evilweasel

Hi all,

A few people interested so here are the pics... They should help manual transmission owners out when doing the mod. Use the walkthrough in conjunction with these tips.

Start by pulling the gaiter out of the way and removing the rear part of the centre console. Whack the handbrake on full and pull the cupholder portion straight up and it should unclip after a bit of effort..

Disconnect the seat heater controls, and knid of twist the cenre section out of the way - then you can pull the forward center section up and back simultaniously and the whole thing pops out.

The rest of the lower part is just like the walkthrough. Remove the ashtray and you can then get to the lower bolts holding in the MM..

The top bolts have to be got at next. The walkthrough uses a coathanger but that's a bit agricultural so I used a cord looped around the vents to more carefully get them out. I've also included a closeup of the vent clips, that have to be clipped downover

Then you can unplug the connections to the vents and get to the top bolts.

The MM's heavy, so get some towels to protect it and your leather! Ease it out, and pay attention to the fibre optic - it's tight, so unplug it. Unplug P1 and P50.

This is the point where I differed from the walkthrough - I didn't want to cut wires unless absolutley neccesary - you can actually pop out the crimped connectors from the plugs and join them with a screw down connector, only applying pressure to the crimps. This will allow reinstallation into the plug bodies if required.

Then, you have to make a cut. The MM side red wire on J50 needs to be grounded to allow DVD playback while in motion. It bypasses the handbrake. I cut it in the loom and closed the loom back up, and grounded the MM side to the chassis.

That's it - as in the words of Hayes, reassembly is the reverse of removal.

BTW this mod still doesn't allow destination changes on the move, and that volume screen hack doesn't seem to work either. Ho hum..

Good luck!

Hi you guys,

just a quick line to let you know my thoughts on the first two week of running our IS 250 AUTO SEL MM reg 23/12/2005 2900 miles.

all ok just a few issues,the pertol filler door is as loose as a -rick in a shirt sleeve very surprised that it does not have some sort of spring to hold in the open position.service said that the door is in tolerance and they can do nothing as that will damage the paint .I tried a few around the showroom and they were fine hmmmmmmmm I hope I dont have to fight them like I did with my troublesome 53 RX300sel.Seatbelt recall done plus sat nav upgrade.As for the rattles I fear the worse as It looks like they are starting to happen and I know that they never managed to stop the various rattles on our RX300 but I hope with strength of the LOC topics I can put pressure on service to sort out.

The good points are

1 great drive (great gearbox unlike my RX300)

2 goes like a bat out of hell

3 love the MM

4 could carry on for a long time but will not bore you with the details.

cheers

swager.

Hi,

Nice purchase! I'm interested to know what your sat nav upgrade entailed - is it a later software version? I got mine from Lexus Bristol and Dave the sales guy didn't know about the sat nav upgrade... He did however know about the seatbelt problem, which was done yesterday (free champagne and £20 fuel for my trouble)!

MK Lexus phoned me and mine was booked in yesterday - same script - washed and vacced car, £20 worth of diesel, and a bottle of champagne. Great customer service!

Right.

Spent a fairly stressful afternoon today carrying out the mod, and the good news is that it works! Just a few notes and tips...

The manual transmission IS has a different method of removing the centre console to the auto.

In brief, don't attempt to remove the silver side strips first. they're screwed to the plastic around the gaiter. Ease the gaiter out of its grooves to get a look beforehand. You can unpop the fastner around the gearshift to help.

The cupholder section behind the gearshift pulls straight up away from the centre console. Unplug the seat heater cable to help twist it out of the way. Then the front section of the console pulls up and towards the back of the car, just like in the walkthrough.

The rest of my mod was as per the guide - but I did it a little differently. I used string to pop out the fan ducts, and only had to cut one cable, as i popped out the contacts from the plugs and joined them with a connector.

I took photos of the process and if there's enough interest I'll put them together to help manual owners do the mod.

Good luck!

