rogersmith

I've been a ham radio operator since 1979, and have done installs of ham gear in all of my cars, ranging from Fords, to Chevys to trucks.

I just took delivery of a brand new, LS460L, and called Lexus to check on how to go about installing a VHF / UHF rig in the car.

The dealer told me that installing anything that wasn't Lexus-branded would instantly void the warranty.

As I've said, I've installed ham gear in many cars, and never had an issue here. Considering how technologically sophisticated this car happens to be, I'm very leery about giving Lexus any way to sneak out of covering repairs in the first four years.

Any thoughts?

R

Othic

If the radio causes a particular component to fail it will void the warranty for the component. No way in hell will it void the entire warranty. They (meaning us service techs) have to prove it screwed up whatever component. I personally would change out whatever failed unless I knew they were going to call the part back and my story to how it failed didn't match up to how they figured out how it failed. They're pretty smart on figuring things out lol.

7milesout

That's where you went wrong, right there.

jmcraney

The Lexus' and other newer automobiles employ several Radio Frequency receivers. The TPMS, XM satellite entertainment system, GPS navigation system, the Keyless Entry system and Dynamic Radar Cruise control are some that come to mind. Eventhough your Amateur Radio transmitter does not operate on any of the frequencies that these devices use, all receivers are subject to burnout at some power level even from out of band signals. When antennas are collocated there must be sufficient isolation to insure that the burnout thresholds are not exceeded. It is very unlikely that Lexus has determined this in testing and it is hard to measure without some very expensive testing.

There are three risk that you would have to assume:

1. The operation of your transmitter will interfere with the car's electronics, but only while you are transmitting. This may be an acceptable risk.

2. The presence of your self-installed equipment may produce radio frequency radiation that interferes with some of the cars electronics at all times when your equipment is powered on. This would not be acceptable.

3. Operation of your transmitter might burnout some of the car's electronic components. If something gets damaged, it may not be a risk that you could not afford to take twice.

I think that Lexus would be on solid ground to refuse to warrant many of the car's component for risks such as these.

It is certainly possible to engineer a car to do all these functions in the presence of an operating Amateur Radio setup but I don't think that was part of these car's design.

enoch861

It shouldn't. You're not really tapping into any of the cars subsystems and in order for them to deny warranty work they'd have to prove that your install caused that specific problem/failure you need fixed/replaced under warranty.

rogersmith

Funny, because Ford, Chevy and a whole host of other manufacturers don't have any problem with ham radio gear. In fact, many car companies make police vehicles that have tons of high power transmitting equipment.

I'm guessing that the Lexus cars would be fine, but probably nobody at Lexus gave any thought to the whole idea.

Nospinzone

Certainly if something you did caused a Lexus component to fail then truly Lexus would be within their rights to not honor the warranty on the part or parts affected.

Roger, you sound like you know what you're doing when it comes to ham radio installations. I would say if you feel comfortable with the install, I would go ahead and do it.

Disclaimer: I have no idea what a ham radio install involves, if you have any trouble with your Lexus I'll deny I ever wrote this post.