neova

I had a Sirius Starmate Replay from my IS300 and I had to find a place in my new IS250 to mount. Back in the IS300 I had it mounted in the JDM dash tray and hid the wires behing the centre console for a clean look, but there isn't a dash tray in the new IS so I had to find a place.

Of course, if you don't already have a sirius stand alone player, you should go buy a sirius tuner for the IS and have an integrated solution.

Below are some photos of my install:

Installation requires
- Sirius Starmate Replay
- Sirius Car Kit (antenna, power source, winshield mounting kit)
- A very small screwdriver (3mm wide and 1mm thick flathead)
- Patience!
- Time: 30min to 45min (90% of the time was spent carfully tucking the wires underneath the trim for a clean look without scratching the interior)


Open the ashtray cover and remove the tray and power socket


Take out the metal clip inside the tray


From the car kit attach the arm to the mounting plate, but take off the arm and the suction cup and only leave the stub on as shown


Plug the radio power source into the power socket and stuff the extra wires into the re-installed tray


Start installing the antenna wires from the driver side leaving enough slack to cover the length along the seams upto the centre console. This is where your small flathead screwdriver come into play. You have to be patient and careful not to damage the wires or your interior trim while pushing the wires into the seams in between the trim pieces. You have to push the wires in deep enough so there is no more gap between the trims. This took me 35-min alone!


With the antenna end weave it underneath the driver seats behind the seat rails then along the floor to the rear seats and up to the rear windshield deck


Wedge the antenna against the windshield to hold it in place


Hide the excess antenna wires between the seats and the body frame


You can now attach the Sirius radio into the mounting bracket and slot it into the hole from the tray and it should sit perfectly! Note: if you don't have the mounting bracket/arm assembly from the car kit then you can still just place the radio on top of the ashtray but because nothing is sticking out from behind the radio to wedge itself into the ashtray slot it will move while driving which is annoying.

The manual shifter gets in the way of seeing the radio display in 1st, 3rd and 5th but shouldn't be a problem with the automatics. it's not the best place for a radio since I have to look down while driving but this is okay since I don't (and shouldn't be) surfing channels while driving anyways. I didn't have to hard wire the radio since with this install all the wires are hidden in underneath the radio in the ashtray

Cheers!

IronPhoenX

Nice install. That's similar to how I set up my Nuvi 660 GPS. I even removed the metal clip, like you did. I'll post pics later. It sits really low but I don't need to look down cause the GPS pronounces all the turns and street names.

WhatYaGot

Thanks for sharing this information neova!

mr350

Great write-up!

One question. Do you use the FM modulator to make the audio connection or did you hardwire it to the AUX jack?

istundra

iTrader: (2)

AUX jack would have far superior sound. Might as well run the wire for that too!