Modern take on Car Alarm LED Placement
Who the hell wants to steal a Scion tC? Regardless, in this article I’ll show you how I retrofitted aftermarket LEDs in the door cards by tapping into OEM Scion Security car alarm that came on my 2006 Scion TC. This is a nice “OEM style” touch to the Scion. It looks great at night acting as a theft deterrent. There are tons of cars on the market with this feature already. Let’s add it to the Scion TC.
Piggy back wires to the OEM Scion Security car alarm
There’s no magic here, I’m just tapping into the LED on the stock alarm. For reference, I have this alarm. I don’t have the dealer installed option alarm that includes a valet switch at the kick panel. AFAIK that’s a different alarm, but you can do the same thing with that.
For reference, here’s my car alarm module p/n 08190-04810
Which LEDs did I use?
You can use any small or mini 3V LED setup with a housing. Get the dimensions of the housing, that’s the size hole you are drilling.
Here’s the 1/4″ ones I used: Megatronix LEDW 3Volt Dash Mount Steady Red Car Alarm Security
Here’s how I ran the wires
Figure out where you want to drill the hole. Avoid being too close to the edge you need some room for the wires on the underside, so that they don’t hit anything on the door frame when the door card is put back on. Drill a hole in the door card, pop the LED assembly in, and secure the back side with hot glue.
The LEDS will come with maybe 6-8″ of lead wire you’ll have to extend it.
Inside the door card, I ran the LED leads to a 2-wire quick disconnect harness so that I can unplug the LEDs in case I need to service anything inside the door (speakers, switches, window, etc)
Fish the wires through the door panel with a coat hanger
Route the passenger side LED
For the passenger side LED – find a path from that door panel, over the glovebox (avoid the airbag area under the glovebox), across your center console, above the steering column and over to the Scion alarm LED panel.
It’s a tight space and these aren’t my favorite connections but I have wire taps into the main Scion LED
Links to soldering tools and accessories
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Adjustable heat soldering tool kit complete with extra tips, solder, flux, etc. You can use this for the DIY Cluster LED swap too, very handy to have
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Butt connectors that melt solder to the connections, I really like these
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Heat gun with melting shield, great for melting the butt connectors above. You can get in tight spots without heating up neighboring parts
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Tube shrink wrap, I use this stuff all the time to cover up raw wire soldering and to water proof butt connectors
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Mini fuse taps, these come in handy if you want to piggy back off existing HOT or switched AC power from the fuse box near the driver kick panel
