im back..... with a new toy

[dirty1]

Hi all, I am Mark form Dunedin and its been somewhere round 3 years since I've been here. work had put a block on this site cause I spent too long here. . I've just got another toy. 2005 Toyota crown royal. uber luxury. already coming across issues like not being able to find bugger all about it on the net. I've had more luck searching Lexus forums. I discovered the car has a few secret buttons, someone had locked the boot with one so it would only open with the key and not with any buttons. the car is basically a lexus is250 in the states, but at the fraction of the price.

[MAC_HATER]

Sounds awesome

Pictures please! haha

[dirty1]

hope these pictures work.

[Dell'Orto]

Pimp interior. Just needs slam and some decent wheels!

[dirty1]

Im thinking 18' or 20 would look good as it has massive wheel arches. It even has carpet in wheel arches. Bout 20cm lower would be cool too.

[Dell'Orto]

Are they 17's now? If they are, 20's will probably fill the guards about right. Toyota always seems to make massive wheel arches!

[dirty1]

They are stock 16s. I wouldnt mind finding wheels that will still fit the orignal crown center caps.

[Timmo]

The Crown (Royal, Athlete and Majesta) are on the same floorplan (DBA-UZS) as the Lexus GS350/430. It's the Mark X that's most comparable to the IS250/350.

[dirty1]

So today I brought via Australia a new sat nav dvd for the crown. $500 is a hell of a lot of money though.....but it is not working I am waiting to here back from supplier. its a denso whereis map disc. It took a wee bit of research to even find out where the dvd drive is. the drive is located under the screen where the crown logo is, above the cd drive. had to take out the whole stereo unit to unclip it. I put in the Japanese disc that come with the car and it works (im 50km off the coast of japan) so now im thinking of making a cross over mix dvd of the Japanese loading files and swapping the nz map data. still working on converting the language setting to English. a few vids on you tube have been helpful, but have yet to see it down to the crown. I have seen a mark x screen converted to English. I will keep people posted and possibly do a full conversion vid for youtube for others to try.

[steroidcontaskie]

Hey dude,

Sorry to hear the sat nav is giving you problems.
I also have a crown and would be interesting in getting the sat nav working within the factory set up.
Does your one have the G-Book system in it?

Cheers
Edward

[dirty1]

Sat nav is now up and running. Its converted almost all of the main screen setting to english and the sat nav lady has a british accent. Can look at the service history aswell. It got gbook but I havnt looked into it yet. I will let you know if it works and what its about. I have the dvd files on computer and am going to try to make a new copy (backup). Its a mission getting it to work. Had to put it in 3 or so times to get it to go. Had to pull out centre consol and undo drive to force disc out each time it failed due to no eject funtion. I think a guy in dunedin wants to try aswell so can experiment copied disc on his.

[dirty1]

Edward, it looks like the Gbook is no longer usable with the nz map conversion. from what I have seen online the gbook is only really set up for use in japan. I havnt even worked out how to connect my phone to the car. I guess good things take time. most people (Toyota nz, local Toyota dealers in Dunedin and chch) have said you cant even convert to nz maps or english setting , so I don't believe anything they say.

[steroidcontaskie]

That's cool, I dont know how to use the g book now anyway, so won't miss it if it is gone.
as long as the other touch screen functions like air con, reversing camera and parking sensors still work then I would be happy with it.

Good to hear you have had success and keep us all updated on how you find the system, I get the feeling there are going to be more people buying crowns pretty soon.

Cheers
Edward

[Surge]

I've got an Athlete on the way - Interesting to hear about the map conversion! Would love to try it.

[Alex B]

Good to hear it worked, TBH I would have thought you had just thrown quite a bit of $ down the drain when it first didn't work. I'd be interested to see some photos of the GPS User Interface etc.

[dirty1]

here's a few pics of different screens....

[dirty1]

the maintenance screen is helpful, reminds you when you did work, like oil changes

[Surge]

I've sent you a PM regarding this - got any useful links on performing this operation?

[dirty1]

SURGE, I just watched a lot if vids on pootube that had screen similar to the crowns, one from a US land cruiser showed a secret screen that allows you to change a few setting relating to phone area, turn the lock off the movement lock for the dvd player, so you can watch while driving. the vids just confirmed that the sat nav discs could be updated to kiwi roads (in mark X version). it just took a lot of putting disc in, it not work so take apart the dvd drive to force the disc out and repeat until it worked. the last time I did it I had the power on to the drive and then unplugged it rather than turn off power. it seemed to do a full factory reboot. im thinking of doing a vid, but cant be stuffed pulling car apart to do it. don't want to loosen screws and bolts to much as im enjoying a car that doesn't rattle.

[Surge]

Here's the one I just got - just chucked a band expander in it. I've got to the "secret screen" through clicking up and down on the display screen. Can't find any dialog to change to the English option like yours. It's the Gbook equipped model.