Linas.P

After looking at ebay link I think I understand what you mean now... the description in ebay is very confusing, but it seems you are correct: What they selling for £279 is 9" screen which fits cars without ML (and without optical). Alternatively you can contact them and ask for different unit which has optical output and which seems to have 10" screen. And I suppose it is more expensive...

Best to clarify with seller. All normal sellers usually will ask you what you have and send you the unit/harness you need. In principle there are 3 different units non-Sat-Nav, Sat-Nav but non-ML and Satn-Nav + ML. The optical connection only fits Satn-Nav + ML. You don't have ML, so whatever you get make sure it does not have optical connection. There may as well be some differences between FL and non-FL units... so what you need to know and what you need to be expected to answer is simply year of your car and which of 3 units you have (note that what is important is date of manufacturing, not date of registration). So in your case that is most likely 2009 (but double check it is not 2008), Sat-Nav non-ML. Don't worry about different sizes of the screen or optical box, this is seller problem to worry about. It could be the case that you find a particular unit which is designed say for 2011 car with ML, but then seller should let you know it will not fit your car. The problems only happens when people don't know what they have, order the unit meant for ML and then need to decode optical signal and convert it back into analog. Normally this should not happen if you order the correct unit. I guess there are some specific branded units like mentioned above like Xtrons or Teyes where 10" only comes with optical option, but unless you going for these specific brands it is simply not relevant. In summary, it is possible that not all units fits all the cars and you specifically need to ask for unit which fits - 2009, Sat-Nav non-ML. Again as I said - sellers usually asks you that, but if for some reason they don't ask, then you can ask them to confirm the unit they are selling will fit your car. In my case seller not only asked what I have, but even demanded the picture of the back of my head-unit before fulfilling the order (I kind of cheated and just sent picture of from the internet, in my case it was IS250 2006, non-sat nav). P.S. In the description of the unit you posted it states - 2 Door Sportcar or Car with original optical fiber amplifier,Need to contact us to configure different power cable So that means - unit should be fine for your car and you only need to let them know if you have ML or IS250C. As you don't have either in theory you are good, but I am sure they still going to ask and if they don't ask then you know what you need to tell them (I hope I clarified).

I guess we need to put it in perspective.... The route is approximately 16-18k miles (using most direct roads between Sothern part of Chile, to most northern part of US/Canada), depends a lot by what they mean "driving" because I am sure there are several ferries involved... but the point is - that is ~the mileage average driver does in 2 years. Likewise just cruising that mileage is a lot lighter on the car than say city traffic, so for example taxi driver who is driving car in the city, not only covers more miles in single year, they as well cover much more harsh and punishing miles for the car. So in principle the biggest part of this challenge is money - that is supply food and all the equipment, and cover hotels etc. for the crew. Simply said it will cost thousands to deliver the cars to where they should be, pay all the costs associate with visas, legal costs, insurance, security etc. So basically this is a challenge of throwing enough money at it. Second part of the challenge is, charging the batteries - so it is really less about reliability of the cars or anything like that (because as per above... average taxy driver punishes the car much more every year), but just having either charging points or generator to charge the batteries. In the end - if they looking to complete this journey without burning ANY fossil fuels, then it is very challenging and will cause massive delays as I just can't see solar and small wind-turbine recharging the car in time. But if they simply slap diesel generator, drive 300 miles, stop and leave car charging for 12 hours every day... then it is not challenging at all (provided money is no object)... but that would be cheating... as that is no different from simply driving diesel car the same distance!

All of the android units are Chinese made, so they are all about the same quality, but not all the same spec. The choice you have is to buy exactly same unit from AliExpress for £300 or exactly the same unit form UK reseller for £600. As far as choosing one - it is minefield as you need to find one with the right specs and you need to understand what the specs mean. For example you need to know how much ram, storage and cores is considered a "good spec", what android version is good or bad, or whenever play-store works (this is quite key)... or what "8-Core MTK, MSM662 or MT8183" means and whenever it is good or bad. In short warning one is that you need to do research of what is available and what you buying, you can get good spec. unit from china for £300, or you can get poor spec. unit after paying £900 in UK. Second warning - spec. =/= quality.... the quality is all Shinese quality so it is gamble. You can get unit and it will work 5 years well, or it may fail after 18 months and there isn't much recourse because such thing as "warranty" doesn't really exist. Maybe 12 month if you buying in UK and if you lucky, but if you buying from China then 90 days is all you get. That is enough to make sure that unit you receive works out of the box (and that is usually the most important thing), but don't expect much of support say 3 years after that (that said Lexus Relax does not cover Lexus sat-nav either and they do go bad as well). In conclusion... do think it is no brainer - functionally these chinese systems are like 10 times better than Lexus system and if you get one with decent spec for £300... even if it dies after 3 years it is still well worth it. The only thing I would do is that I would definitely keep original just in case, but apart of that they are win/win... even if they fail they still worth it.

