This is my first DIY so I hope this isn't a complete mess. I tried to take pics along the way and document what I did but at some point I just got carried away and didn't do things in the best order so I tried to organize it all in a way that makes at least a little sense.

I know a lot of people have shipped out their center consoles out for LED repair on LS460s but I couldn't find any information specifically on LS460 LED repair. There are plenty of resources online to get this done but I figured I would document how I did it on this car. I used this video ( ) as a reference for what to do and all the information on how to do it is there but it's not specific to the LS460. I don't know if I would have attempted this job without that video.

I will say, this is somewhat of a nerve wracking job but I feel like at the end of the day it was pretty easy and relatively hard to do irreparable damage as long as you are not ham fisted. I am not trained in electronics in any way and I do truly think that if you have patience, anyone can do this job with the right equipment.

Pic of all new LEDs. I don't have a before pic but just imagine dimmer LEDs and half of them being out. NOTE: These LEDs will be brighter. I guess there is a way to solder a resister with them to dim them but that seems really difficult. This is why I replaced all of mine at once and the extra brightness doesn't look obvious. Also it happens to match brightness of Start/Stop button so that is nice. The Auto Parking brake button is the brightness of old LEDs for reference. These are not at all blinding but I also never keep my interiors at full brightness anyway.





What tools I used:

• A hot air soldering iron. NOT optional. I don't think this job can be done with a regular soldering iron, it needs to be one that blows air. Something like
  this
  this
  . Just type "Hot air soldering" into a shop. I don't think it needs to be super fancy
• Solder - I don't know anything about solder. I just bought a spool of some fine solder and it worked great. 0.6mm is what I used
• LEDs - 1206 (3216) SMD LED lights. Don't know what that means but searching 1206 LED in amazon brings up the right ones for our cars. They come in a strip of usually 100. These LEDs will work from the Nav buttons next to the screen all the way down to the heated seat buttons including the stereo. I had dead ones all over the place so I redid them all. I probably used about 40.
• Tweezers - The kind specific for small electronics. Probably not optional. Need a way to quickly place LED onto solder and that won't be possible by hand. Also useful in undoing a lot of the little ribbon clips
• Nail file or something else thin, flat and long - Helps remove various clips. A flat head might be OK in a pinch but I wouldn't suggest it for some of the tight spots.
• Volt Meter - Optional but you're really gonna wanna check your work after each LED using continuity setting. You're not gonna wanna find out you did one wrong when everything is back together in the car. Strongly recommend using one
• Flux - just get any soldering flux. It helps solder stick to where it should. Optional but I really, really wouldn't skip it.
• Small set of screw drivers - The parts are small in there, it will make life much easier having a small set for electronics.
• Regular soldering iron - Optional. I used it a few times to touch up some solder points but I think the hot air one can do it all. Just know that the hot air WILL melt the LEDs but you'll have a lot extra anyway
• Tape and some cardboard. I used the amazon box the soldering iron came in with some masking tape to hold things down. Pics will show better what I mean. Optional but it will be very frustrating when the board tilts and the LED goes flying as you're trying to place it in the hot solder

Word of caution. The silvery paint on the plastic was very fragile on my car. I used tape to protect it but tape pulled off paint. Now I have this ugly mess and no good way to remove the plastic to paint it. There are some threads of people painting it but if you are careful, I think it can be saved. Put down a soft cloth and be gentle. I didn't know this was an issue until after and I wish I had used a cloth.



Steps:
Just dive right in. There are instructions on how to take the center console apart. Once you have the stereo and nav screen out, take the back apart piece by piece. You will not have to go very deep so don't get too intimidated. It all goes back one way anyway.

With the Nav assembly out of the car and face down, you will see the PCB boards that have the LEDs. Remove the metal cover behind them to access. There is some sort of felt tape in the way. I was not able to save it as it tore right up. I wasn't too worried about it but was as careful as I could be.



The big Nav unit will need to be unbolted and tilted forward. I didn't fully remove it but be sure to secure it so it doesn't fall from its tilted position.



Nav in tilted position. I undid the one plug for more flexibility but left the rest. If you are gonna do the lights that are below the Nav, the metal cover at bottom of this pic has to be removed and that board as well. It's a few more steps but again, not too scary.



Screws holding metal plate



Metal plate removed.




Remove the ribbon cables between side buttons and this bottom center piece. Pry up on the little black piece to release ribbon. The black piece does not come out, it only lifts slightly. Ribbon will come right out.



Ribbon easily comes out once black holder is lifted.



Now the next layer has to come out, LEDs are in the PCB below this one shown in pic. There are 2 hidden screws on the top corners as shown here.


This ribbon has to be removed too. Same concept as the other ribbons.



Lift out the whole part. Need to do a little more digging to get to LEDs



Remove the metal cover using these screws



With metal cover removed, undo the last few screws on the top PCB and the LEDs will be on the flip side of it.


Here it is flipped up. LEDs are there. Pull it out and set the rest aside.



D18. D17, D22, those are the LEDs. Now they will look different from the ones we bought but that's fine, they are correct.




Now use file to unclip the button assembly from the bezel



Remove the ribbons



Remove the little boards and try to stay organized. Some screws are different sizes. I had to do some shuffling at the end because I didn't stay that organized but no big deal.




Now to the soldering.
BEFORE YOU START. LEDs are directional. Before you remove the old ones, measure continuity and see which way the LED needs to be positioned. I did a few wrong so I had to redo them. Again, no big deal.
There is a little green dot on one side of the LED. That side needs to be on the side that is inside the little " ] " bracket printed on the board. Pic below shows a close up.


