03Lexus

Hi Guys. This is my first post so im a noob here. I have an 03 LS430 with the standard pioneer radio (no nav). My HU part number is P6811. I wanted to upgrade it to either (or both) satellite radio and/or ipod adapter. Doing some research, I found a mint condition 05 radio (P6836) that has the am/sat button to add sat radio. I bought it for a reasonable price (came out of a car with 35K, and shows it). I installed it this morning and everything was great. That was until I realized I lost my steering wheel controls, which I use religiously . Each radio head has two connectors. The main one (one left) is the same on both. The smaller one next to it is different on both radios. My male harness from my car would not interface with the 05 radio. Im assuming thats where the steering wheel controls come in. I put my old one back in and left that smaller harness unplugged. Sure enough, no steering wheel control. It worked as soon as I plugged it in.

Now my thoughts are what should I do? The reason I upgraded was most manufacturers of these devices show 04-06 radios as compatible (because they use sat radio for emulation I guess, plus it will show text). Should I sent the 05 radio back (or sell) or is there someone who can give me a pinout diagram of both radios and I can try to interface it? Or will it just not work?

This is very frustrating. I dont want to use my tape adapter with my ipod anymore! It just looks out of place in a car like this.

Can anyone offer some advice? I hope I posted this in the proper forum. Thanks to anyone that can help.

p.s. The new radio worked perfect all with the exception of steering wheel controls. The second male harness for my radio only had two wires in it. But there was room for many more, fwiw.

McSwine

Well, I see you already have another radio, but I added one of these to my non-nav 2002 LS. I only used the aux input for sat radio since I don't do ipod, but the ipod input is there if you want it. It was easy to install and worked great.

http://www.ipodcarpros.com/product_i...roducts_id=166

03Lexus

McSwine,

Did you lose steering wheel controls? Does it show text on the display?

Thanks!

McSwine

I did not lose steering wheel control because all it did is add a hardwired aux input. No text is displayed, but as I mentioned I only used the aux input aspect of the gizmo for sat radio, not the ipod input (but I doubt any ipod info would be displayed, either).

It connects to the back of the CD changer, if I remember correctly. If you push the CD button on your headunit once, it played CD's; if you pressed it a second time, it used the aux input. Sound quality is excellent since it is hardwired.

Hope this makes sense.

Kansas

Have you checked out sat radio and iPod integration products from http://www.vaistech.com ?

03Lexus

Hey guys. I figured it out after tracing down both technical service manuals for both radios. The 03 radio (P6811) has the same main harness as the 06 (P6836), but the second, smaller harness went from 6 pin to a12 pin. My 6 pin connector only had two wires going to it, a red and green (both with silver dots). Turns out they went into the (txs+) pin and (txs-) pin on the smaller 6 pin connector, pins 3 and 4. On the newer radios, those pins were moved to the main 20 pin harness. On my harness, there were just blanks there, What I did was remove the pins from the second smaller male side of the harness and place them into the appropriate slots on my 20 pin. I plugged the radio in, power cycle the car a few times and the radio and bingo, the steering wheel controls came back online. The pins they have to go to on the main harness I believe are pins 4 and 17. On both harnesses the pins are directly above and below each other.

The txs wires are for the CAN Bus communications system that Pioneer uses to integrate with other electronics, esentially a low voltage serial connection. Thats why the car didnt recognize the radio (even though it still played). I did have to reset all the error codes in the radio before it came online. To put these radios in test mode, hold down presets 1 and 6 and then press the disc button 3 times. Then push the track up button. Keep pushing up and you should see all "good"'s. Hold down button 5 to clear all codes, then restart everything (car and radio). Good luck and if you have any questions please post or PM.

Anyone want a mint 03 radio with changer? $275

Now to order a kit....either vais or Isimple gateway.

Thanks!