What do you mean by worth it? Everything is worth something, but that depends on price, £9,000 is starting bid - so it is not very clear for how much the car will sell for. If it would be £6,000 I would pay it right now without asking any questions, but for £12,000 - no thank you... Now considering it was CAT-S and looks kind of beaten-up, it is hard to see it ending-up costing much more than that... for £9,000 it would be ~£6k cheaper than next cheapest one, so perhaps "worth it". But if it goes past £11,000 (which is possible with current market), then I would stay away from it... As well IS220d badge is just bizarre... that may be some sort of reverse dig at me joking that you can replace half of IS-F parts with IS220d 😄

Please don't confuse people - the optic connection is for connection to ML amp. Yes you needed it because you have ML. Above it was already clarified OP does not have ML, so he does not need optic connection.

That is the point - that is why I said what I said... and indeed you can't!

I think you hit nail on the head hear - the key issue of democracy is that the outcome dependant on voter intelligence. And because intelligent humans are not common... democracy never had chance to begin with... it is still the best system we have and alternatives are all worse, but that does not mean democracy does not have it's own issue. For democracy to have chance we need to educate people in how it works and how they could make right voting decisions, but I would speculate that politicians have long figured it out and does all in their power to keep voters as little educated in politics as possible, because otherwise corruption would not work! And I am not pretending smart here - it took me nearly 3 decades, work in financial industry, 2 degrees and I am just starting to discover the surface of the problem... so society at large without dedicated education have no chance to figure out what is going on! And that is before we even consider that people may still make wrong decision because despite being detrimental for society as a whole it is beneficial for them individually... so selfishness is part of the problem and no education will ever fix it.

I am very calm - and I do actually enjoy this discussion... so don't worry about me! My point was that it doesn't make sense to start from the car which contributes like 3% of pollution or specifically meat which again contributes maybe 1-2% (I don't know exactly, but agriculture in it's entirety is 14-16% and avocados are much worse than meat as far as pollution), instead of focusing on large industry and energy production that contributes 60-70%. I mean I know (or I can speculate) why that is the case, but I think we all can agree it makes no sense to focus so much on the cars. The people throwing soup on paintings are StopOil eco-terrorists - with goal of immediately stopping production and import of all fossil fuels (which is beyond ridiculous as that basically would mean complete shut down of economy and people literally starving, including themselves). The people closing the roads are Insulate Britain eco-terrorists - their goal I believe was for government to fund insulation of 2 million British homes, which is reasonable on the face of it. What wasn't reasonable was their methods to get attention and secondly I personally don't understand why I (the tax payer) have to pay for insulation of £800k house in countryside, whist at the same time not being able to afford mortgage myself? If it is really such a problem, then I suggest to tax the homeowners of leaky houses and force them to borrow or downsize... they are certainly in better position financially, than some 25 years old renting small flat in London. I am exaggerating a little bit, because I am not 25 and I am not in dire financial situation... I just still think government (a.k.a tax payers) are not the ones who should fund insulation of million £ homes for their already rich home owners... and again I am exaggerating a little bit because on average houses are like £300k... but still that is £300k better of than somebody without the house. As for walking and cycling - that is pretty much premise of 2030 ICEV ban and BEV mandate... and many other taxes and policies leading to it. As I feel we all can agree - if this goes ahead and get's implemented then 70% people won't be able to have private vehicle at all, which means they will have to rely on public transport (which is unreliable) if they lucky, or will have to walk if they don't live anywhere close to public transport (which basically entire countryside and even suburbs). So the ICEV ban in 2030 automatically leads to this outcome of basically eradicating private transportation. For the same reason I believe (and this is conspiracy theory of mine) the policy is a plot of destroying private ownership of cars and people freedom to travel, rather than anything to do with environment. That is as well profitable as it basically removes cars that people already own and forces them to buy something else. And I certainly agree we can' do anything about it... maybe in democracy... but we not living in democracy 😄

Not sure - it may as well just have some very slow built in data plan... and to be fair just for timestamps and GPS coordinates it does not need much data.

That is good price for 18" wheel... clear savings not living in London! I think I paid closer to £100.

For location you actually don't need sim... the GPS received on car is sufficient and does not need active data plan. I am kind of speculating here, but head unit can simply check location by GPS receiver and save data in memory whilst you driving, at the end of the trip once it connects to either wi-fi or you phone and connect to internet it can update GPS locations with time-stamps to fill in the journey information and that can be done just with GPS receiver and some clever storage with time-stamps.

