I just picked up an ‘98 SR5 center console lid to replace the cracked one in my ‘00 SR5, and to my surprise the 96-98 lid is physically longer than the 99-02 lids! Well this is news to me, as I thought all console lids were the same minus the Limited trim’s having leather stitched covers instead of a vinyl one like the SR5, and I had assumed the insert on the under side were also interchangeable. I had no idea there were length differences of the lids and the inserts, making them not easily interchangeable.
I knew the 96-98 never came with the upper storage tray, which was a mid gen upgrade, so I assumed that I could swap out the plastic inserts on the underside to make the older lid fit in my runner. The inserts have screws that don’t line up with one another, so the older lid won’t fit on my ‘00 unless I remove the upper tray permanently. The photos I attached show the physical length difference of the lids, as well as the latches on each. The older one has the hook style latch that locks the lid down to the console, and the 99+ lid has a plastic snap that clips into the upper storage tray.
Anyone with a 99+ shopping for a used replacement console lid, let this be a PSA that they are not interchangeable if you want to keep the upper storage tray in the newer consoles.
Just for the sake of cross posting for anyone searching this subject, I also found
this post about someone with a 96-98 console wanting to replace his console lid with a 99+ lid, but I tried doing the opposite by swapping the older lid with the newer console that has the upper storage tray. The 99+ lid is missing the hook piece that locks onto the console, so it appears he took that hooked piece from the old one and used a spacer to get it to function properly on the newer lid.
Sorry for the photo sizes, the T4R.org image uploader isn’t user friendly, and my old faithful used to be Photobucket but we all know how that ended -
you Photobucket!