99 LX470 simple replacement head unit....suggestions? (1 Viewer)

[ramangain]

Both of the unit links above are good. I like them also because the cd slot is accessible without the screen moving (less motorized features to fail)

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This, as sometimes the motorized face can get stuck on the surround/trim piece you'll probably install as well.

 

[KliersLC]

Flint, one thing you may want to consider, or at the least have the wife try one out in someone else's car--the volume knob. For the last 20 years, I have driven 1990s era Toyotas with factory stereos. My current 100 has a very nice touch screen unit similar to the one posted above, and I cannot stand it. I find myself fumbling for the volume button while driving and consistently changing the input, or the radio station, or something else. I thought at first that I would eventually get used to it, but it has been 9 months, and I still glare at the infernal thing every time I get in the 100. My daughter's 100 has a single din pioneer deck with a volume knob and I have no issues with it. My wife's LX has the nakamichi with broken CD changer, so I am watching closely to see what you come up with.

Good luck!

 

[dbfw]

^Yes! I agree with that 100%. One of the big reasons I prefer older vehicles is tactile controls. I think having to delve into layered menus on a touchscreen just to change the temperature or fan speed is just a horrible experience in newer cars. The one thing I don't love about the unit I chose is its lack of physical buttons. But, it seems pretty tough to get away from these days if you want the other conveniences of Apple Car Play, etc.

 

[flintknapper]

Flint, one thing you may want to consider, or at the least have the wife try one out in someone else's car--the volume knob. For the last 20 years, I have driven 1990s era Toyotas with factory stereos. My current 100 has a very nice touch screen unit similar to the one posted above, and I cannot stand it. I find myself fumbling for the volume button while driving and consistently changing the input, or the radio station, or something else. I thought at first that I would eventually get used to it, but it has been 9 months, and I still glare at the infernal thing every time I get in the 100. My daughter's 100 has a single din pioneer deck with a volume knob and I have no issues with it. My wife's LX has the nakamichi with broken CD changer, so I am watching closely to see what you come up with.

Good luck!

Excellent point. She is very much used to having a physical knob to control the volume. It is ingrained in her muscle memory and she will NOT like having to navigate through a touch screen to accomplish that. A remote control would be acceptable.

 

[ramangain]

Be wary; remotes ain't all they are cracked up to be. They have buttons, and you either need to fumble for the remote AND hit the right button, or have it attached to the steering wheel AND still hit the right button. Don't be a knob; find a head unit with a volume knob. It's the one drawback of my 8500NEX that I'd trade in a heartbeat for many of the other useless gagedts it contains.

 

[KliersLC]

Be wary; remotes ain't all they are cracked up to be. They have buttons, and you either need to fumble for the remote AND hit the right button, or have it attached to the steering wheel AND still hit the right button. Don't be a knob; find a head unit with a volume knob. It's the one drawback of my 8500NEX that I'd trade in a heartbeat for many of the other useless gagedts it contains.

Steering wheel mounted remotes are good, but I lump them in with the "things that are useful, until they are not." 1.Adjusting toyota cruise control on a winding road
2. Controlling the radio with steering controls on the same winding road.
3. Trying to control the radio when the remote's battery has died.
4. Trying to find batteries for said remote in rural west Virginia at 8 pm on a Sunday.
5. Floor mounted dimmer switch with a manual transmission. I invariably meet a car while shifting.

Mine has physical buttons for the volume, but they don't stand out enough to find without looking away from the road, and I have ape hands so I invariably push multiple buttons and hit the touch screen.

 

[Pucker5]

These dudes are spot on, knob is king. A s***ty knob is all bad though. Jvc/Kenwood knobs suck. Alpine knobs are the busine$$ with pioneer being pretty close. Again, I dislike the tron looking display but this is a super competent unit for a double din and has large buttons for the less sophisticated user should one ever be in the cockpit of your fine rocket ship. good eq and 4v Preouts...bling bling

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[flintknapper]

These dudes are spot on, knob is king. A s***ty knob is all bad though. Jvc/Kenwood knobs suck. Alpine knobs are the busine$$ with pioneer being pretty close. Again, I dislike the tron looking display but this is a super competent unit for a double din and has large buttons for the less sophisticated user should one ever be in the cockpit of your fine rocket ship. good eq and 4v Preouts...bling bling

Pioneer 2-din Bluetooth CD Receiver - Fh-s722bs for sale online | eBay

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for Pioneer 2-din Bluetooth CD Receiver - Fh-s722bs at the best online prices at eBay! Free shipping for many products!