Yes the newer sat-navs with "over-the-air" updates should have some form of sim (wouldn't be surprised if there is simple mini sim stuck somewhere in the back of head unit). As for how the cameras are disconnected, yes I am sure it could be better done, maybe even put in writing somewhere as disclaimer to not look suspicious like that and be more transparent. What I didn't like last time with Lexus is that they left if disconnected (the cable just dangling behind the rear view mirror), not a major issue considering I know they can and usually do disconnect it, but I was hoping for reconnecting it after they done (just a better customer service). Blanking plate probably would work for video, but sounds could be an issue as well... you know maybe if Lexus Tech will spout profanity after removing their knuckles on stuck brake calliper bolt - I think anyone working on the cars could relate... and despite being natural when hurt the words would not sound great for the customer if they called "old far not replacing their pads for 100k miles". As such disconnecting probably "safest" option. All in all, I don't have much issue with it - I would not leave my car with the shop I don't trust and that is where it ends - I don't need to monitor them if I trust them... and I can appreciate if people prefer to be able to work in privacy and without being filmed and their private conversations with colleagues recorded (which may not be related with work). That said - it would be nice if Lexus had a little form where before leaving the car you just sign simple contract in plain language which states both rights and responsibilities of each side and not just leaving it to common sense and implied contracts. Example - one of the conditions could be "we do not allow recording on our premises, so any such devices will be disconnected during the service and connected after the service is complete", simple and nobody would have any suspicion or questions after that.

Indeed - nonsensical and transportation isn't even the biggest contributor. I always find this part the most annoying - any sensible person would look into the problem and say "ok we have this problem, where majority of it sits?... ok 40% is manufacturing, 30% is energy generation... that is majority! Let's tackle the biggest problems first, let's ramp-up nuclear to phase out coal and gas in electricity production and before we can really improve wind, solar, geothermic etc. That will give us biggest reduction of pollution in the shortest possible time and it does not rely on changing society, culture and people lives, so it could be done quickly and without people noticing much"... Right? That seems like obvious way! I am not saying that we don't need to tackle rest of the pollution, but starting from veganism and banning meat, throwing soup on painting and forcing people to cycle or walk, or gluing yourself on motorway (Insulate Britain is most ridiculous campaign, because they attacked cars despite wanting insulation) just doesn't seem like right place to start with when considering that these all issues combined is less than manufacturing alone!.. So yeah sure - we need to reduce pollution, but why start on minor contributors with most society impact and most dystopian and communist outcomes instead of starting with biggest impact? And as well once we clean-up our electricity, once we clean-up our manufacturing even BEVs going to be significantly more beneficial than they are now. I think we just starting from wrong end. It almost seems (and sorry for another conspiracy theory) that people pushing for it are more interested in changing society and pushing their political agenda, than really caring about environment. And that is why I call the movement anti-human - as far as I can see it is dystopian communism, anarchism and nihilism pushing their agenda forward masquerading as "environmentalists" here!

Yes ML has DVD, standard system does no have DVD. I doubt however you have 14 speakers, I reckon you have 14 speaker grilles, but in the place of central speaker there is just a hole (that is normal). Basically, non-ML cars still have grilled and place for 14th speaker, but it is just empty space.

Why don't you ask seller to sort it out? And yes - sadly no touch-up available as there are no colour code... but any sort of greyish paint would hide the scuffs fairly well.

Mark and Levinson units have optical connection, so if you don't have ML, then you don't have optic connection. By the looks of it, seems to me it is non-ML unit, so no optic connection. That is how ML units are marked:

You may be right... but I just don't see any positives when it comes to environmentalists. Not because they fighting for environment, but rather because it seems to me their movement was infiltrated and used for other means. Instead of making world a better place to live, they simply used environmentalist justification to make it dystopian, punish drivers and consumers and just extract more money out of it. The environment message is just being misused to make more money, but environment is not becoming better at all. Electric cars (as I am sure you will agree) probably does more harm than good, yet the environmental protection message was twisted so much that somehow BEVs are seen as solution they are not!

I am not defending politicians, I am just saying why she was specifically chosen and what are the reasons behind it. As well - her message is neither interesting, nor it is captivating, nor in fact it is her message (so I don't personally hate her)... she is just confused and misinformed child, being used to further somebodies' agenda. Kind of sad part of that - our society is so ignorant that they can't see past this facade and the big media plan really worked... Basically there is nobody around who can debunk her nonsense, she has genuine grass eating vegetables movement build behind her and because modern society is not used to think for themselves and never really looks into the message being pushed to them, rather the person who is telling it... this just simply works. What I am saying - modern society is easy to manipulate. The reason for this is - to understand whenever message is true or lie takes a lot of effort and fact checking, so many ignorant people have defaulted to personality cult, basically it matters more who is telling the message, rather the content of the message itself... and here is where child comes very handy, her personality is hard to tarnish and her message never really mattered anyway... so that is how her ideas are planted. But worry not - she is 20 now, so she will inevitably get some negative publicity by doing the things young people are doing and she will become obscure again. She already completed her role, she already put anti-human non-sense on agenda, so I doubt the forces behind her care... they will use her for few more years whilst they still can capitalise on her childhood and that is it. Damage is done already... now we just need time to fix it... hopefully we can do it before 2030 and the stupid ban can be averted.

