atebit

OK, really stupid question here since I've never seen/used one...how does this avoid scratching/swilring the paint?? I'm sure you guys wouldn't swear by them if they messed up your paint, but I'm just curious.

I just picked up an 08 Sapphire Black Pearl IS250 AWD in NJ last Weds with the Luxury package + Nav. According to the dealer, in the NE region, the allocation is about 8.9% of this model come in that color, and of those, only about 8% have the luxury pacakge + Nav...so like less than 2% probability of coming up with one! Luckily, they were able to find one already on the ground in the region for me. Worst case, they said that this combination wasn't a special order in the NE region, so it might take 3 weeks for one to come over the water that they could request/allocate for themselves. I guess I just got lucky (or unlucky from the standpoint of my bank account.) :)

Johnson Lexus in Durham, NC installed mine for free as well, thanks to some of the other posts on this thread! They were actually quite nice about it

So, is there a requirement that we have to replace with the same low-profile tires, or can we replace with a "standard-profile" tire?

Thanks for all the replys. Just wanted to write back & say the trailer trip came off without a hitch...err, I mean went fine! Gas mileage on the trip down I-95/I-85 from NJ to NJ was 17-19 MPG as predicted.

I don't have the Toyota part number handy, but I actually bought mine from a guy on eBay. My understanding is that this filler panel is only generally available in the Japanse market, but I guess a US dealer could get one if they had the part number. Anyway, I had a look on eBay & I don't see any filler panels right now, but I would suggest trying to contact the guy I bought mine from. His eBay name is aristo25. He has a lot of RX part on eBay right now, but no filler panels. He can probably get you one, though. When I have seen these on eBay, they are usually listed for the RX330, but it will fit the RX400 as well. Log into eBay & try sending aristo25 a message & see if he can get you one. I had no problems with the transaction at all, and I had my filler panel in about a week. As Tyler mentioned above, the opening is bigger than double-DIN, but it should be no problem for a good car stereo guy to make a bezel to fill in any open space. Guaranteed to be A LOT easier than trying to install something without this! Good luck. Does anyone know what the Toyota/Lexus double din dash kit part# is? Brought a picture to my local dealer and they've never seen that before and said that if they had a part# they could cross-reference it. PLEASE HELP! Thanks.

I am renting a 5x8 uhaul trailer this weekend & was wondering if anyone's had any experience pulling a trailer with their RX400h? I've never pulled a trailer at all, so I'm sure it will be an experience either way. I have the factory hitch & harness that I installed myself. My RX supposedly has the "tow prep" package (according to the sticker & the fact that the right connector was already on the vehicle wiring harness to plug the hitch harness into), so I guess that's in my favor.

I haven't noticed the whine, but maybe my radio's too loud to notice. I do, however, have the bad braking over a bump thing. That will get addressed at my first service, which BTW I'm told is now at 5,000 miles. So much for the "tighten the bolts" freebie service.

Yes, I have noticed this as well. I have a couple of problems with the brakes in this car. First, there's a lot more pedal travel before there's any discernable effect (including canceling the cruise control). Plus, I agree that there often seems to be a non-deterministic period of time between applying the pedal and when the brakes "catch". This seems to be more pronounced the more quickly/forcibly the pedal is applied. Whether or not this behavior is "as designed", I plan to take it up at my dealer during my first service. I think this is a potentially dangerous implementation. Learning not to "pulse" you brakes when ABS was nacient was reasonable. But, in a panic stop situation, it's not like you usually have a lot of choices. It's always smart to properly manage your following distance, but that's not always possible in an emergent situation.

...If he had a Beatle haircuit, maybe it was Sarek...

Wow, yes thanks for the great tips! I never really considered these roof-top boxes because the prospect of it becoming an air-ground missle if improperly mounted scares the crap out of me! The Yakima sounds like it has a pretty sturdy mounting system that won't mar up the roof or the rails. That extra storage ~would~ come in handy sometimes...

Spunderdog, sorry to hear you're having problems. My installer did not mention having any problems at all using the dash panel...in fact, he said it made things really easy for him & saved me A LOT of money in custom dash modifications. He did mention it was wider than a standard double DIN, but he just used part of a trim kit to make a bezel to cover up the space on either side (looks like maybe 1/4" on either side). He also didn't mention having to use additional mounting brackets, and the ones from the factory radio were still attached to it when he returned the radio to me. They did not charge me for a mounting kit, but when I dropped the car off they said they would charge me for it if they needed to use one. He was able to use the metra harness for power, ground, etc., but had to do a factory amp bypass, powering the speakers via the radio's built-in amp. We could never get a "straight" answer whether or not the factory amp uses a simple 12V turn on or relies on "data" or some signal level to turn on. The amp bypass was the easiest think to do. The entire job took him about 10 hours, incuding removing the factory HU, the amp bypass wiring, installing the new HU, wiring up the XM tuner/NAVTRAFFIC unit, wiring up the iPOD adapter, installing the backup camera, and running the wiring for the NAVTRAFFIC antenna and backup camera from the HU all way to the rear of the RX. One more think I found out after the fact...when you disconnect the other two connectors from the back of the factory radio, you will lose the steering wheel DISPLAY button (along with the other steering wheel controls, of course). It looks like all of the streering wheel buttons share a common ground. I assume that ground connection obtained through the radio via one of those connectors. I think the way to get it back will be to simply ground the corresponding pin in whatever connector it is, once I figure that part out.

