christyjoker

Use vaistech. You're right about the playlist limitation but you won't care. You can name a playlist "steely dan" and have every steely dan song in that playlist so you are sort of indexing it by artist that way. From my experience we use the ipod the same way every time but if you want genre, make a playlist called "genre christmas" or genre rock" and put the songs from that genre in there. You can have up to 1000 playlists so it would be impossible to consider this a limitation. The important thing is that it's reliable, which mine is. Each playlist shows up as a "folder" and within the folder you drill down to the "files" in that folder which are the songs. It's awesome. You control it from your steering wheel controls and the nav touchscreen. Get one.

I DID IT ON MY GS350 '07 LEVINSON/NAV... It took bravery and brass balls to start cutting wires on a $52,000 Lexus with 900 miles on it, but I was able to pull it off using directions that I bought from EBAY for $29.00. It walked me through the process, step by step, with pictures of how to remove the unit and of how to modify my 07 GS350 so I can use:1. My Nav features while driving. 2. Play DVD's while in motion and without parking brake engaged. 3. Use all bluetooth functionality on the fly. 4. My vaistech ipod integration box folders and files that also used to "gray out" when I started rolling. That sucked. Here's the guy: Email: Who sold me the directions? HE IS EBAY Member: cappetta72. You can contact him through his auctions on ebay for more info. THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO KNOW FIRST: READ THE FIRST PARAGRAPH OR TWO OF THE INSTRUCTIONS CAREFULLY! The instructions show pictures of there being a "pink wire" on the right side wiring harness (which was on the 06 and earlier). This has been replaced on the 07 with a white wire with grey dots in center harness for the 07 GS350. Otherwise the wire re-routes are all the same. (about 4 steps with 4 wires.) I put a switch between the white wire and the one you are directed to splice it to so I can turn the nav functionality off and on. If you turn it off you can use all of the functions that used to get grayed out when you move. There is a wire that sends a signal to the nav unit called a VSS (vehicle speed sensor) wire. It tells the nav you are in motion so it can smoothly move the icon down the street as it reads the sat in the sky periodically. They work together. If you disconnect it you end up with a jerky icon moving down the street, although you then have full access to your nav unit. If you turn it off only to program it, then turn it back on using a switch, you have the best of both worlds. A switch from radioshack is 3.99 and worth it to make your nav and your nav access perfect. The other wires you just cut and tape off and one other wire you ground to the frame of the stereo, which is the DVD parking brake interlock. Piece of cake. Get the diagrams and directions, the pictures are worth 1,000 words. Once you get the console out and the side molding pieces, there are 4 bolts on each side of the nav/head unit that allow it to be pulled right out. I recommend putting saran wrap over all of your wood to make sure you don't end up with an unfortunate situation with scratches. My disclaimer: It worked for me but I can't guarantee that it will work for you. I did it based on a calculated risk and ended up with a happy ending to my story that could have been a disaster I suppose. But it's so easy a monkey could do it. Really. I was so proud of myself when it all worked perfectly. Good luck! OH... the part at the end of his instructions where he shows a temporary way to turn off the nav limitations by hitting some buttons does not work on the 07 models. It does work on my wife's 05 GX470 though. Mike