Ohh... I just hope you don't think it is her achievement?! She had huge media monster behind her making out her as movement symbol. That is what she is - a symbol... she had not done anything extraordinary, she had not said anything smart, I even think there are more people who hate her than honestly are motivated by her, so I disagree she made people interested or captivated anyone (well maybe except the few throwing soup on paintings)... but people who runs media companies knows how to manipulate masses and what symbols they need to choose... having child as a symbol is very convenient because it is very hard for establishment (or anyone indeed) to attack child. For example when discussion happens about something in government or business it is very easy to accuse opposing politician or businessman of something they did in the past, make them look hypocrite, show that they have conflict of interest... do the whole ad-hominem thing to them and defeat their character without needing to look at their message or defeat their argument. But you can't do that with child - she has no career, she owns nothing of value, she can't be accused of any hidden agenda, business deals etc. She is a massive media opportunity, a shield for stupid idea which cannot be defeated, nor silenced by usual methods... but she personally is not magic and not special, it could have been any child, from any country and she just happened to be in the right place at the right time and is currently being used to push this toxic anti-human agenda... she is useful tool, that is all. I know that sounds cynical (it is cynical), but that is how mass media works (and mass media is cynical) - they are using child to push their agenda! Just this time around is little bit more sophisticated than those kids in Africa promoting charity donations, but principle is the same.

Well... I think it will be yesterdays news when we have Mirai 3 or whatever with that technology on the road. As of today HCEVs are build using Iridium and Platinum and what she saying is still correct and current news. Just look into BEV side - solid state batteries were invented in like 1834, still no viable production. Iron and aluminium batteries which can charge in 5 minutes on 500Kw charger have been invented even produced by company in Australia... still no viable production. So one thing is to have theory about how something works, then making prototype and proving it in practice ... and the other thing is to actually mass-producing it for consumers at sustainable rates, making it reliable and dependable technology. So I think when we are talking about technologies we need to think about this last point - as consumers we only care about technology when it is available to buy for us... that somebody somewhere in university has prototype or that NASA build one and sent to the space for $150 million does not help us when we go and buy the car tomorrow. That is not to say progress is not possible, that is not to say we can't build nuclear power plant dedicated for hydrogen production, but as of today we have not done so, we have not put those products into production and therefore it is too early to claim we have won 🙂

But it has accelerated in last 10 years from absolute fringe and prototype stage into something actually useable (like Mirai). If not for Mushk and his lies (and to be fair it was much more than Mushk, but he is one of the best know and biggest liars) then BEV would not have taken precedence over HCEV and I think that would have kept both technologies in competition and competition means progress. Now as it is our stupid politicians and large part of ignorant public just decided BEV will be default and that obviously does not help with HCEV development. As there are breakthrough in battery tech (check out aluminium/iron batteries) there are as well breakthrough in fuel cell tech (sadly cobalt phosphate does not sound like great solution... but nevertheless I am sure solutions are possible). In summary what I am saying - new technologies and progress are always good, even BEVs are very good compared to what we had even 10 years ago, but the danger is that we have forces which tries to muddle with progress and tries to get behind one technology over the other... and we may end-up with similar thing like fossil fuels lobby, which is not good for anyone. Ohhh... I have no about about it mate. There are smart people around the world who can find solutions to almost anything. Given enough time and resources I am sure we can find solution. My worry is just that some absolute idiots want's to ban existing and working technology by 2030 and force us to use BEV which is not ready yet and which can't satisfy the needs of majority of consumer... and that is just daft.

I find information very good and it kind of changed my mind slightly on HCEV i.e. before watching it I did not appreciate the limiting factor on Iridium and Platinum, I thought the issue is just getting carbon neutral and economically viable hydrogen (and that in my opinion is non issue with nuclear), but as usual it seems it is more complicated than just having enough hydrogen.

No... not all... I just surprised that this thread could overload anyone. In my view it is kind of light... few videos and not much heavy stuff, like reviewing regulations, laws etc. Or it might be the case of Renato just joking as well... Not taking it personally at all. P.S. - that is why I not posted the video I was referring to as I found it slightly boring to watch, but I watch like dozen of such videos everyday about variety of topics. For reference:

Interesting... that is about the amount of information I go trough before my each post to make sure it is somewhat objective. I wonder then how many people are posting things without research if this tread is to be considered "overload"...