darylhuff

I've had a love/hate relationship with the bluetooth capabilities of my 2005 GX470 since I purchased the car in late '04. I really like having the built-in, hands-free capability and the fact that it is integrated so well with the rest of the audio system. However, there are features that have driven me nuts since day one as well. My last phone was a Nokia 6820 and it worked OK with the system. My big problem was that if I made a call from the handset while it was paired with the car, the Lexus bluetooth system would only pick up a couple of seconds *after* the party I was calling picked up. Not after the phone started ringing, there actually had to be a pick-up on the other end. At my last service I had a 2007 RX350 as a loaner with bluetooth. This unit worked as I would have expected. When I made a call from the handset, the Lexus bluetooth immediatly picked up on the phone call and I could actually hear the ringing in the audio system of the car. When the party I was calling picked up, I actually heard the pick up (something that never happens in my 2005 GX470). Do other 2005 owners have the same problem when dialing a call from the handset? It has reciently gotten worse. I just upgraded my phone to the new Nokia E70. It is a fantastic phone for those who aren't familiar with the new Nokia phones. The problem is that the bluetooth capabilities of the Lexus work even worse with this phone than the old 6820. when I place a call (either from the handset or from the nav head unit), the call goes through (apparent on the handset and the party I called later reported getting a call), but there is no audio through the Lexus audio/bluetooth system or the handset. Same with an incoming call. The Lexus phone screen appears when an incoming calls is received, but when I hit the pick-up button there is only silence. I have an appointment to have my local Lexus dealer look at the problem. I'm wondering what other folks experience is with the 2005 bluetooth and, if they have had problems, if they have had luck getting Lexus to address the problem. One would hope that this could be solved with a firmware flash of the bluetooth unit.

I've installed the vais tech unit in my car and it works great. If you want to control the iPod via the touchscreen you do have to generate playlists. The nice thing is that it does control the iPod so that when a bluetooth phone call comes in it will pause the iPod, when you shut off the car, or switch to radio or CD it will pause the iPod. I have a web site that details the installation in my 2005 GX470 http://www.emba42.com/lexus/

I bought the Prius kit and it worked fine in my 2005 GX470.

Since I bought my 2005 GX470 over a year ago, the only complaint I had about the car was the Big Brother nature of the car. The two things that annoyed me most was that darned "I Agree" button that I had to hit each time I started the car, and the fact that a passenger couldn't enter a destination while the car was moving. God bless Coastaltech! I ordered the Nav Enhancement kit (http://www.coastaletech.com/nav_kit.htm) from them a week ago and it arrived today. I know they don't say anything about it working on models other than the Prius, but I was willing to gamble $100 to get rid of the "I Agree" button. My gamble payed off big time. It took me less than 5 minutes to install the cable. I turned on the car, the nav system reloaded due to the cable disconnect (took 20 seconds) and when the "I Agree" button came up, wammo, it was gone. When I hit the "DEST" button the system now goes through the override sequence by itself and a destination can be entered (by a passenger) even if the car is in motion. There have been some postings that were less than complementary about Costal Tech. My experience has been very positive. They shipped the unit promptly and it does just what I wanted it to do. Now I just have to pull the "Speed" wire out of the connector on the back of the Multi-Display Unit this weekend so that the bluetooth capability is not crippled when the car is in motion and I've only got that stupid seat position memory button that doesn't work when the car is out of Park to fix.

That's good information. Shortly after I got my 2005 GX470 I bought a couple of days access to the manuals at http://techinfo.lexus.com/. Sadly, at that point the 2005 GX470 manuals hadn't been updated with the bluetooth enabled (4th gen?) nav units. I just checked and even the 2006 wiring diagram isn't correct.

I agree. I'm willing to pay the $100 so that I don't have to hit the "I Agree" button like a trained monkey for the rest of the time I own the car. I don't think it is possible to get rid of this without something like what Costaltech offers. However, I'm happy to save $50 and just cut the Violet and Red wire myself. I actually think you should be able to pull the pin from the connector and wrap it in electrical tape. This would make it easier to put the system back into it's "factory config" if needed. If you want to see how to get access to the wire, check out my web page that describes how to install the Vaistech iPod integration unit. Look at steps 18 and 19. In step 18 you can see the back of the Multi-Display. The connector you're going after is the one in left of the picture (center of the Multi-Display). In step 19, you can see the Violet and Red wire. It is now plugged into the Vaistech connector and has been turned over. http://www.emba42.com/lexus/

I've installed the VAIS Tech unit in my car. I won't claim that it is a perfect solution, but it is far better than an FM modulator. It isn't that hard to install the unit yourself if you have any mechanical ability at all. I described my installation along with pictures at http://www.emba42.com/lexus/

I'll vote for the use"less" option. I've had my 05 for a year now, and at this point the only time I would consider using the voice commands is I felt like my blood preasure were getting to low and I need something to *BLEEP* me off. What a waste of a button on the steering wheel. BTW, I grew up in the midwest and thus have a midwest "accent". Since the midewest "accent" is the one that the networks like their news readers to adapt too, I consider it the most neutral accent in the US (as opposed to a Boston, Southern, New York, upper midwest, ...).

If you have the navigation package MD mode is supported. Installing the unit is not that hard. Here's my website with pictures of the install I did for the iPod version of the Vias Tech unit. http://www.emba42.com/lexus/

Take a test drive with the wife unit before buying your next car?

