Gamith

So far we have 'It's a little matcha candy' and 'the small characters to the left say 'Uses natural salt from Inner Mongolia' and the small text to the right say 'Hand kneading' which is probably hand made. The top middle character translates to 'Shiohara' which seems to mean 'Salt'. The lower character might be 84%? So a salty jelly chew maybe?' it seems they like salty sweets.

I was taking some pics of the driver side fuse board and something rustled behind the hinge of the storage bin, which I had taken out for ease of access - on investigation I found what I assume is a Japanese jelly sweet of some sort. So sometime between build (2005) and import (2018) someone lost a sweet and it's eventually been found. What is a little surprising is that it in all it's journeys it hadn't fallen out, as there wasn't a lot to hold it in place. I have no intention of opening it up of course but it would be interesting if someone recognised the sweet (I think I have it up the correct way). Paul

I suspect your toolkit will expand somewhat with Alphard ownership 🙂 - one of the items I have found really useful is a set of trim removers - small plastic levers that you use to remove trim, very useful for saving wear and tear on paint and the like. As for your supposed ignorance, don't worry about it, we are all in the same boat to one degree or another.

It's hard to tell from the picture with the red cable but I assume it would go into the block you are holding - is it 'live' all the time, when the key gets turned or never? A picture of the end of the block to show the connection layout may help.

There are, of course, other considerations, the newer ones don't look to have rotatable middle seats, and fewer of them - depending on model, but they have more toys. Newer vehicles will _tend_ to be in better condition and have fewer miles (KMs) on them. Newer ones are likely to have easier access to spares etc. but that is rather subjective in any case. But it's all dependant on your personal views.

And you could also do a search for breakers, though my sole experience was someone who wanted to charge the same price for a second hand bit as a new part from Japan.

I got a big box of various fixings from ebay - though I suspect aliexpress, temu, etc. will all do the same. They are especially good for ones that you will struggle to find a particular name for.

Hopefully someone will be along who can help with real knowledge 🙂

I had a quick look on Aliexpress and found some for UKP 33.29. (https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005007412234497.html?spm=a2g0o.productlist.main.53.2c180Dzy0DzyTz&algo_pvid=a0cb904f-373c-477a-9a4d-e3b932bade79&algo_exp_id=a0cb904f-373c-477a-9a4d-e3b932bade79-26&pdp_ext_f={"order"%3A"2"%2C"eval"%3A"1"}&pdp_npi=4%40dis!GBP!75.66!33.29!!!673.13!296.17!%40!12000040652898708!sea!UK!6132551462!X&curPageLogUid=EdtADpcqAOm5&utparam-url=scene%3Asearch|query_from%3A) you will want to check year and fit etc - this would be for my 05/2005 model. Downside is that they would take some time to arrive.

I would step through everything to make sue it works just to check fuses if nothing else. To my mind it sounds like a dodgy earth strap or similar but hopefully it won't reappear.

I took mine to a local locksmith (ARC in Stevenage) and they scanned my existing key to determine the frequency it used. Then I looked on ebay for fobs and key blanks that matched that frequency and buttons. There was a fair bit of faff around getting the keys programmed but the cutting went well. They needed a sort of OBD patch panel for their fob programmer to get it's expected 12v from the vehicle. But they have done it once now so when they get another 2005 Alphard it should be easier for the next person.

Yep - same light clusters as my facelifted one, though you seem to be missing the dual cameras in the front grill (not that they are of any use 🙂 and the rear wiper.

The deal with the steering wheel buttons is the small white connector that sends data / power / magic to the cruise control stalk. I'm sure someone can elucidate but asfaik it's needed.

Mine is a face-lift model and its May 2005, so yours should be a face-lift version also. One tell for the face-lift version is whether there is a second kerb-side mirror on the mirror to help with parking. there are some examples on wikipedia here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Alphard. I have successfully fitted cruise-control to mine - very straight-forward once you have taken the cover off the steering wheel, though I did get caught out by the colour of my stalk surround, I didn't realise that the first one I bought was black, rather than a grey colour. Surround - 45186-58020 Steering wheel button - 1870633-30 and a search for 'CRUISE CONTROL STALK SWICTH FIT FOR TOYOTA YARIS RAV4 LANDCRUISER PRIUS AURIS' (ebay item:184954212553) found me the stalk.

I just checked mine (a facelift 2005) and there was no illumination of the gear selector. I know there is a green LED under there so I started to pull on the housing so see what i could see and it then worked - sigh.