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Hi All,

I have a 2001 GS300 with OEM Sat Nav. I love the car, but I am a little cheesed off. I really want to replace the OEM sat Nav with an aftermarket product to benefit from new available features (blue tooth, TV tuner, Ipod etc).

In all my searching I have not found a unit or units that are fit for purpose without loosing the climate control. It seems this is doable for non sat Nav models...Surely there is a solution to this....

I would really to some advice from anyone who has done this, pictures too would be awesome :phone:

Thanks in advance guys

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i'm thinking of doing the same in my GS430 Sport, and can only assume the climate control for a non Sat nav car can be plugged in instead. Not got round to sourcing one yet, so can't say whether it will work or not. Once the non sat nav control panel is in, there is then space for a double din head unit underneath.

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i'm thinking of doing the same in my GS430 Sport, and can only assume the climate control for a non Sat nav car can be plugged in instead. Not got round to sourcing one yet, so can't say whether it will work or not. Once the non sat nav control panel is in, there is then space for a double din head unit underneath.

LexusGS300-1.jpg

LexusGS300001-1.jpg

This was in the car when I bought it. I dont think it had OEM S/N as standard. The CD changer was taken out but the iPod and USB work fine and there's a Mutant power amp in the boot, sub under parcel shelf, rear park sensors and rear view camera. It needs a TV module (£150) to receive stations and a S/N update (£140) but I dont know if that would give post codes. Prepare yourself for plenty of reading as there's well over 100 pages in the manuals. It has Bluetooth but I've never had and dont want a car phone. DVD,CD,Radio,iPod,USB,S/N all work fine.

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Yeah, I changed my non nav mk2 GS300 to aftermarket with reversing camera etc, the problem with the satnav is that the climate control is built into it (with buttons and touch screen control). It is whether a non satnav climate control (like yours already had) can be plugged in instead. I guess it just needs a second hand climate control unit to try it with. From that point on, the factory wiring an be plumbed into and the amp bypassed.

testfit.jpg

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Yeah, I changed my non nav mk2 GS300 to aftermarket with reversing camera etc, the problem with the satnav is that the climate control is built into it (with buttons and touch screen control). It is whether a non satnav climate control (like yours already had) can be plugged in instead. I guess it just needs a second hand climate control unit to try it with. From that point on, the factory wiring an be plumbed into and the amp bypassed.

testfit.jpg

Thank you... Shame... I was hoping that someone had already tried this... I guess I will try to find a non sat nav Climate control unit and try it.

Any recommended Garages / Engineers to do this in and around London?

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No idea mate, did mine myself.

Cool, You've done it now... brill... any pictures to share?

Any chance you could also post a parts list (Would be a massive help).... I cant wait to do this...

Sorry, I may have bowled you a swerve ball there. The pic above was the swap I did on my non sat nav '99 GS300 I used to have, not the sat nav '01 GS430 I now have. There is still the issue of the climate control, but after that, it should be largely the same. The only thing to keep in mind is that on the non satnav cars, the amp is next to the glove box, and that is where any amp bypassing takes place. On satnav cars, there is some wiring to the satnav ecu in the boot that controls muting the music/speaker and doing the voice instructions of the satnav. Not sure what is involved in disabling/bypassing that.

The actual physical removal of parts (i.e. I used the space where the factory Cd changer was to keep the ipod etc) is in this thread http://www.lexusownersclub.co.uk/forum/index.php?showtopic=70884&hl=

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Thank you kindly Rick.

Quick question. I have bought a pioneer DVD headunit. When I plug in the ISO (cable) to the car, will I only lose the built in amplified subwoofer, or will I lose door speakers sound totally too?

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Thank you kindly Rick.

Quick question. I have bought a pioneer DVD headunit. When I plug in the ISO (cable) to the car, will I only lose the built in amplified subwoofer, or will I lose door speakers sound totally too?

Plug the iso leads into what mate? There are no iso connectors in the car to plug the stereo in to. I bought various toyota/lexus leads and cobbled together an amp by pass cable and main loom connector cable (so that I didn't need to cut off any factory connectors - easily reverted back to stock before I sold the car). The factory unit has line level feeds to the amp, and the amp dishes out the power to all of the speakers. If you don't bypass the amp, you will lose all sound. Or more specifically, you will throw full power audio into the line level amp inputs, which would most likely not impress the amp too much and it would swiftly expire.

I should point out, that when I say you need to bypass the amp, that is only if you want to use the factory cabling to the speakers. If you are happy to run new cables, then you can forget the amp side of things altogether.

The sub wasn't an issue for me, as I wanted to use my Vibe cbra10 active sub. I removed the sub speaker completely out of the parcel shelf, the hole it left behind creating a port into the car for the Vibe sub in the boot.

All in all, with the toyota/lexus connectors I ended up getting, it was all relatively straight forward, and I only ended up with a couple of wires that were just pushed into the exisiting loom connectors for things like the electric aerial (assuming you want the aerial to still go up and down).

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Forgot to say, the various leads I bought were to turn the factory harness into ISO, for the stereo and the parrot Bluetooth handsfree I was fitting at the same time. I tried to make it as plug and play as possible, but it wasn't possible entirely.

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Rick, you are a very knowledgeable member, thank you kindly for your help :)

Can I totally ditch the standard amplifier seeing as I won't be needing it?

I think I will just tap into the speaker wires from the amplifier, and remove power sourse that goes to amp

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Can I totally ditch the standard amplifier seeing as I won't be needing it?

I think I will just tap into the speaker wires from the amplifier, and remove power sourse that goes to amp

Yup, you can ditch the amp altogether and just unplug all connectors on it. Depending how you do it, You can run new cables across the top of the glove box and just connect them into the "speaker feed" connections on the disconnected plug at the amp. The other way is to connect your new head unit speaker outputs into the factory harness that used to plug into the old head unit (that heas off to the amp), and then bridge the in and out connectors at the amp to "bypass" the amp. Either way will work fine.

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Can I totally ditch the standard amplifier seeing as I won't be needing it?

I think I will just tap into the speaker wires from the amplifier, and remove power sourse that goes to amp

Yup, you can ditch the amp altogether and just unplug all connectors on it. Depending how you do it, You can run new cables across the top of the glove box and just connect them into the "speaker feed" connections on the disconnected plug at the amp. The other way is to connect your new head unit speaker outputs into the factory harness that used to plug into the old head unit (that heas off to the amp), and then bridge the in and out connectors at the amp to "bypass" the amp. Either way will work fine.

When you talk about the in and out connectors, are you talking about the speaker in and out?

Thanks

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