mrand01

Just wondering who else out there has an aftermarket stereo in their ES300, and if they experienced the same "it's a pain in the *** to put anything in this car." Oh, BTW, a couple of people have asked me to post pics of my system, I am re-doing my trunk with Plexi, neons, and mirrors, so wait till the end of the summer. I promise I'll have em up before I leave for college (Sep. 1). Later.

nitsuj001

All I did to mine was replace the head unit with a double din Clarion, I had to get a custom faceplace to fit the dash and I also had to get all the speakers re-wired to bypass the factory amp.

nitsuj001

by the way I want to get a new face plate? can anyone make any recommendations in the Southern CA area? My current plate around my head unit doesn't match as well as I'd like it to.

chrislee8

click the link on my sig.

spinedoc

I had a real nice setup, with a pair of 12" Xtants powered by a 200watt JBL amp, and a set of Boston Acoustics speakers powerd by an Alpine amp. It sounded very kickass.

But my car went totally haywire. The alarm went off randomly, the airbag light stayed on when the car was shut off, the ac fans stopped working, the horn blew out, and a couple other things I dont remember. I had to have the whole system restored to factory, then all the problems went away. Keep in mind this was not a home installation, but a professional installation.

Sigh, now I have just the factory system.

supwithyou

i have a system in my 1992 ES300, and i had to do a lot of custom work to get it in there since the stock radio is so huge. Here is my system so far:

Panasonic 7000U CD Deck
Monster Cable RCA Wiring
1000Watt Boss Audio 2CH Amplifier
2- 12" Audiobahn ALUM12 series(1000watts RMS)
300watt Jensen Amp(for 6x9's)
All factory speakers replaced with Coustic

This system is rockin, and i havent had any problems electronically. I will post a pic later of the head unit when i upload it off the camera. Until then check out my car below

SlashBecks

hey supwithyou,
nice car! i love those rims, where'd you get 'em from? give me specs i'm considering wheel upgrade, since everything else is a ***** and a half to upgrade in this car....are those HID lights or super whites?

DJ SprinklesNJO

chrislee8,

wow thats some setup u got in ur car. i read through the whole thing, but is this something anyone can do. what kind of parts would i need? do u mind helping me out.

as far as systems go, here is a link to mine. sorry i know its not an es300. http://www.sounddomain.com/member_pa...&tree=Lexus%20(all%20models)

flipspeed

i actually got a system in my 98 lex (the pics are in the gallery somewhere). dang, it is REALLY a pain in the a$$ to get one for that car! shops like best buy or cicuit city wont even go near the thing! i went to a car audio shop that sold me a sony xplod cdxmp70 mp3 unit for $450 and installation was free. yea... i thought i was getting a killer deal considering there's no kit available for this car. they used abs plastic covered in vinyl which was ok at the time but looked funny after a couple of weeks. so i decided to make my own plate. i got the idea of using medium density fiber from another car shop so i bought 1/2 in thick of that for $10 (i think the shop uses 1/4in but they didnt have that at home depot) got a jig-saw for $30, black vinyl 1sq yard for $20, elmers carpenter wood glue (i tried spray glue.. too weak), and i think thats it. it took me the whole weekend to make. currently the vinyl is still nicely stuck to the mdf and an application of meguiars vinyl polish makes it look all nice n purty!

j2tha0e

-chrislee8, i saw your webpage almost 2 years ago and from seeing that, i used the pics instructions to do my own setup. the pics REALLY helped me replace my front speakers. just wanted to holler and say:
MAD PROPS BRO!

thanks.

Davtown

I went to go buy a head unit today, and was told that it would take massive amounts of work to install it into my 99 ES300. Although the install was free, since it was an ES300 they wanted $80 to re-wire the system and anywhere from $25-$100 to make a dash kit, since they didn't have any for the ES300.

Is it really that hard to install a head unit in our cars??

NYC ES3

iTrader: (7)

These guys are taking advantage of lack of knowledge.....at least with the 97-2000.

If you have the premium system it aint hard at all ...especially if you want to change the HU.....the amp is the center of the system. its located behind the glove compartment and it has all the output wires to the speakers, remote (ACC wire) and wires to sub.

Which is all you need to know if you are putting in a new HU. The install kit is made but hard to find.
Here is a pic of the wires and where they go....the basic premium amp pic....if you are going to replace your HU then this is what you will need to know....

BTW: the brown wire is Ground