I just got the kit from Prestigious Society for my 2010 Lexus RX350. Arrived quickly with great instructions, but I am to cautious to install it myself. Has anyone gone this route and installed or had it installed? I'd be curious to see. I'm gonna be calling a few stereo installation shops in the next few days to set up an appointment and wanted to know what others have paid for their installation.

 

congrats on the kit, i plan on getting one myself in a few months. it is strictly plug and play, should take your car audio installer no more than 1 hr to do this job. let us know when it's installed. good luck!

 

i am interested in this as well, let us know how it goes after installation.

 

2010 RX350, Premium and Comfort Package. No DVD Entertainment

Everything went perfect and as advertised. You are now reading the post of a very HAPPY override owner.

I purchased the override from Prestigious Society www.prestigioussociety.com after several emails to Mike about my concerns. I received the kit about 4 days after payment and installed it yesterday with help of a friend who is pretty good at this kind of stuff in his spare time. I took the family to luch as payment to him.

The instructions are spot on, everything you need to ask is right there for you. It was a breeeze to do. For a very expensive car, the whole thing is made out of plastic on the inside, but that's another post.

One note to anyone doing this: When you get to the part of connecting the harness to the back of the Nav unit, there are 2 harnesses on the unit. The top harness won't fit with on the override. You'll have to connect it to the 2nd harness beneath the top harness in the back. Instructions only mention one harness and it appears to be the top harness and that one is the wrong one. You'll have to undo it to get to the second one, but it's easy.

The total installation time including driving around and testing it before securing all the panels took 3 hours. The next time around, even I would be albe to do it in about an hour. It's the "see one-do one" approach.

It helps to have small hands and a limber back as you will need to invert to get the screws out of the radio.


How it works: There are 2 modes:
1) Auto Mode: It's default state every time you start the vehicle is just as the factory installed it. All grayed options remain gray when in motion. There's a switch that you can place anywhere. I have mine next to the steering wheel. Pressing the switch once while stopped or in motion gives you access to everything immediately. This access lasts for 5 minutes...enough for you to input your information or make a call. At the end of the 5 minutes, the icons will gray out and go back to factory defaults. You can repeat this as many times as you wish. When using the override mode so all icons are available, you will not be able to track your movement on the Nav map screen. Don't get bummed at this. Remember that the reason you're pressing the button in the first place is to do something that isn't on the map in the first place. Pressing the switch before the 5 minutes is up will gray out the buttons and also allow you to resume real time tracking on the map.

2) Manual Mode: There is a manual mode feature that allows total access all the time.

The price was $299. I thought it was a great deal and would reccommend it to anyone even remotely annoyed with the default limitations. I've driven the RX for about 4 hours yesterday and 4 hours today and love it. It's allready made my life much better and I feel like I've just bought another new Lexus.

 

thanks for the feedback, i am a little disappointed that its not install once and forget, but you have to click the button every time you want to use it.

you mention you placed the button by the steering wheel, is there is a wire going out from the dash? i would prefer to put in a location that is easily reachable by both driver and passenger as my wife would probably use it more often than me.

also, did you take any photos while installing the kit?

 

congrats on the PS kit. you have PM

 

It comes with a cable that is about 6 feet long and can be placed anywhere within that range. Double stick tape for sticking included. The on/off functionality is probably because due to the Lexus software limitations. Hey, it's soooooo much better than pulling and stopping off the road just to enter an address or make a call from your contacts. Or going into the settings and adjusting the volume of the voice feedback.

This unit has saved me about 15 times in the last 2 days. I'm the type of guy that has an idea of what to do while the car was moving only to stop the car and then forget what it was I wanted to do while I was driving. Hmmm, should a guy like me really be driving? It's like going into the garage to get something and then forgetting what it was I was going to get. This kit eliminiates all of that. I'll absolutely buy my next kit from Prestigious Society for my next car.
Jeff

 

+1 here. I just finished having mine installed. I may have been able to do it myself but I just didnt have the time. The only possible issue is removing the two bolts holding the radio in - the vertical ones. If you are patient, it should not be a problem. I happened to be in the Louisville area and Prestigious' local dealer Roberts, installed it. Took about 1hr, 15mins.

I use it in manual mode. I have the Rear Seat Entertainment System and everything is working to my satisfaction. Mark Hou of Prestigious was extremely helpful during my attempted self-installation. I also will definately buy from Prestigious Society again. I am really pleased that I now have full functionality restored to my vehicle.

Jeff

 

just curious... does installing something like this void the lexus warranty in any way? thanks...

 

I called 3 dealers before purchasing, told them I was a current owner and not potential customer (as they might say anything to get me in the door), asked them about installing it (which they won't), and about the warranty. All three said it would not void the warranty and wished me good luck.

 

^ correct, the PS kit should not void the warranty. it is strictly a plug and play device. if there is a problem with either your navi/ML audio, just unplug the kit to bring it back to stock, then take your car in for warranty coverage.

 

Guys...is there anything out there that is literally "fire and forget"? My issue is constantly having to depress a switch and lose the tracking. Has anyone heard of a software hack? Since this is just software, there must be a way around this.

 

there maybe a software hack in the future, but it's not available now. you do know that once you've finished inputting your destination, you can press the button again to turn the override off right? this will bring you back to normal tracking and everything back to normal again. this really is not a big issue.

 

Pressing a button for now is really very easy. The nav resumes in about 2 seconds. You can't travel very far in 2 seconds anyway. If you take into consideration the time to pull over, stop the car, enter the information, then merge back into traffic. you've wasted 2 to 5 minutes.

Next time, for example, that you want to find an address, time yourself. Then factor in the pre frustration levels that are at work in your mind (or at least were in my mind) at the fact that not only did I have to come to an almost stop but I had to stop moving just to get what I wanted.

The time wasted factor was one issue, but just the overall idea that I couldn't do this on my terms, on my time, when I wanted to made me very angry. I started thinking back to the 60's and the freedom marches and the peace movement and free love (wait, I'm getting off track).

One thing I did to see if I would even like the idea of having to press a button was this: The next time I wanted to input something I pressed my finger on the dash board in a place that the button could be. Then I thought about how I was still driving at the same time. Boom...decision made.

There is no fix at this moment to allow everything to be perfect 100 percent of the time, but this is 99.999999999999999999% there.

You'll be so thankful that you only need to press a button instead of waste 5 minutes trying to find a safe spot to pull off and then reenter traffic again. What if you're on the freeway or along so many roads that say "No parking this side of street"? Hope this helps.
Jeff

 

Having no mechanical ability myself, Cartunes Atlanta (cartunesatlanta.com) installed the nav override this morning and everything works just like promised. I exchanged e-mails with Mark at Prestigious Society a couple times and he was extremely responsive.

The installation guy at Cartunes has been there about 25 years and did a custom installation that I think looks great.