bluetooth?? :uh:
Lead Lap
Joined: Jan 2004
Posts: 3,595
Likes: 271
From: Kansas
Geez guys, this is just one of the components for the one of the old dealer installed Lexus phone systems. You don't have a handset or a charging cradle in the console? There were two handsets available for the 1998 model year -- a wireless handset and an old style fixed phone.
If there is no handset cradle in the console, then a previous owner must have removed it. The little microphone on the headliner has me confused. The microphone for the Lexus phone system was in the control module attached to the steering wheel.
The cool thing about the gen 2 GS up to 2000 is that some of the phone prewiring can be easily used for an aftermarket Bluetooth kit. Somewhere under the console of your 98 GS there should be a six pin phone connector with the middle front pin being an audio system mute. Plugging an aftermarket Bluetooth kit's mute wire into the middle front pin makes the radio mute automatically when a phone call is in progress.
You might want to remove the components for the old Lexus phone system or at least disconnect them -- they are worthless since the old phone system was analog. You don't have to remove the control unit from the steering wheel -- you can leave it place unless you want to remove it and buy the little plastic blank to cover the hole.
Check the trunk for a phone ECU and, if there, unplug the connectors. If there are two big connectors that plug together, then do it to complete the circuit. I've only worked with this stuff in the LS -- the phone ECU could be under the back seat in a GS.
I use the under-console mute pin with the aftermarket phone kit in my 00 LS400. My 00 LS also has a phone antenna imprinted on the inside of the rear window which I use to boost the signal on my GSM phone ... don't know if would work with Verizon's CDMA, etc. Your GS may also have an imprinted phone antenna ... if so, there is a coax cable under the center console for it if you wanted to use a charging cradle with the rear window antenna for a modern phone.
The same phone charging bases with interchangeable cradles sold by Lexus dealers in the U.K. and Europe are available pretty cheap on eBay -- search for "Bury" in the phone section of eBay. Bury is the European company that makes this stuff for Lexus and Toyota.
If there is no handset cradle in the console, then a previous owner must have removed it. The little microphone on the headliner has me confused. The microphone for the Lexus phone system was in the control module attached to the steering wheel.
The cool thing about the gen 2 GS up to 2000 is that some of the phone prewiring can be easily used for an aftermarket Bluetooth kit. Somewhere under the console of your 98 GS there should be a six pin phone connector with the middle front pin being an audio system mute. Plugging an aftermarket Bluetooth kit's mute wire into the middle front pin makes the radio mute automatically when a phone call is in progress.
You might want to remove the components for the old Lexus phone system or at least disconnect them -- they are worthless since the old phone system was analog. You don't have to remove the control unit from the steering wheel -- you can leave it place unless you want to remove it and buy the little plastic blank to cover the hole.
Check the trunk for a phone ECU and, if there, unplug the connectors. If there are two big connectors that plug together, then do it to complete the circuit. I've only worked with this stuff in the LS -- the phone ECU could be under the back seat in a GS.
I use the under-console mute pin with the aftermarket phone kit in my 00 LS400. My 00 LS also has a phone antenna imprinted on the inside of the rear window which I use to boost the signal on my GSM phone ... don't know if would work with Verizon's CDMA, etc. Your GS may also have an imprinted phone antenna ... if so, there is a coax cable under the center console for it if you wanted to use a charging cradle with the rear window antenna for a modern phone.
The same phone charging bases with interchangeable cradles sold by Lexus dealers in the U.K. and Europe are available pretty cheap on eBay -- search for "Bury" in the phone section of eBay. Bury is the European company that makes this stuff for Lexus and Toyota.
Last edited by Kansas; Mar 15, 2009 at 06:38 PM.
Lead Lap
Joined: Jan 2004
Posts: 3,595
Likes: 271
From: Kansas
The Lexus steering wheel phone control module looked about the same for all model years from 1990 through at least 2000. If I remember correctly the Lexus phone option was over $1,000 in 1990 when I bought my first LS400. At the time, the Lexus dealer also offered a President brand phone through Southwestern Bell for $100 that looked almost identical to the Lexus phone but did not have the steering wheel command module -- I bought it and used it for almost 10 years.
Lexus offered a bunch of different phone systems during the 14 model years they offered them. The last model year a phone system was offered in the GS was 2003: http://www.lexus.com/cpo/model_library/GS/2003.html
I think 2003 was the last year a Lexus phone system was offered in any Lexus as an official option.
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