Curiouser and curiouser......... I parked next to an ES350 at work today - no NAV, no ML but it had a cassette deck (?!) I'm going to visit the dealership tomorrow or wednesday and will check out their cars.

Is this a great site or what! You are just going to have to go to your dealer when you are ready to buy and find out what the cars they are selling have installed as far as cassette decks if that is something that is important to you.

Dave Mac

Exactly what the salesperson told me back in August of 06 when I was thinking of buying a non NAV unit. No NAV, no cassette. Don't know about region specific, but my car came from Newark, NJ

Not sure why but my ES350 bought in Greenville, SC. has the deck. I do have nav but no Mark L.

I have the cassette but do not want to use it or even have to look at it.

Really? I'll trade ya!

Yeah, that annoys me too. I wanted a color combo that isn't available in my region. It would have mollified me somewhat if they just didn't make that combo (even tho many other car manufacturers do, and it even comes in different Lexus models like the IS). Then, I find out the combo does exist, just not in my region.

Argghhh. Oh well, at least it's not something that would have bothered me as much as missing HIDs.

OT, but that's an interesting--if not unique--combo; I personally don't know of any that have that exact combo (nav but no Mark Levinson).

Really? Every non-UL unit with NAV in this region is without ML. Unless special ordered.

I think that's cuz that combo is not available in our (CA) region.

Lucky you. I have the Nav with the "Premium" (i.e. not ML) stereo. The standard "premium" stereo sounds worse than my two-year-old's Fisher Price piano. The ML models are very hard to come by in MD. Does it cost an extra $4K to get the ML on top of the Nav in CA?

Are the UL's on a wait list? Got mine in August of 06 and was lucky my dealer in Northern VA had it on the show room floor.

I agree, the premium radio system could be of better quality for a Lexus.

An extra $2K is what it works out to I believe. $4K is what we have to pay b/c we have to buy the nav and the ML system together. Split them up and it's about $2K each. Then another $6K for the UL stuff. Total, the UL is about $10K on top of the base price. Of course, here, if you want the UL, you have to buy all $10K worth of the stuff. Can't break any of it apart. Your only real option is whether it comes with the spoiler or not and whether you want the accessory package or not (and the accessory package is pretty hard to not buy). I actually didn't want the wheel locks in the accessory package, but since I wanted the other two accessories, it wasn't worth trying to find a car without the accessory package (or nagging a dealer to take it off).

I'm with ya there. I could not believe that migrated from the 330 to the 350. No wonder I bought an IS. [Just lurking the "New Posts" for once.]

Well, I went to the dealer today and drove the ES350 and the IS250. Having driven BMWs for the last 30 years, I felt more at home in the IS 250, so I'll probably go in that direction.

But I got an answer to my question - In 2008, the cassette deck comes with cars wih NAV and/or ML but not on the base system! The lady that parks next to me has neither but does have the cassette (she might have a 2007). But it's no longer available on cars with just the base audio system (at least in the Southeast and for 2008)!

Go figure.........................