RX400h, please take a look at page 10 in the 2006 Owners Manual. The "Auxillary Battery" the manual refers to is the 12V battery. The only reason I can think that Lexus would come up with a service bulletin for this is that at least a couple of owners must have actually encountered this problem. Luckily, I was able to have my head unit replaced without disconnecting the battery, so I can't say it's happened to me, though!

Tyler, for some reason I can't PM you, but I would like to know more about your installation. I am planning on doing the same thing to my non-NAV 06 RX400h. I have been trying to get a line on the wiring harness...I will look into the metra part you mentioned...hopefully it will work! Can you tell me where the factory amp is located in your vehicle? It may not be in the same place in the RX400h due to placement of some of they hybrid system components, but at least it will give me a place to start. Also, I was wondering if you found it necessary to disconnect the 12V battery during your installation? Yes, I know it's a good practice to always disconnect the battery when working on the electrical system. However, disconnecting/significantly discharging the 12V battery on the RX400h can lead to the hybrid system needing to be re-initialized by a Lexus dealer with the proper diagnostic equipment. It's possible that after disconnecting the battery that the gas engine will run when it doesn't need to until the hybrid system is re-initialized So, if I can get away without disconnecting the battery, I'd like to try it. I'm sure I'll get a hard time from the Lexus dealer if I show up needing the re-initialization done with this aftermarket (though definetly better) NAV system starting at them from the dash

I've found serveral places in the owners manual about steps that have to be taken if the 12V battery is disconnectd/reconnected. The automatic rear door, the power windows and the moonroof all may need to be initialized. But then I found another section in the manual that says the "idle speed" may also need to be initialzied after a 12V battery disconnection. TSIB EG010-05 describes the process a tech can perform to complete the initialization. I guess my question is...how "likely" is it that I'm going to have to do this if I disconnect the battery? Clearly, this is something that I'm not going to be able to do myself, since it requires some sort of diagnostic test set to get into the necessary modes. My other question is if anyone knows any other potential pitfalls to disconnecting the battery that I've missed? The last thing I want to do is turn my RX into so much immobile junk just by disconnecting the battery.

I've found serveral places in the owners manual about steps that have to be taken if the 12V battery is disconnectd/reconnected. The automatic rear door, the power windows and the moonroof all may need to be initialized. But then I found another section in the manual that says the "idle speed" may also need to be initialzied after a 12V battery disconnection. TSIB EG010-05 describes the process a tech can perform to complete the initialization. I guess my question is...how "likely" is it that I'm going to have to do this if I disconnect the battery? Clearly, this is something that I'm not going to be able to do myself, since it requires some sort of diagnostic test set to get into the necessary modes. My other question is if anyone knows any other potential pitfalls to disconnecting the battery that I've missed? The last thing I want to do is turn my RX into so much immobile junk just by disconnecting the battery.

Can someone tell me if there are any problems removing the "Premium" (not Mark Levinson) radio from an 06 non-NAV RX400h? I know that in newer cars, sometimes the radio is part of other systems that make it hard to remove or require a bypass. My plan is to remove the stock radio & replace it with an aftermarket radio, and I'd like to get an idea what other functionality I might lose if I do that. Any help locating connector pin-outs or wiring diagrams would be appreciated!

No doubt I already know the answer to this question, but...does anyone make a dash kit that will adapt the proprietary opening for the stock radio for a single-DIN radio? I do not have NAV. I have seen dash kits for other Lexus models with simlar radio bezels, but the one for the 400h seems especially narrow...I'm not even sure a single-DIN radio will even fit in there! It's funny, but the rectangular LCD that displays the mileage & climate control mode looks like it could easily accomodate a single-DIN radio. Too bad it would be tough to ditch that display... I know there are some XM/iPod options out there that integrate fairly well with the stock radio, such as the on from vaistech. However, I like to see artist & title, and have them scroll (when necessary), and I don't think the vaistech can do that, especially on a single-line display. For even as bad as the displays on most aftermarket HUs are today when it comes to "intelligently" displaying song inforamtion, even one of those would be better than what it appears the stock radio can do.

No doubt I already know the answer to this question, but...does anyone make a dash kit that will adapt the proprietary opening for the stock radio for a single-DIN radio? I do not have NAV. I have seen dash kits for other Lexus models with simlar radio bezels, but the one for the 400h seems especially narrow...I'm not even sure a single-DIN radio will even fit in there! It's funny, but the rectangular LCD that displays the mileage & climate control mode looks like it could easily accomodate a single-DIN radio. Too bad it would be tough to ditch that display... I know there are some XM/iPod options out there that integrate fairly well with the stock radio, such as the on from vaistech. However, I like to see artist & title, and have them scroll (when necessary), and I don't think the vaistech can do that, especially on a single-line display. For even as bad as the displays on most aftermarket HUs are today when it comes to "intelligently" displaying song inforamtion, even one of those would be better than what it appears the stock radio can do.