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I could live with something like that. Still looking around. Keep them coming guys. Appreciate all suggestions.

 

[shtbrwn86]

How about something like this?

Kenwood Excelon DDX396

DVD receiver

www.crutchfield.com

 

[shtbrwn86]

Can you tell me what model that is...?

I like that unit a lot.

Sorry for the delay. It's an INE-W960 HDMI. I bought mine used so it's like 2 years old, but they have the W970 now too. There are lots of slight variations, but if you just start searching for INE-W... you will find them. I really like the looks and sound of the stereo. It was the most factory looking one I could find, but the buttons are a little hard to find without taking your eyes off the road. They are still better than the tiny little buttons on so many stereos these days.

 

[shtbrwn86]

Makes sense, I have a bunch of CDs that are now just collecting dust unless I drive my other car.

From what I've seen, everyone who has tried to order pins and a crimper haven't had success getting them to fit into the connector. They then end up having to just bite the bullet and buy the repair terminals. I just went that route from the beginning and I think it saved me a lot of time and frustration. Pricey for sure considering they're just wires, but just figure it as part of the upgrade cost and that you don't have to pay a shop to hack up your wiring and you're still ahead. Also, not all dealers will say the connector exists, if your order ends up cancelled, I'll let you know which place came through for me. I ended up just shotgunning orders after having a few cancelled.

Yes, the instructions in that thread will get you a setup that will plug directly into the truck side connector and will utilize the factory amp and antenna functions. The only functionality I lost was the antenna lowering when switching to an input other than radio (i.e. playing a CD). Since most of the newer vehicles use fixed antennas now, my Pioneer didn't have a separate antenna trigger wire, so I had to just wire it to the amp turn on trigger wire. So, the antenna goes up when the unit powers on, and stays up until it powers off regardless of whether you're listening to the radio or a CD. Not too big of a deal for me, but don't be surprised if you find that too.

This! ^^^^^^ I bought the ends and a pretty nice crimper but it wasn't good enough. The crimps need to be PERFECT for them to work. Maybe other connectors are more forgiving but the Toyota one is not. One of my biggest pet peeves is when people hack up the factory harnesses in a way that is hard to go back to how it was. This will cost you about $100 in wires but IMO it's the way to go.

 

[flintknapper]

Sorry for the delay. It's an INE-W960 HDMI. I bought mine used so it's like 2 years old, but they have the W970 now too. There are lots of slight variations, but if you just start searching for INE-W... you will find them. I really like the looks and sound of the stereo. It was the most factory looking one I could find, but the buttons are a little hard to find without taking your eyes off the road. They are still better than the tiny little buttons on so many stereos these days.

Thank You so much. So far....I like the looks of that head unit the best. I'll check into this first. Appreciate your time and suggestion.

 

[Todd Atchison]

I'm currently trying to determine if I can fix my stock HU or must replace. Does anyone know what United Radio charges (ballpark) to referbish a 6CD and Casette combo for a 1998 (Non-ML I think). That brings up another question how do I know if mine is a Mark Levinson / Nakamichi or not? I'm kind of hoping it isn't. It doesn't say it anywhere on the unit. As I understand it, I can buy a LC harness and it will work with almost any HU if it's a ML well then.... thus the nature of these posts. Thanks in advance. I'd really like to keep the stock HU so if anyone has any good feedback on United Radio I would be grateful. Or if anyone has a functional unit let me know.

 

[flintknapper]

I'm currently trying to determine if I can fix my stock HU or must replace. Does anyone know what United Radio charges (ballpark) to referbish a 6CD and Casette combo for a 1998 (Non-ML I think). That brings up another question how do I know if mine is a Mark Levinson / Nakamichi or not? I'm kind of hoping it isn't. It doesn't say it anywhere on the unit. As I understand it, I can buy a LC harness and it will work with almost any HU if it's a ML well then.... thus the nature of these posts. Thanks in advance. I'd really like to keep the stock HU so if anyone has any good feedback on United Radio I would be grateful. Or if anyone has a functional unit let me know.

