It gets crazy hot and cold here too and my Phoenix works just fine :). Fired right up at -3F this past weekend and has gotten hot as well. In a perfect world the non-nav conversion and a generic Android head unit that retains the stock A/C controls is the best way to go. I probably would have...
ML and Nav do make things hard. The Phoenix does have all of that integrated, so it's plug-and-play other than running and mounting a new backup camera. You do lose most (but not all) of the physical HVAC buttons and the volume button. I'd have preferred to keep the physical buttons, but it's...
Regarding the CarPlay upgrade, you won't find a lot of love on here for these, but I have one and honestly it's been pretty good:
https://phoenixautomotiveinc.com/products/g6-octa-core-10-4-vertical-screen-android-9-0-fast-boot-navigation-radio-for-lexus-gx-470-2003-2009
Mine has the Sergey...