My DCM disconnection odyssey.

engineer90 · Jul 8, 2025 at 12:33 PM

madmax20 said: ↑

Good day gentlemen,

I am pleased to report a successful installation of the DCM Bypass Harness made by autoharnesshouse.com.
Below is a description of what I did to install the harness and completely shut down and bypass my DCM.
I am not a technician and don't claim to be so I am not calling it an instructional. Do the same at your own risk.
I found it to be very easy and I was flying blind. The installation took me about an hour, but I'm sure a more competent person could have it done in in 15 minutes. I'm just an office working pencil pusher.
Here is what I did:

Note: that the numbers of the actions I took do correspond to the numbered pictures provided.

Remove the negative terminal from the battery. (even a miniscule risk of having an airbag explode in my face was not worth the risk).

Remove the small Panel Trim on the right side of the radio. If just pops off, use a plastic trim tool if you need to convince it a little.

The pull off the small Trim tab on the left - bottom side of the glove box.

Pull off the door trim on the right hand passenger door. It pops off.

Picture of trim removed

Reach underneath the glove box and air bag and gently pull down on the trim panel piece. It just popped off.

Pull on the left trim panel. Pull the front part toward the door, and once the tabs come loose, pull towards yourself.

Unscrew the little plastic cap at the rear of the Right Trim Panel. Then gently pull on the panel. It pops off.

Remove the two airbag bolts on the left and right side.

Then GENTLY pull out the airbag and set it down carefully.

Open the glove box and remove the 3 trim tabs to expose the bolts.

Bolts exposed, remove all three. There are also 2 more underneath. Remove those as well.

Drop the Glove box and rest it gently on top of the airbag.

DCM is finally exposed. Squeeze the small releases to unplug the gray and white connector.

Plug those same connectors into the bypass harness and tuck away.

Now I simply reversed the trim process. And reconnected my battery! Started the car and found that the DCM logo has completely disappeared from the Radio. Success!

Took the car driving for about 10 to 15 minutes. During that time, I experienced no hiccups or weirdness.
I am pleased with the results. Microphone and Speakers all work perfectly.

... Next step is an aftermarket remote start kit.

Click to expand...

So question. I know the DCM can be completely taken out with the two by-pass cables and maybe I missed it somewhere, but what do those hefty cables (circled in red) do?

Captain Spalding · Jul 8, 2025 at 1:31 PM

Look here.

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads...the-dcm-telematics-silencing-antennas.821649/

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My DCM disconnection odyssey.

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