Perodua Viva : Changing Speedometer Lights with LED Strips

This morning, I sent my car to a friend of mine named Raymond to change the old, boring and outdated orange LED backlights on my Viva's speedometer.

The original orange-lit Perodua Viva speedometer

My darling under the rain

The first process is to take out the speedometer from the car, covered by the radio panel and the speedometer panel, and secured with 4 Philips screws. Note that there is 1 screw at the radio panel, behind the air-conditioner switch in the middle.

Original LED is covered with black tape

The transparent cover, the needles and the plastic sheet with everything printed on it is taken off. As the original LED is orange or amber in colour, it needs to be covered to make sure the new LEDs will be able to shine through.

The LED strips used.

Raymond cleaning up the plastic board

The orange paint at the back of the plastic board needs to be removed, so thinner is used to carefully remove the paint from the board.

Soldering the wires to the LED strips

Routing the wires from the front to the back of the speedometer

The LED strips is affixed to the inner circle of the speedometer with the lights facing inside. Then, everything is tested using a 9v battery to make sure everything works before installing everything back. The negative wire is connected to the screw on the body of the car, and the positive wire is connected to a red & green wire (not so sure, please check it using a test pen to confirm that it is the wire) for the power when the car lights are turned on. After everything is done, the speedometer is screwed back to its original place and all the plastic panels are reinstalled.

Night view of the speedometer. Note that the LED colour is ice blue.

I asked him to install LEDs under the dashboard for that extra wow factor, and the lights are turned on when the door is opened.

Total cost of the installation is RM65 and if you are interested, you can directly SMS/Whatsapp him at +60146810831 and tell him that Aaron recommended you to go to him. He'll know.