Lexus Phones

[white ls400]

I have a phone fitted to the centre console right in front of the radio, It is a nokia stamped one suitable for an ancient Nokia 5110 would this have been fitted by lexus or after-market?

Do 1990 model Ls400's have a transceiver fitted from factory for a phone even if they didn't originally come with a phone... Where would this transceiver likely to be (Australian delivered model)

Any help would be greatly appreciated because at the moment im laying the blame squarely on this for my radio being on mute.

[VMF]

i know in the us model it is in the trunk. they are all analog and are pretty much useless here in us.

i think australian model would have it in the same place. dont remember where in the trunk it is.

[white ls400]

If its a rectangular black box i have found it but it has only got one plug and a aerial jack in it... Somewhere on here i read there should be two plugs a male and a female that you can plug together to bypass it but i cant find them anyone got a picture or a diagram to help out....

[1990LS400]

If its a rectangular black box i have found it but it has only got one plug and a aerial jack in it... Somewhere on here i read there should be two plugs a male and a female that you can plug together to bypass it but i cant find them anyone got a picture or a diagram to help out....

I may have been the one who posted the information about plugging the male and female connectors together to bypass the phone ECU in the trunk. For sure, that is that way in works on one of the two available Lexus phones in the 98-00 U.S. spec LS400 but it may not be the same on earlier U.S. spec cars.

U.S. Lexus dealers installed a number of different phone systems in LS400s during the 11 year model run. The cars were all prewired for phones at the factory but the phone systems were installed by Lexus dealers. I never checked the trunk of my 90 LS for the phone cable configuration but am certain that the phone connectors under the center console were different between my 90 LS and my 00 LS. US. spec LS400s did not come from the factory with a phone transceiver - it was a dealer installed option.

I doubt if the 5110 phone system in your car was a sanctioned product sold through Lexus dealers in your country but I really can not say. The dealer where I bought my LS in 1990 sold both Lexus branded phones and phones supplied by the local cell phone company. In 1990, Lexus phones were very expensive so I bought a non-Lexus President brand phone system from the Lexus dealer at a fraction of the Lexus phone price.

The car kit used for the Nokia 5110 is the Nokia CARK-91 or CARK-91H (with privacy handset) which was documented to have been the most popular car kit in the world. We have been using CARK-91x kits in our cars since 1998 and still have them in both our current cars. If it is a CARK-91 kit, you can adapt it to a newer pop-port Nokia phone by buying a different cradle and a Nokia CA-55 adapter cable.

Look for a yellow mute wire running from your Nokia CARK-91 control box and trace it to where it connects to your audio system. I doubt if that is what is making your radio mute but there is a chance it is. Attached is a photo of the CARK-91H phone kit including its control box.

That disconnecting the CD player allows your phone to work could point to a problem with the CD changer or headunit. For example, I know that the CD port on the back of our Camry radio has a mute pin - I used it for the phone kit. But my understanding is that the mute pin on the CD port is to mute the radio while a CD is playing so you won't hear both the CD and the radio at the same time.

If you post a photograph of what you have found, perhaps one of us can identify what you have.