shortly One problem is that the ashtray thing that he opens before pulling off the trim is missing on my car - replaced by a built in radar detector.

Cheers. I'll take a look.

I need to get the stereo out for replacement with something UK suitable. It's a custom install with a fabricated centre console, so I will need to remove most of the dash in order to get it out. Does anyone have any idea where to even start (i.e. the silver trim, somewhere underneath etc.) Cheers!

Many thanks. I'll check for LED low beams, but I'm reasonably sure they are stock, as the light from the low beam is yellowish, whereas the light from the sidelights is white. It's possibly the side lights that are the major issue, as they light up roadside objects to about the height of the roof of the van.  BTW, where did you get a technical manual for the GGH20 in English?

Many thanks. I'm very grateful. Does the recalibrated setting match the beam heights required to pass a UK MOT? If there's no manual adjustment then I'm kind of stuck, and I'm not at all convinced that the importer I bought the car from actually put through an MOT (I think he had a 'friendly' tester just issue him a certificate).