Uk Gs430 And Australian Satnav Disk Compatibility

[astonmartinv8]

Here is a bizarre one.

I am emigrating in October and thinking of bringing my GS430 with me.

The UK and Australian GS are the same / very similiar but one area they (apparently) are not is the compatibility of the DVD satnav. For some reason (according to Lexus Perth) the UK market satnav and Australian disk will not work together.

I am hoping that someone from the Lexus technical community may see this and be able to find out - is there any way of solving the problem?

Thanks in advance.

Best regards,

Marcus.

[SmellyTofu]

Have they tried one out? At least the radios work in Australia but the disc "should" work.

Edit: Actually, I've seen at RX400h from the UK work in Australia... not sure if it helps

[astonmartinv8]

Have they tried one out? At least the radios work in Australia but the disc "should" work.

Edit: Actually, I've seen at RX400h from the UK work in Australia... not sure if it helps

You have seen a UK model RX400h satnav work with an Australian DVD? Hmmm. I wonder if the dealer is mistaken?

[SmellyTofu]

Give me a week or two.. I can give you a better answer on a different car.

[astonmartinv8]

As a follow up...

Lexus Perth (Australia) didn't try very hard to find out why the satnav box and Australian DVD in a UK GS430 might be incompatible and what could be done to resolve. They just told me what a bad idea it was to export to Australia and that I should think about buying one of their Lexus GS430s. I am pushing them further and have asked for a quote to make a conversion (if this is even needed).

Lexus UK customer services said they don't know and that I should ring their £1.50 a minute technical advice line.

Smelly Tofu - any luck in finding out more?

Thanks in advance.

Marcus.

[SmellyTofu]

Sorry for the late reply, but the answer is no. The European disc is complied by Aisin and the Australian ones are Denso/Sensis. I tried popping in Denso disc into the UK audio and it doesn't recognise it. Not the answer you want to hear but that's what it is. The upside of using the UK audio is that the radio station names as well as the frequency will appear whereas the Australian audio unit only shows the frequency.

[astonmartinv8]

Many thanks for the info, looks like the only way to sort it is to buy the Australian reader unit. Perth Lexus have asked circa $7000 for this, so no way am I bringing the car.

Bit of a shame really, car would cost me £25K to pay off finance and ship / pay tax etc, so $50K-ish Australian, against $80K to buy the same 2005 model in Australia. Mind you I am told imports are worth 20% less when you come to sell, and taken with the cost of sorting the satnav (unless I can find a wrecker) I might as well wait until I get there and see how the land lies before buying something else. I like my Lexii though, I have had a mark 1 GS300, 2 marks 2s and this mark 3, solid since 1996.

Thanks again for going out of your way and helping me out on this one smelly tofu.

Best regards,

Marcus.

[SmellyTofu]

The 20% claim is a little bit far fetched. Sure if it was a 450h, you'd definitely get Australian pricing but the 430 wouldn't be worth much less than the Australian model. The only big obvious changes would be the indicator stalk on the left, speedo with mph reading and the navi unit (and other stuff depending on what grade you have) I wouldn't let the navi unit stop you from bringing the car to Aust.

Put it this way, even if you sell it for $60k, you'd be ahead of the game.

Of course if you're doing it as a money making exercise, then there's plenty of M cars (M3, M5 etc) you could bring back which will command a lot of $$.

[astonmartinv8]

As a follow up...

In the end, I decided not to bring the car as it was too much hassle / potential risk alongside actually emigrating. We decided to give it back - you could do that on the lease there, you just have to get you local dealer to give you a price and hand it back. However, in the UK, the market was such that the dealers would not even take GS430s (mine was perfect condition, FLSH and 40K miles) as they could not sell them. We negotiated with an embarrassed Lexus UK who agreed to take the car back themselves and did us a reasonable financial deal.

We arrived just over a week ago and have been car hunting, as one is needed urgently for work. We tried the following - 2008 Toyota Aurion Presara (not bad, many of the same gadgets as a Lexus, and loads cheaper but front wheel drive); 2006 Audi A6 wagon Quattro (expensive, hadn't worn very well and hard suspension); Subaru Liberty 3.0R B spec and STI (not bad actually, especially the STI - but a little too focussed and too much of a compromise); BMW X5 3.0d and 4.4i (not bad at all, but expensive and poor spec comapritively); Lexus RX350 (not bad, but not as good as the GS) and lastly - what about two cars Impreza STI plus Presara (too complicated, maybe another time).

Guess what we went for in the end? 2007 GS430 with 14K kms, cheapest in Australia at nearly $60K off original list. That will be GS number 5 and it will be a keeper at these prices!! Interestingly, at the current conversion rate and in the current climate, it is actually cheaper than my original car cost me in the UK and is a better deal than importing - nevertheless a fluke I think!!

Cheers,

Marcus.

[hiplexcat]

Hi

You stated

Subaru Liberty 3.0R B spec and STI (not bad actually, especially the STI - but a little too focussed and too much of a compromise

What do you mean by to focused and a compromise?

Could you please elaborate.