My Jeep Grand Cherokee Laredo came with the keyless entry / light dome in the ceiling. But, I wanted to add the overhead console into the jeep. Plus, the headliner in my Jeep was quite damaged, it was sagging at several spots and it was torn near the center of the roof. So along with installing the overhead console we redid the headliner and the fabric on the overhead console. We used ordinary headliner matted material. We picked it up at a local professional auto upholstery shop, they also gave us a very nice tip! Use Weldwood contact cement for the headliner. The usually spray can kind made for headliners tend to come apart at high temperatures, and we live in Atlanta, Georgia. So the roof and headliner get really hot, the contact cement so far has held up very well. We also put a layer of fiberglass resin on the headliner board. Usually this would be a bad idea if you have a small car since it decreases the flexibility of the headliner board, but since the headliner in the Jeep can slide right in from the back with minimal bending this is not an issue. Most of the people I know told me I was crazy that I was considering doing the headliner myself and that I should pay the 400 dollars to a professional instead. But to be quite honest it really wasn't that bad, but it did take quite some time and I think it looks nearly perfect!

This is what it looks like with the overhead console installed and the new headliner material in place:

To see how I installed the overhead console and a general "How To" for this, please click here or head over to the "How To Articles".

My jeep also didn't come with the VIC (vehicle information center) instead it came with the GDU (graphics display unit). I didn't like the way the GDC looked, so I figured I'd replace it with the VIC. The VIC has circuitry to check several sensors that the GDC doesn't check. This means that my Jeep did not contain the sensors and wiring for some of these sensors. But, I did not want to connect these sensors and modules since some of these are known to break and to be quite honest I did not need the functions they offered. So instead I wired up the VIC in such a way that it thinks that the sensors are okay.

To make the VIC think the sensors are okay just cut the Rear Lamp Out Driver (G46 20LB/BK [light blue with black tracer] ) from the harness, so that you have enough wire left to connect the wire hanging from the connector to something else. Then connect this loose wiring coming from the connector to the ignition wire which is the F83 20YL/DG (Yellow with dark green tracer). The LOM module sends 12 volts through the rear lamp out driver when all the lights are intact and grounds the lead wire when the resistance of a lamp is incorrect due to a wrong bulb or a burned out bulb. Thus supplying the rear lamp out driver with a constant 12 volt when running will make the VIC think all the lights are okay. Then there are the washer fluid switch sense and the engine coolant level sensor sense left which would also cause the VIC to give errors if not disabled. Both of these sensors switch to 3.3k Ohm when the washer fluid or coolant level is correct. So we have to cut G29 20BK/TN (black with tan tracer) and G18 20PK/DB (pink with dark blue tracer) like the way we cut the rear lamp out driver, but now we have to connect both wires to a 3.3k Ohm resistor and then to ground which is Z1 20BK (black). This way we will have disabled the 3 sensors which we did not have before.

Here is the result, a perfectly working VIC with 3 sensors disabled:

Here is a picture including both the overhead console and the VIC: