aedgington

damn give me $27K and you can have mine; same mileage and no funky lights coming on.

They're ripping you off. Average dealer auction price with your mileage is in the very low 30's... unless your vehicle has massive issues or prior body work.

Note the "BELOW AVERAGE" unit with 97K still brought 28.8... and that auction (Bishop Brothers) is in the ATL :)

---DATE-- --AUCTION-- --TYPE-- --SALE-- --MIL-- --COND--

01/11/07 MANHEIM Regular $37,000 66,914 Above

01/11/07 MANHEIM Regular $31,700 67,186 Avg

01/10/07 NADE Regular $30,800 77,155 Below

01/23/07 FAAO Lease $35,200 85,060 Avg

01/25/07 MANHEIM Regular $36,500 85,067 Above

01/25/07 MANHEIM Regular $33,500 85,984 Avg

01/25/07 MANHEIM Regular $34,500 89,353 Avg

01/23/07 BISHOP B Regular $28,800 97,031 Below

Personally, I would ask your dealer to loan you a disc (on premise, supervised, so they can't really say "no") from another Avalon to see if you get the same result. That way you can immediately determine if it is a disc or ECU issue.

Leather is sealed as you state, so if the only place that conditioner will have any affect is stich holes and edges then you can't condition the leather (other then that area). The Lexus leather is sealed. All you can do is keep it clean and protect it with a UV protector. Any leather conditioner will just act like smearing oil on tile. I guess the conditioner might make it smell better? I use a mild cleaner like woolite with water and a UA protectant like you would use on a combination vinyl leather protector.

On a narrow piece of leather like the bolster, which usually sees the most wear, conditioner penetration from the edges is usually sufficient. Older sealed leather will also usually absorb conditioner. That's just my experience though, I'm not really looking to get into an argument about leather care during Sunday playoffs.

The Houston dealerships sell a nice one, with the branding "FormFit" by Benevento. They're contoured around the headlights and are a smoked acrylic. They install in about 10 minutes with a combination of clips and !Removed! into factory screw locations under the front edge of the hood. IIRC they were $120-ish.

I thought they looked very tasteful.

I believe the oemvalue.com nav systems (Camry & Sienna) have been successfully installed in several UZJ-100's, as well as aftermarket Kenwood & Eclipse systems.

Lexus leather does have a polyurethane seal, but you can condition it. The edges and stitch holes all allow conditioner to seep in.

Clean with warm water.

As far as the creases go, that's normal. Just make sure to keep the creases clean! Particles (dirt, potato chips, etc) in the creases are what turn the creases into cracks/tears.

The wear that you're describing generally comes from sliding out of your seat. So if you are a "slider", it's extremely important to keep your leather clean. Otherwise, you're basically sanding your leather every time you get out.

Conditioning will make the leather more supple around the affected areas, but you should check it to see how much oil is still in the leather. Gently pushing on the affected area and comparing that with another area (unused and out of the sun) is a good way to test.

As Jim said, Leatherique is excellent. Most conditioners will work well, if applied properly.

awesome that helped. I was looking at the 2nd molex to the right, not the far right molex. worked great. i might try amplifying the signal, but it looks pretty good as is.

as far as ipod integration, i used a hard wired powered fm modulator w/ rca inputs & it works great as well. it wires into the antenna (antenna->mod->head unit) so there are no weak signal issues.

Your news about the video cutting out is agreeably irritating. I had hoped to play a movie on the headrests & have the factory screen show nav.

Looking for a switched 12v to tap under the center console, where the cup holder & shifter is located. Anyone know of an accessory wire or something under there?

Couldn't get this to work, not sure why. I used the top set of connections, 2nd to the right molex. If you have a chance, would you mind taking a picture for me?

Land Cruiser & LX470 third rows are mechanically interchangeable, but use different leathers.

Just bought an '02 LX w/ the ML system. The driver door speaker is blown, and needs to be replaced. Can I just slap in any 6.5? The tweeter is fine, so I don't think i need a component. Has anyone had to do this?