the shift gate surround (the piece that goes around the perimeter of the gated part with the PRNDL) on our 99 gs400 is badly scratched by previous owner. someone told me that he thought he saw this piece in chrome on a gs430. ours is just plain black plastic... is this true? if so i gotta start looking for one!

 

My 2001 GS430:

 

damn so there is a chrome surround... mine is just plain black plastic, and badly scratched at that

i'm too afraid to ask how much that piece costs from the dealer...

 

I believe the dealer used to sell the the chrome piece by itself before, however now they don't.

 

denied!

what about the ashtray? ours is just plain black plastic... is the wood a gs430 thing also?

 

Yes. But this, you can buy separately. It is not cheap though. When they (rarely) show up here in the classifieds, thye go for between 150 - 200. I don't know how much they are from the dealer but I can only imagine that it is higher than that.

 

If I recall correctly, Darrel quoted me a price of $223 or there abouts for the wooden ash tray.

Wood veneer covered ash tray unit for center console from 2001+ model
years. 74101-30130 $221.99

That was in January of this year.
Replacing the black plastic shift bezel is about $8.00 The 2001+ chrome bezel is no longer offered as a separate item by Lexus. When one shows up around here it always attracts a lot of attention and the going price seems to be in the $75 range for one in good shape.

 

does ne1 have instructions on how to pull this bezel off?

 

Put shift lever in low gear position
Unscrew shift ****
open ash tray
reach up under inside lip of ash tray housing and pull straight back and slightly up
disconnect light and lighter jacks behind ashtray
open center console lid
carefully pry up wood trim of center piece where it meet storage compartment of center console
once elevated slightly in back pull front part out from where it meets the dash.
Lift up over shift lever
remove bezel

 

Or you can do this and remove the console and the ash tray as one piece. quicker.

 

i don't understand