I have a '01 LS430 with Nav and my tape deck is failing. I need it for my iPod and for Sirius. FM modulation is a pain in Chicago, there are too many stations.

All of a sudden the tape motor is either not in sync or the back (closest to the opening) hub isn't spinning correctly and after a random period of time the tape adapter gets ejected.

Two questions, is this fixable without taking the dash apart? And is the non Levinson tape player the same? There is one for sale on EBay.

I wish Lexus used normal inputs, then adding components would be so much easier.

Matt

 

Don't we all brother don't we all! I feel your pain. In my old ES300, my tape player motor would speed up a little so the sound's pitch would be a bit faster. Not chipmunk level but notable. I was trying to figure out a way to correct that issue but I ended up changing the stereo to aftermarket Clairion and since I had the brain under the seat, I was able to buy one of those cords with the headphone jack on one end and the Red and White AV plugs on the other for like 6 bucks and then used that for my Walkman which ended up being my tape player!
Worked like a charm. In fact, if you ever want to hard wire it, you can. Just get the AC adapter for that, cut off one end with the adapter and hardwire that to your 12V (I need someone to confirm this. I've heard others do that method and hear it works well)

Anyhow, I think you may have to get that radio out of your dash and have a Lexus Tech have a look at it or a stereo shop who knows how to adjust cassette decks so they can tweak it for you to get it back to normal. It may just need a demagnitizing cleaning after all?

 

Very interesting.. I wonder if using the telephone ports and such would really give you a way of inputing to the stereo.

 

check this thread for a direct way to input music into the system - https://www.clublexus.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=120322 this is the way I initially inputted audio from a DVD player.

Probably only about $15-20 in parts...