Black Interior Swap!
 

I'm posting this here because it may help those who are interested in upgrading the interior of their Lexus ES300, as the process should be very similar.
I swapped the interior on my Toyota Camry from that boring gray cloth to some much nicer black leather. While swapping a dashboard might sound daunting, I made a short video detailing the process….it’s quite easy:




Here’s a few pics of my process.
I started with this boring gray cloth
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The dash with the lower half removed:
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A few screws later, dashboard removed:
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All that grayness…so sad.
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I got all my black interior parts from several Camry SE in the junkyard, and did the swap over a few weeks as I obtained new parts. Here’s the doner dash:
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Carpets out:
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Ah yes, Saturday afternoon with the car completely stripped down and everything all over the driveway. Good time to vacuum things up!
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My biggest score came when I found a totaled low mileage 2005 SE V6 with the black leather interior in really good shape in the junkyard:
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Pics of the new black interior swapped in:
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The car feels like a totally different car now! All in all I spent just over $400 and it was well worth it, though considering all my other planned upgrades (fogs, stiffer steering, cluster, etc) I would have been better off buying an SE V6 in the first place, but they’re so hard to find!


What you guys all think? I'm thinking about vinyl wrapping the silver trims to an accenting color next, hmm...
- Speedkar9

Nice! Did you consider swapping in an ES cluster? I'm wondering if the harness from the ES would swap over so you don't have to do any custom wiring.

Nice. I always have trouble finding black interior leather pieces at the JY

Thanks for sharing, your DIY posts with pictures are always appreciated. My personal favorite is the detailed spark-plug replacement guide.

My 2001 es300 with 140,000miles is in prestine confition. It's silver with a black leather interior, and factory HIDs. I didn't realize how desirable that Color combo was when I got it about 10 years ago.

Love that car.

I already have a Gen 5.5 (2005-06) Camry cluster that is the Optitron backlit style to swap in and should look MUCH better than the plain dim gauges in the 2002-04 Camry. I'd have to rewire a few wires, though not as much (50+) as my Gen 4 Camry / Lexus conversion.
There's discussion about it on TN:
http://www.toyotanation.com/forum/10...ossible-3.html

I love the look of the black interior, especially the dash top. I hate how Lexus and Toyota had brown dash tops with the tan leather seat combos...that didn't turn out well. The grays and beiges were more popular than the black interiors of those days, making it rare and hard to find parts.

I'm glad you found my tutorials useful! Most of my content is in my videos on my YouTube channel so you can always check that out for more.