How to roll down windows with a Toyota key fob?
Most modern cars can open or close all windows simultaneously with a long press of lock and unlock buttons on your remote key. This is a great feature, especially in the summer when your car gets hot and you must let the fresh air in before entering the vehicle.
Many Toyotas come without this feature from the factory, but we can easily change that with simple coding. I bought the 22 Corolla last year, and it came with the disabled function of remote operating windows for some reason. Here is also a quick video guide on how to teach your Toyota to open and close windows remotely.
How to teach your Toyota key fob to open windows?
This can be done with ECU coding, which means coding a certain control unit in your car to adjust settings to your preferences. If you are unfamiliar with it, dont worry. It’s not like coding on a computer. It looks like a settings page where you tick boxes or pick the options you want.
And the best part is that you dont even need a fancy diagnostic tool; you can do this change with a $15 OBD adapter and a free app.
You need an OBD2 adapter and an app.
You can use this cheap Veepeak adapter; it is enough for this job. You will also need an OBD2 app that can make this change, and you are in luck because there is one for free. It is called the Car Scanner ELM 327, and it can do advanced diagnostics, read live data, and do some ECU coding. The Car scanner app worked fine for my Corolla, and I also did this mod for RAV4.
If, for some reason, your Toyota isn’t supported in this app, you can also use the same adapter along with the Carista coding app, which can make this change for more models. Just remember that Carista will cost you $10 a month, so you need to pay this fee for at least one month and then cancel your subscription after you dine with coding. Changes you make will, of course, stay even after canceling your subscription; they are saved in the vehicle’s memory.
How to program the Toyota key fob to open windows?
You can use an OBD2 scanner with ECU coding (car coding) and teach your Toyota to open all windows with the key. And don’t worry; the coding is a very simple procedure in under 5 minutes. After that, your key will be opening windows remotely with a long press of unlock button and close them with a long press of the lock button.
I did this on my Corolla 2022. I have no idea why the 2022 car comes without this feature from the factory, but at least we can change it ourselves. If you are new to OBD2 adapters, you can read more in How to use guide, but I will try to be as clear as possible so everyone can follow these steps.
Step 1: Connect Veepeak to your OBD2 port
The OBD2 port will most likely be under the dashboard on the driver’s side. This photo was taken in Volkswagen, where the OBD port is pink, but it will be either black or white in your Toyota.
Step 2: Turn ON the ignition
You need to turn the ignition on when working with the OBD2 tool. Either that or you can also turn ON the engine. If the coding fails and it tells you some conditions weren’t met, try turning off the engine and turning ON the ignition.
Step 3: Open the Car Scanner app and select coding and service
Open the app, pair it with the adapter, and pick the Coding and Service option at the bottom. This will load the possible customizations for your Toyota. If there are no options for your Toyota, you could use the already mentioned app called Carista.
It can do these changes for all Toyota vehicles that have this feature and can be turned ON. You cannot just code this for every model; the electronic control module controlling windows must already know this feature; we are just using the OBD2 scanner to either enable or disable it.
Step 4: Make the change in values
Remember that you must change the value for opening and closing windows in separate settings. Change the value from “not active” to “active” for both opening and closing windows, and the coding is done.
Now your windows will open with a long press on unlock button and close all at once with a long press on the lock button.
Remote windows closing and opening works with the ignition off
Remember that this will only work when the car is completely turned off. It won’t work with the ignition ON or with the engine running.
At least it doesn’t work for Toyota Corolla 2022, maybe it does for other models, but I think it will be the same.
What other customizations can be done for Toyota?
Unfortunately, the Toyotas don’t have that many coding options like the Audis or BMWs. Coding possibilities are very limiting, so you are stuck with simple changes like changing the number of blinks for turn signals, disabling the seatbelt warnings, etc…
But you have at least some options. Here are the 5 mods I made with the Carista app on my Toyota Corolla 2022; you can get an idea of what is possible to code in your modern Toyota.
