I know TYCs are old news to a lot of you guys, but they are new to me. I bought these tails on ebay and rewired them to work in my 06. Just wanted to post some pics for anyone looking for a cheaper alternative to the JDM tails available for the 06 xA. I used the "How to Tint Your Tails with VHT Niteshades" thread for tinting tips and it helped out a lot. Let me know what you think! .

Too red



Too chromey



Just right!




Anyone want some 06 OEM tails? They are missing the wiring harnesses since I had to use them on the TYCs, but otherwise they are in excellent condition.

 

how much for the 06 tails? I am trying to practice new pint techniques and need an extra set to try some candy paints on.

 

pm'd ya

 

um it's impossible to tell how this looks with the size of your photos. You also have allot of red still in the TYCs making it a tad easier to smoke than mine are.

mine came out REALLY dark Do you have a link to the "How to Tint Your Tails with VHT Niteshades"?

 

sorry bout that, updated the pics in the original post. here is the link I mentioned (from the tC forums) https://www.scionlife.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=115733

I wasn't trying to go very dark at all, as I still wanted to be able to see inside the housing. I was just going for a lightly smoked look to make them match my car/wheels better. About 4 *light* mistings with niteshades and 2 layers of clearcoat. I might go a tad darker in the future maybe, what do you guys think?

 

If I could use foul language here I would I really wish I knew about this before I smoked mine. I would absolutely tried to do them the way you did, just a tad darker.

Think I might need to start over....

 

What did you use to tint?

 

Spray from Japan, easy to get off. I have the Toyota JDM tails.

 

what was involved in rewiring for the 06 model? Looks good btw

 

switching two certain wires and rewiring them. basically the TYC 06 lights is missing a ground wire slot (who made it is retarded). So you gotta create your own wire by doing the following. very easy to to, just gotta know what colors you are cutting and connecting.

 

i cut the wiring harnesses off the 06 tails, leaving plenty of extra wire attached to the harness. Then I cut the harnesses off the TYCs, leaving almost no extra cable on the harnesses so the wires still attached to the headlights had plenty of plenty of length to work with. Then I determined which wires went to which bulbs (brake, signal, reverse) on both sets of lights to make sure I would connect the proper wires from the stock harness to the TYCs (they don't share common wire colors so you have to match them up yourself). After that, I just stripped the wire ends and made the necessary connections with some crimp-down wire connectors. I'm not sure what nguyenerrs means by "missing a ground wire slot". I'm no electrical expert, but the only thing I can think of is that when you compare the wiring harnesses between the 06 OEM tails and the TYCs, the slots the wires go into don't match up between the two harnesses (which is why you can't just use the TYCs harnesses to connect to 06). One harness will have a particular slot used by a wire, while the other harness will have that slot open with nothing connected to it, or one slot on one harness will go to a certain bulb, while the same slot on the other harness will go to a different bulb. There is still an equal number of wires used by both sets of tails. The only common color connection between the two sets is the black wire, the rest of the connections are between two different colors. You just need to take a few minutes to make sure the right wires coming from vehicle correspond to the right wires on the TYC harness.

 

interesting. I did not need to do any wiring at all. Why would there need to be wiring done?

Even if it's for an 05- I mean it's just a bulb right? well obviously not but still confused.

 

you got the JDM tails that were made for the 06 xA. the TYCs were designed for the 04-05 xA. The tail light wiring is different between the 04/05 and the 06.

 

what wiring though. It's not just Bulb's. why the wiring?

 

think of it like this: on an 04/05 xa tail light wiring harness, lets say "slots" 1 and 2 are responsible for one of the bulbs, lets say the turn signal. the corresponding slots 1 and 2 on an 06 xa tail light harness don't necessarily correspond to the turn signal, but rather to the brake light or reverse light, or one wire might go to the turn signal, and the other might go to the brake light. see what I mean? I cant remember the specific wires that are swapped right now, but heres an example.

04/05 tails
Vehicle wire - Tail light wire
Slot1 Green - Slot1 Green
Slot2 Red - Slot2 Red
Slot3 Black - Slot3 Black

06 tails
Vehcile wire - Tail light wire
Slot1 Black - Slot1 Black
Slot2 Green - Slot2 Green
Slot3 Red - Slot3 Red

06 with 04/05 tails
Slot1 needs to connect to Slot3 on the tail
Slot2 needs to connect to Slot1 on the tail
Slot3 needs to connect to Slot2 on the tail

(again, this is just an example, not the actuall wiring I did, but illustrates the point)

if you just straight swapped the tails between an 04/05 and 06, even though you might be able to physcially connect the tail harness to the vehicle harness, it wouldn't work properly because power is not being routed to the proper bulbs. i dont actually know what would happen, but either none of your bulbs will work, or one or two of them wont work and the one that is working won't be doing what it is supposed to be doing.

 

yeah I must be missing something here though. Heh, to me the tails have nothing to to with wiring. you just take out the bulbs and put them back.

I am thinking maybe there is actually a diff. bulb config. with the 05 and under. why this is an issue.

 

ya, i tried that idea too. the twist lock part of the bulb bases are also slightly different between the 04/05 and the 06. If you use just pull the stock bulbs out without disconnecting the wiring harness and try to put them in the different tail light, you either wont be able to twist lock the bulb in place or even if you can twist lock the bulb in place, there are gaps in the seal that it makes, which will let moisture into the bulb area. im pretty sure all the xAs use the same bulb types, but the twist lock parts of the bases are just different between the 04/05 and the 06. if by bulb config, you mean the placement, then yea, they are different too. on the 06 the turn signal is the top most bulb, but in the 04/05, the brake light is the top most bulb. maybe thats why they have a different wiring config too, who knows? you aren't missing anything, because normally I guess you wouldn't have to deal with any wiring, just plug and play. but no plug and play between 04/05 and 06. its like buying an aftermarket head unit and also needing to buy a wiring harness to properly connect it to your vehicle, only in this case you have to provide your own harness and manually splice the connections.

 

your close enough to me, that if I attempt to try this, maybe you could give the assist

 

ya, just pm me if you wanna do this and need help. im kinda long-winded so maybe ive made it sound more complicated than it really is. its not hard, you just need to be aware of which wires go to what bulbs and the rest is basic wiring.

 

Grant, what did you use to tint them? Was it a film or a spray? I like the shade that yours came out at. Not too dark, yet not too light.
I'm about to get some of these on fl3bay for pretty cheap ($49 + $9.95 shipping assuming no one else bids), but i think the chrome look will have too much pop against my Phantom grey paint.