Post a picture of your head unit and we can tell you. Also put the year model of your vehicle in your signature line so that in the future we will know immediately what we are dealing with. Most repair shops will not work on these older units (Nakamichi 6 disc) if that is what you have.

IF you have the Nakamichi unit...it is destined to fail at some point (ERR3) code. So it is probably in your best interest to replace with something more modern....in which case you are welcome to join this thread. If your purpose is only to try to find a repair shop for your current unit, please start a new thread so that this one doesn't get side tracked.

Thanks.

 

[Todd Atchison]

Post a picture of your head unit and we can tell you. Also put the year model of your vehicle in your signature line so that in the future we will know immediately what we are dealing with. Most repair shops will not work on these older units (Nakamichi 6 disc) if that is what you have.

IF you have the Nakamichi unit...it is destined to fail at some point (ERR3) code. So it is probably in your best interest to replace with something more modern....in which case you are welcome to join this thread. If your purpose is only to try to find a repair shop for your current unit, please start a new thread so that this one doesn't get side tracked.

Thanks.

Thanks flntknapper good advice. Here are the pics and I promise to stay on topic.

It looks like I will be replacing the unit sadly. It's giving the ERR3 code. It played a CD for a minute then died. The cassette works but actually made Bob Dylan sound good, so that can't be a good sign. In all seriousness, I may give one quick attempt at pulling and cleaning, I'm sure it's pretty filthy, but not much more. It would be great to know I can use the LC harness. Thanks in advance.

 

[gil12]

What about switching to the 1999 land cruiser head unit? Has knobs, cd player, and a high tech cassette player. (The crowd says "wow!")

 

[Todd Atchison]

What about switching to the 1999 land cruiser head unit? Has knobs, cd player, and a high tech cassette player. (The crowd says "wow!")

Wow! So I guess this is the LC compatible model? I'd love to keep those mix tapes coming! If I can confirm that I have the comparable model I would love too! Easy cheesy!

 

[dbfw]

@Todd Atchison FWIW, I think I saw someone else on here with a 1998 "premium sound" system and it turned out to use the same connector as the 99 w/Nakamichi. I think the easiest way is to pop it out and count the pins on the connector, if it has 22 pins, then you'd need to follow the Nakamichi adapter instructions to make something work.

To bring this back on topic, the Kenwood posted above looks like it has great buttons. @flintknapper one thing to pay attention to when choosing anything with a touchscreen is whether it has a capacitive or resistive screen. A capacitive touchscreen will respond like a modern smart phone, it only takes a light touch to activate. A resistive touchscreen will be like older OEM nav units, it takes a good hard press of the screen to activate, and is much more difficult to use precisely. When I did my upgrade, I also considered other Toyota/Lexus OEM units, but never looked too closely into it as I wanted Android Auto and the other modern features. I'd be curious if anyone has gone that route for just basic CD and radio functionality.

 

[KliersLC]

This is the one I have in my LC. I am considering just finding a stock head unit to put in its place. I like the bluetooth, and it sounds really good. Other than that, I hate it. Even though the buttons appear to be easy to push, my success rate for changing the volume without taking my eyes off the road is about 1 in 5. It is very likely that your wife, is A) smarter than me, B) less clumsy than me, and C)not a knuckle dragger, so she might do just fine. YMMV.

 

[flintknapper]

@Todd Atchison FWIW, I think I saw someone else on here with a 1998 "premium sound" system and it turned out to use the same connector as the 99 w/Nakamichi. I think the easiest way is to pop it out and count the pins on the connector, if it has 22 pins, then you'd need to follow the Nakamichi adapter instructions to make something work.

To bring this back on topic, the Kenwood posted above looks like it has great buttons. @flintknapper one thing to pay attention to when choosing anything with a touchscreen is whether it has a capacitive or resistive screen. A capacitive touchscreen will respond like a modern smart phone, it only takes a light touch to activate. A resistive touchscreen will be like older OEM nav units, it takes a good hard press of the screen to activate, and is much more difficult to use precisely. When I did my upgrade, I also considered other Toyota/Lexus OEM units, but never looked too closely into it as I wanted Android Auto and the other modern features. I'd be curious if anyone has gone that route for just basic CD and radio functionality.

Excellent advice to check the connector. It makes a huge difference as to what must be done to install an aftermarket unit.


Thanks for the info on 'touch screen', I was completely unaware of that.