Stab a hole or two into the cardboard to secure the boards down



Heat the board up slowly with the hot air iron. Supposedly it's bad to just go right into heating the localized area to desolder so take your time here. Here is a showing and explaining use of flux. Do keep in mind that in this video, they place the component on, then add heat. We CANNOT do that as the LED will melt. The video linked at the top has a good example on how to do it but he doesn't use flux. Flux will really help solder stay where it should so I wouldn't skip it


LEDs removed from D18, D17, D22, D23. D25 still has original LED shown. Use the tweezers to remove but DON'T pull! You will yank the wire out of the board if you pull. Just apply slight sideways pressure as you add heat and the LED will come right off. LEDs will probably melt, that's a good sign.



What a good connection looks like, in my unprofessional opinion. Notice that the little green dot the LED is on the side of the bracket. This is how they all need to be oriented for correct direction.
Just dab some flux on there, heat it up and add a tiny bit of solder if needed. You want tiny dots of solder, not huge blobs or you will short the connection under the LED. Again, continuity testing all the time in both directions. Depending on how much solder stays behind on the LED you removed, you shouldn't need to add much new solder at all. It will take a few tries and you will likely ruin a lot of new LEDs and that's fine. After 3 or 4 you will know how they should all look.
As for how to do it, I would grab the LED in the tweezers with one hand, air iron in the other hand. Hold the iron over the solder until you see it melt and turn a shiny silver. Then in one motion, apply LED and remove the heat as you don't want to melt the LED and hold for several seconds. If the LED doesn't touch down flat on the board and the solder doesn't squeeze out the sides, the solder was not hot enough. If that happens, apply heat, remove LED and throw it away as it probably melted. Wipe up excess flux once LED is good. I was liberal with the flux as it gets blown around but its easy to clean up. You can see the box has stains all over from it. I wish I could have taken pics of how I did this part but I don't have the facilities for that. Again, watch starting from the 9:20 mark for proper technique. He uses the regular soldering iron to touch up the edges but I found that could melt the LED so I mostly skipped it. There were a few that needed just a little touch up so I did it there but otherwise, in order to get the solder to fully melt, the LED will probably melt too. If you use flux, you shouldn't need to do that.


New LEDs installed. Some are a little crooked, no big deal as long as they are connected. Check continuity



What checking continuity looks like with my volt meter. I think they all send a small voltage which helps to see it light up. If you don't get a light, just make sure your volt meter shows continuity in the correct direction. Use the brackets as a reference for which side is red and which is black. I don't remember which is which now but it's best you use existing LEDs to figure that out instead of just taking my word


Same concept if you want to do the buttons in the lower center console area like heated seats. Obviously less intimidating to do those but I remember having some frustration with getting to the LEDs. I didn't break anything so just keep taking things apart until the LEDs are exposed.


And that's it! Go through one by one and put it all back together. This job didn't take me that long, maybe a few hours, and I did it at my computer desk which does not have much space. With a proper work area, this can be done pretty easily I think.

Please let me know if there are any questions. Again this is my first ever DIY writeup so if anything needs rearranging or clarified, please let me know.

 

Excellent contribution! You can always use brightness regulator to reduce the intensity.

 

Great writeup. For me hot air with leds is hit and miss, so personally I use hot tweezers (part of semi-pro soldering station). Really easy and clean.

 

It's great that you documented this repair. Now members can see how involved it is and decide for themselves if this is within their abilities. Personally, I have turned down the brightness on my displays and hope that's enough to keep my leds from burning out.

 

I remember reading somewhere that max brightness is what kills them in these cars. I've always hated bright interior lights so I've always kept mine at pretty dim levels but my LEDs were already dead by the time I got the car.

 

I also have turned off my DRLs. It's legal in CA. I don't believe I'm giving up much in the way of safety. When it's time to sell, it won't be an issue to haggle over. It would also bug the heck out of me knowing some leds were burned out...

 

LED SMD size 0805 white seems to be a better size fit and the brightness is same as existing. The 1206 is too big and bright.



This is a pretty easy job even with a regular soldering iron. Just take your time. I used desolder wick to remove most of the existing solder and remove the old LED.

 

Oh nice! That would have been nice to know about those dimmer LEDs. The extra bright new LEDs was a bit annoying but got used to it. Still looked a bit odd compared to all other lights in the interior.

 

Nice post. Do you have a link to the LEDs you used for comparison? The specs are all over the map on these, and I see in the video for the is250 he uses 0603 LEDs

Are those 0805s in the link the ones you had success with, 3v, 20ma and 180-210 mcd brightness? I'm trying to find something on Digikey that will hopefully last longer than Amazon's, from what I see it looks like most of these are rated at either 500 or 1000 hours.

 

The link is accurate. I’ve replaced nearly everything on the dash at this point. Only ones left are on the steering wheel. The hold button is out.

Don’t know on the life span. None have burned out yet.

 

thanks for the pics on this. my cars at 300k so i had a bunch of led's out.

what size is the led for the park reverse neutral drive selector? i noticed it was bigger than the rest in the center console

 

How did you end up fixing the trim?

 

I have a question regarding the center console seat heater/ventilation ***** on a 2014 model. Is the notch dictating the location of the setting on the turn **** supposed to be lit? The place around the **** is lit on mine, but the tiny indicator notch is not. Is that supposed to be lit, or is it just an indicator for where the setting is? In the pic below, the dot on the turn **** is lit up.