Toyota Avanza enhancement - rubber door seals

If you ever sit in a Toyota Avanza with original specs, you might have noticed that its noise insulation is very poor. Noise from outside is pretty loud, especially when motocycles pass by. The feeling is as if the car window is not closed, although it is.

This problem is due to a gap of about 10 mm found between the door and the car body when the door is closed. All Toyota Avanza doors with the original grey colour seal will suffer with this problem, because that grey door seal does not have a ring part to fill up the 10 mm gap when the door is closed.

It is found that all the 4 doors of Toyota Avanza 1.3 model are using that grey door seal; whereas the 2 front doors of the 1.5 model are using another black colour rubber door seal which comes with the ring, while its 2 rear doors are still using the grey door seal. This means the 1.5 model already addressed and fixed half of the problem.

The solution:

• For 1.3 model, replace all the 4 grey door seals with the black rubber door seal with ring.


• For 1.5 model, replace the 2 grey door seals with the black rubber door seal with ring.

You can get the solution from AOCM at the cost of less than RM50 only (for 4 doors). The rubber door seals are also available in most car accessories shops. Once the rubber door seals are installed, the noise level in the Avanza cabin will be about the same as in other car makes.



You can get even better noise insulation by applying special insulating material inside the doors, but that will be another story.

Toyota Avanza enhancement - lights on alert

Have you ever experienced draining out your car battery due to forgetting to switch off your car headlights?

Today, many newer car models already come with a light on alert buzzer, which will sound and alert you whenever you turn off your car engine and trying to get out of the car with the headlights still turned on. With this, you will never forget to switch off the headlights and later having trouble to start the car engine with drained battery again.

Unfortunately, this light on alert is not found in the original factory make of both Toyota Avanza 1.3 and 1.5 models. Owners of Toyota Avanza need not be worried, because the solution can be found in AOCM and the total installation cost is less than RM50 only.

This light on alert modification requires a 12v DC 2-pole Type-A relay, a buzzer, some flat cable lugs, some wire cables, and PVC tape, and the same way of installation is applicable to both the Toyota Avanza 1.3 and 1.5 models. For the schematic diagram and more details, please refer to the AOCM forum.

Please beware that any modification done to the car has the tendency to void certain parts of the 3-years warranty from UMW Toyota.

Your camera handphone is handy in the car park

Most handphone comes with camera feature nowadays. You can make use of it to snap a picture of the location where you've parked your car in the car park, like these:



This will help you to remember the parking bay location of your car in the car park, especially in those big shopping malls. Now, you don't have to memorize the pillar number anymore, and shouldn't have trouble finding for your car in those big car parks again.