Brand New Owner! 2007 Es350

[JDLBK]

Good morning! Yesterday I got a sweet deal on my very first Lexus! I bought a CPO 2007 ES350 with 68,000 mi and premium plus package for $16,250. I asked and they threw in the updated nav DVD for me as well.

It was a great deal IMO, and I'm excited to have my first Lexus. One question: I'm getting satellite put in and having the dealer install it using the sat kit available for the 2007 model so that it will be integrated into the dash and system. Has anyone done this as opposed to putting in a mounted aftermarket satellite receiver? Are there any pitfalls I should avoid? Is the dealer the best place or should I go to an audio shop?

Thanks for the help and (obviously) I'm beyond excited to be a Lexus owner!

Jess

[1990LS400]

I've never installed a sat radio kit but I've done a number of car audio projects, looked at sat radio interface kit install instructions and followed threads on people having it done or doing it themselves. As far as I know the integrated sat radio kits from VAISTECH.com, eBay and Lexus dealers all provide the same features. VAIS seems to be the industry standard for aftermarket interfaces like this and their price for a basic XM kit ($250) is about the same as on eBay and Amazon.

Lots of people install these things themselves but it requires quite a bit of interior disassembly - not hard if you are familiar with the techniques. If you pay to have it done, $150 should be at the very top of what an installer should charge. There are good and bad installers. I had awful experiences with installers in the 1970's so I since did projects like this myself and have all the needed tools. After "interviewing" a Geek Squad / Best Buy installer a few months ago, I had him replace the OEM Nakamichi radio in my 2000 LS400 with a Kenwood screen based unit - the installer was brilliant.

I'm not a fan of sat radio but I would likely appreciate it if there weren't other choices I like better. We've had SiriusXM in our Prius for 16 months and it's used maybe once a month for a few seconds to verify that it still works.

I think your 07 ES radio has a 3.5mm aux-in port which would allow streaming internet audio services from a smartphone through an audio cable. Attach a Bluetooth receiver to the aux-in port and you can stream wirelessly from your phone. (There are many Bluetooth receivers. The Blackberry Stereo Gateway routinely gets good reviews - most think that the newer square-ish version is better.) There are 70,000 radio stations on the free Tunein service including virtually all the stations here in the Kansas City metro area - we can listen to them or stream from Pandora, Slacker, iHeartRadio, etc. wherever we are as long as there is at least 3G phone service..

Kuda (www.kudausa.com) has some nice leather phone consoles for the 07 ES350. Positioning a phone in a convenient location is important for safely controlling streaming from the Internet while driving on older cars that don't have streaming applications built-in to the radio. I've had a Kuda in my 00 LS for about 10 years and it's a nearly perfect match to the car upholstery.

And you asked a simple question ...

[mhawkin1]

Congrats on the new ride. Ive had mine about six years now and enjoy it more every year. I had satellite installed at the dealer about three years ago and it has worked flawlessly.

There are always ways to do this or that but i like my dealer and do not have a lot of time so i generally go to them and they always help me when they can.

I have almost 87k miles now..