In the process of researching other items for my 03 sr5 i kept seeing listings to disable DRL's and it reminded me that I was missing those from this vehicle. My rav4 and my is300 both had that..and i wanted to find a way to get this working.

From the threads i found out that at time of purchase new, it was a $40 fee to enable this. So, right off the bat, this told me it couldnt be something to0 hard or too intensive. I used this page: Toyota 4Runner DRL Mod as a starting point for wiring. and when you stop and think about it, essentially you are just flipping around what a relay would do. however there had to be an oem solve for enabling them.

in a thread asking some questions, ED_C spoke up and offered a DRL relay that we thought would just swap out with the current "non-drl" relay. I also found from my research that folks were having to visit the dealership in order to turn off the drl option. This made me wonder if parts alone wouldnt solve my task.

So he shipped it to me for free, and i started the removal of the knee panel, and also removal of a couple bolts and nuts to gain access to the back of the fuse panel.


behind the fuse panel you will see a tan relay. that is the non-drl relay.


you will need to remove this and the small 3" harness attached to it.

the black plug at the end of the harness will plug into the DRL relay later


i will look like this when removed.


slide on the black drl relay box with the plug facing towards the passenger side.


plug in the black plug.


reassemble and enjoy your drls.




next diy will be adding auto headlights (with sensor, harness, and blinker stalk)

...my 2005 sr5 has those ambers lit up as DRL, you think the previous owner did this? i thought it was stock

It was an option at the time of purchase. This wasnt touched by the previous owner.

If you hook up a diagnostic scan tool you can switch them on and off... my limited has the option to do so

You can also enable and disable these lights if you have Techstream FYI. Super easy

One of the components of the optional DRLs is the DRL-specific relay I sent him to try out. That relay has the additional circuitry for the DRLs. Go ahead and try activating the DRLs via scan tool without that DRL relay, they won't turn on without the proper relay.

My main worry was the body ECU (the one accessed via scantool/Techstream to activate/deactivate DRLs) wasn't default with the DRL "on" signal activated. Luckily by default it was.

Awesome thread! Very helpful for those not having the DRL. Fortunately mine has it, but if I didn’t, I’d be doing this mod ASAP.

i am glad to have been able to test this so quickly and really liked that this was a fast install.