Talk away. BTW, you know that most computers have spell checkers. If you don't have one try out http://www.dictionary.com

Good luck with that over time. I doubt you'll ever see Lance putting his bike on a hanging car rack, nor have I seen any hanging racks on the chase vehicles for The Tour de France. But if you're comfortable with your rack, that is all that matters.

I'd only recommend using a hanging bike rack if you bought your bike at Walmart. They will eventually scratch your bike either at the grip point or as the bikes bang together as you are driving down the road. I know about the gizmos to reduce bike swing, but they don't eliminate it. Yakima has to great hitch racks that hold bikes more securely and safely. Go to http://www.yakima.com/ and check out the Hitchfork or Hookup rack (both are rear hitch racks).

The adaptor is available from http://www.vaistech.com/ I've created a web page detailing my installation experience at http://www.emba42.com/lexus/

I doubt it will help in the US, but in most of the rest of the world, Toyota sells a Toyota version of the GX470 as either the Toyota Land Cruiser (http://www.toyota.co.uk/) or the Toyota Land Cruiser Parado (http://www.toyota.com.hk/). The interesting thing is that the Toyota model does have a center armrest. I would have preferred the center armrest over the captians chairs in the GX, but the other positives of the GX outweighed this for me.

Those are two separate issues. I agree that since the AIC-100i is made to connect to the iPod that putting resistors inline would be a smart move for them. I'm able to do it myself and the unit offers by far the best integration for Lexus so I'm OK doing the work myself. I think they don't include the ground loop isolator because not everyone needs one. I actually had a ground loop isolator from a previous car. I tried installing it when I put the AIC-100i in my GX and found that ther was no difference. I don't hear engine noise, or other audio artifacts without the ground loop isolator, so putting it in place did nothing. A ground loop isolator isn't the same thing as a resistor. A ground loop isolator is a giant capacitor, not a resistor.

The Vais technology unit is the way to go. http://www.emba42.com/lexus/ I did have some sound quality issues with some of my MP3 files that weren't encoded correctly. Turns out it is an iPod problem and not a Vais Tech unit. The iPod doesn't normalize the signal coming out the bottom of the iPod. They do for the sound coming out the top earphone connector so I don't know why then couldn't for the bottom as well. Anyway, my problem was fixed by inlining a couple of 4.6k resistors in the left and right channels between the iPod and the Vais Tech unit. I used the cassette adaptor before the Vais Tech unit was available and it was OK, but there are a lot of messy wires, and there is a sound degradation using this method. Now, I just put my iPod in the glove box and control it from the radio.

If you don't have an 05 GX, how do you know the Treo works now? I have an 05 GX and I've tried my friends Treo 650 with two of the latest Treo/Palm patches and it won't associate with the car. I have a Nokia 6820 that works great with the car. Before you go out an spend $350-$500 for a Treo I'd recommend that you test it with the car to make sure it actually works.

Try http://vaistech.com/ . They have 4 different sollutions for adding video to the head unit.

I do have the rear view camera and it works fine after the AIC-100i integration. The only thing that changes is that you have a couple new screens that show up after the installation. You access them by hitting the "Disc" button or cycling through the "mode" button on the steering wheel. No functionality goes away, you just get functionality added. Based on my experience and the other posts on this thread, I'd advise calling Vais Tech before you order and inquire about the sound quality issue mentioned in the previous few posts. Originally I thought I just had a bad unit (waiting for it to be swapped out), but the fact that two other folks are having the same problems leads me to wonder if there is a problem with the AIC-100i design.

I had this problem originally and it turned out to be a defective cable between the AIC-100i and the iPod. Vais Tech sent me a replacement cable and now it works great. I believe the problem was that the connector that plugs into the bottom of the iPod wasn't making good connection with the iPod connector contacts. Try putting a ground loop issolator between the AIC-100i and the iPod. http://www.radioshack.com/product.asp?cata...ct%5Fid=270-054 That solved the problem for me. I am encountering the problem, and I think I know what the problem is. If you were to pull your music into an application that allows you to view the amplitude of the encoded music (e.g. http://www.adobe.com/products/audition/) I'm pretty sure you'll see that the amplitude of the ones that distort are higher than those that don't. My guess is that the circuitry inside the AIC-100i isn't able to handle the higher amplitude and saturates thus causing the distortion. Call up Vais Tech and let them know what is happening.

I got my AIC-100i from VAIS Technology (http://www.vaistech.com) last Thursday and I got the unit installed and working over the weekend. I've been waiting for months for this to become available and now that I have the unit installed it is just what I wanted. I took some pictures during the install process and created a web site with the pictures and description of how I installed the unit. If you're mechanically inclined at all it isn't that hard to do the install yourself. If you have two left thumbs, better get someone else to do the install. The pictures and description are at: http://www.emba42.com/lexus/

Go to http://techinfo.lexus.com/ and you can buy a 1 day pass to the shop manual for the GX470. They have the complete instructions on how to get at the back of the radio, glove box, center console, ...

Find another dealer. I bought my 05 sports model in December and it has the dark gray interior. It of course also comes with the black maple wood trim which I greatly prefer over the yellowish/orangish maple trim that comes in most Lexus models.

I haven't seen a Lexus spec list on the bluetooth phones supported. Do you mean http://lexus.letstalk.com? This is just a web site trying to sell phones. One might be able to conclude that phones on this page will at least marginally work with the Lexus bluetooth, but I wouldn't conclude that just because it isn't on this list that it won't work. If you already have the phone, the best test would be to go down to your local Lexus dealer and give it a try on one of their cars on the lot.