A Bit of Center Console USB Charger Cleanup

 Inspired by the cigarette socket USB charger thingy I got for the GT-R, I purchased another but in the standard black color for the Lexus - the blue anodized one was almost twice as expensive - and since this is hidden away anyway...

Same USB-C charging cable as the one in the GT-R (there were 2 in the package)

Ever since I got the car, I had used a rather large cigarette socket charger that had two regular USB-A sockets, into which I plugged in a USB-A to USB-C cable.

What a mess

After installation of the new one, I realized it is so short that I could shut the cap!

But with two cables plugged in - one USB-A for the cell phone charger, and the USB-C to Lightning and USB-C for guest phones...

Now I can actually put stuff into the center console like drinks!

Here is a closer look at what I removed

I guess it still works, so I won't quite throw it away just yet...

Another LED Upgrade

So after one of my turn signals failed, I was too lazy to replace it myself. So, I rolled over to my local Lexus dealer for some (expensive) love.

While they were at it, I asked if they would make an exception to policy and replace the parking lamps up front, with LEDs. Amazingly, they agreed!

The OEM parking bulb is "white" but next to the HID low beam, looks orange-ish.

Courtesy ClubLexus.com

From Car and Driver

Thanks to both sources for the photos of the OEM parking lights - I forgot to take photos of my own car, so have to borrow these photos.

Anyway, as the mechanics replaced the burnt out turn signal bulb, they went ahead and installed these:

So 5000K whiteness, and 110LM.

I chose these bulbs because of their high lumen capacity, and also because 5000K is probably similar to the kind of whiteness we now see on modern car's lighting.

The result:

At the dealership, I couldn't contain my excitement. Excuse the lens flare!

Because of the flare, I decided to try again at home:

This time better. Amazing how bright those little LEDs are, except in this photo it's hard to tell anything other than the whiteness

The actual brightness, compared to the other bulbs on the car, is as above. I guess here the brightness of the foglights serve as the primary lightsource for the iPhone camera. Because:

With the foglights off. No, the LEDs aren't any brighter, it's just the way the light affects the iPhone camera.

In any case - the white parking light, adds a modern touch to the car. The only thing left to finish it off would be LED foglights.  And of course, I'm already planning for this. Except, I wonder if there is a way to deal with the orange-ish high beams first?

OEM Navigation and TV Bypass Kit

When the car was delivered to me, the salesman, Aoki-san, mentioned in a soft voice to me that "for a small fee we can do the Navi/TV workaround..."  He explained of course that, as the OEM Navigation and digital TV do not allow for inputs/TV viewing while the car is in motion, that there are aftermarket kits available to handle this.  The installation of this kit, however, falls into a "grey zone"- that is, a Lexus dealership shouldn't really be advocating such a work around for obvious reasons.

Of course, the solution is to say that, this aftermarket convenience feature was being added in order to allow the front seat PASSENGER to make such adjustments while the driver remains focused on driving.  Of course.

In any case, I did some Internet research and found that there are several kits available, with various pricing, all purporting to do the same thing.  However, some kits apparently worked better than others, based on reviews by users and purchasers.  Beat-Sonic sells than, and even Toyota tuner TOM's has a product.  To be honest, it rapidly became too confusing to determine which brand would work without any problems. 

So, at this point I gave up and decided to go the dealership route, as presumably they had installed a bunch and would know which ones work best with the IS F.

By sheer coincidence, when closely inspecting my car a few days before visiting the dealership, I found this on the plastic next to the driver's left knee:

My first clue that the previous owners had aftermarket items on the car!
Remember the shape of the curved portion next to the white tape residue...

Given its location, my guess was that there was something, likely a switch, attached by double sided tape to this area.  It would likely be a switch because it is too low for anything visual to be mounted, and so far in my research on popular add-ons to this car in Japan, I've only seen the electronic throttle controller, radar detectors, and yes the OEM navigation/TV "jumper" kits. 

So when I visited the dealership on Saturday, they showed me which kit they use for the navi/TV jumper kit: 

Interestingly, this is not a brand that I found during my searches, so I'm hoping this works better than the others out there which had mediocre reviews.  Ishikawa-san explained to me that essentially all these kits work the same (which results in the GPS signal being temporarily lost while the Navi is used), however what is good about this kit is that it has two buttons (versus the one button for the TOM's kit) which allows separate overriding of the Navi and TV, versus having to scroll through options that a single button setup requires).

Here is the button for this kit:

The one on the left (right one does Navi only) - from: http://www.datasystem.co.jp/products/tvnavi/01.html

Now when, after the fact, I researched this product, I found that they actually had a model which used an OEM type switch, which eliminates the need for this kind of button switch, and of course looks OEM.

Initially I was annoyed, but then when I viewed the videos on its use, I realized that the two type, red and green button was much easier to use, even though yes the OEM type switch looks better. 

So, I guess I'll have to figure out another use for this blanked off switch (and yes, the "blankness" really bothers me, especially given that this car had all the JDM options):

Center switch is to heat the windshield to melt any snow on the wipers (Part of the cold climate region package)

Any ideas? Something that looks OEM...Actually I don't really need that coin tray either, huh.

And by the way here is where I ended up having them install the two button switch.

Surprise surprise almost in the same identical spot...

So given its location, and the shape of the switch (as extrapolated from the first photo)  I'm guessing the prior owner also had the same kit installed...(and this means that Lexus just made a few more bucks off me...lol)

Incidentally as I said my good-byes after having ordered a few optional extras, Ishikawa-san slipped me the TRD ISF parts catalog....

oh.... this is SO tempting...