Retrofit Bluetooth With Factory Stereo

albatross83 · December 31, 2009

Anyone know if this is possible? I know such a thing was never offered in the IS (bluetooth without Nav), but the ES350 of the same year DID have that option. If the head units are the same (internally -- obviously the faceplates and displays are different) then I'm thinking I could get the P/Ns for the steering wheel buttons and mic and wire them up to the radio. Heck, for all I know, the mic might already be present.

I'm just thinking that with part reuse and all, the capability might actually be present in the stereo, just untapped, as it were.

EDIT: As an alternative, maybe it's possible to add-on the entire NAV system. Hmm.. maybe the recent snows have provided the junkyards with a fresh stock of ISes for me to gut :D

1990LS400 · December 31, 2009

For the gen 2 IS without nav sold in Europe, Lexus offered the Motorola IHF1000 Bluetooth kit as an official dealer installed accessory. The dash mounted controller for the IHF1000 even carried a Lexus "L" logo instead of the usual Motorola "M".

I don't know if the Europe IHF1000 kit would fit your IS350 -- audio systems Toyota puts in cars are different around the world.

Attached is the install instructions for the IHF1000 into a European IS -- might give you some ideas. Bluetooth kits from other manufacturers sometimes provide iPod, USB, RCA-jack and even A2DP streaming connectivity. The Parrot MKi9x00 series of Bluetooth kits provide these interfaces and can be bought with interface harnesses that make installation into an IS audio system "plug and play".

Bluetooth_IHF1000_into_IS_instructions.pdf

albatross83 · December 31, 2009

Thanks for that guide -- outstanding disassembly instructions that I'm sure I couldn't have figured out on my own without breaking anything. It appears that the audio goes straight into the amplifier, so that gives me hope that my original idea would work fairly easily. Presumably one of the pins is an "override" signal that switches the amp from the head unit to the alternate input (the Motorola BT in this case).

I know on the ES that the H/U is involved in some way, since you can program 6 preset phone numbers IIRC, but again, I don't know if the input/outputs from the IS and ES H/Us are the same. I imagine I'll have to get a 2-day TIS subscription and do some frantic downloading of all the electric/electronic manuals.

Good food for thought though; thanks for the reply!