Oh well.... I think I'll have a go - I'll keep you posted!

I asked my dealer about the ashtray replacement sunglass holder yesterday - he said that he couldn't order that part - it's for the US market. He would however fit it if I could get my hands on one. Is this normal? Can anyone tell me the part number? I would probably fit it myself....

Surely I don't have to be the first..... Oh - BTW, the nav destination hack on the volume screen doesn't seem to work for me, either.

I have MM in mine so Bluetooth as standard. However you could try autoleads - they may have a loom adapter in the pipeline - http://www.autoleads.co.uk/index.html

Good luck with your new car - I'm in Treyarnon on hols in a fortnight and will I may spot you driving around Padstow with a smile on your face! :winky:

I've used a SE T630 succesfully - phonebook downloads fully. I also use a Nokia 6230, which works well also.

One other difference between the Nokia and the SE is that the Nokia doesn't show Battery life and signal strength on the MM display, but the SE does. I have read somewhere that Nokia doesn't implement Bluetooth as well as SE, and it shows.

Anyone been brave enough to try this on the new IS 220d with Multi-Media? I took delivery of a spanking new one last week and would love to be able to access the phonebook, MP3 file listings and Nav functions, not particualrly bothered about the dvd playing.

Thanks in anticipation.

Wod. ;)

I would also like to know if anyone in the UK has done this, and if the method of getting to the MM screws is the same on manual shift cars, as the manuals have a different centre console gearshift panel. I had a quick look at this today, and I'd rather I wasn't the first to try it!

Now that I have a car like this I'm interested...

Sounds like a good thing, as I'm constantly shoving my sunglasses B) in the arm rest, really fiddly!!

The GPS aerial could be like the one in some cars now - wired into the top of the front screen (unless as usual I'm talking cac and the aerial is somewhere else...)

It says very specifically 'Theft warning sensor' and takes up most of the unit.

I would post the piccies back up but I'm still getting the 'no uploads permission' or similar...Scarface/Steve, I thought this was tempoary while some security issues were being sorted???

If the flip down console has a bit of anti theft kit in it, the ashtray thingy sounds useful. I wonder if sunglasses would fit there???? Photos and part number might be useful...

My old car had loads of little storage places and you really miss them when you don't have them!

I wonder if anyone will release an aftermarket sunglass holder to replace the drivers side grab handle. After all it's a bit pointless grabbing it when going round corners!

I want to try and ressurect this topic - I've just bought an IS220 and I can't beleive it's not got a sunglass compartment as standard. Has anyone in the UK successfully replaced the blanking panel in the overhead console for a sunglass holder, or is there some electronics buried behind the blanking plate?

I get it Wednesday - Brechin Slate with Oakham Leather. Will post pics... in the meantime I'm still searching the forums for a definitive answer on whether you can play MP3 from DVD's though (DVD9s,+r,-r,etc).

Well.

Just bought an Is220d SE-L MM today - diesel seemed to make more sense financially...

It's a nice looking ex-demo and I got it for a song...

Thanks for all your input! :)

Thanks for your answer romaro - 500 quid a year difference... Still thinking though for the extra 500 you get a quicker, quieter car. Maybe that's worth just over a pound a day...

Sounds though that you get great consumption - my present 3yr old Laguna Initiale 1.9dCi just gets around 46 mpg if I'm lucky. That would be the same kind of route as you (M25,A34.....)

It just worries me that actual fuel consumption figures are pretty much a lottery - and the rattles everyone talks about. They appear in BOTH petrol and diesel models!

Any 'real world' petrol auto MPG's would be apreciated too.

I am looking to buy an IS in the next month or so, and I have been reading these forums with interest. However, there doesn't seem to be any post outlining the difference in running costs between the diesel and petrol models, given that diesel is more expensive than petrol, and the 220d doesn't seem to have fantastic economy.

Does anyone have any real world figures for diesel vs petrol, taking into account service, consumption and fuel costs?