I don’t think anyone was suggesting otherwise.

“THIS JUST IN!, credit cards offer reward points to soften the effects of data mining on individuals. It highlights the advantages of using custom lubricant on the broomsticks they are fucking you in the ass with.”

Some say it feels nice.

Also…gift cards? Wtf. Makes this comment sound fake af.

Everything you’ve proposed as an easy fix would not apply to the vast majority of end users; the target audience.

If you want to do it efficiently, a camera isn’t the best way to go because it requires manually turning the pages. It’s cheap but labor intensive.

Scanners are so cheap now that any decent one can be had for $120-200. But if you want to take this a step further, buy a second hand printer-scanner combo. Doesn’t matter if the printer is broken because you don’t need it. Just make sure it has batch scanning abilities.

Get a cheap paper slicer /guillotine and rip the magazines into uniform stacks. Load into the tray and start scanning.

The thing you’ll likely run into is the tray not having the capacity required to scan all sheets in one go. Therefore, you’ll need to scan part files and combine them on the back end. You likely need paid software for this, but there is probably open source options. Either way, fly the black flag lol…

I did this after purchasing $800 worth of mechanical PE prep materials and wanted the flexibility and future proofing of my purchase. This proved a worth while endeavor after a flood took my hard copies. YMMV

That’s awesome man. Yeah, there’s definitely a sense of pride keeping old stuff alive.

I always admire a well kept older car. Doesn’t matter if it’s a econobox from the 80s or whatever. I just enjoy it…probably more than seeing a hypercar. Yeah, they are cool and are an amazing feat of modern engineering, but the only thing required to attain it is money. The guy driving a pristine Honda accord from 1985 put in the work to have that!

What about CFB? Sportsurge (inspired by /cfbstreams) went downhill.

Well, make sure you come back and update what you did. It’s this very niche info that really deserves preservation.

Someone will end up here in the future and will be appreciative.

I just looked at an example of your dash and see the apparent difficulties here.

My approach would either be to just use your phone like you mentioned, however, I’d definitely go the cd player slot mounting option or suction cup arm off the windshield… or, if you’re savvy enough, make a custom mount for where the nav screen currently sits and drop a double din CarPlay unit there. It’s more work, but honestly wouldn’t be that bad. The hardest part for most people would be if this was their only car. It’s much easier to pause a project and order the right materials/design stuff, if you don’t have to drive it to work on Monday…

For example one of my cars is stripped down in my shop currently. I’m replacing all the speakers, adding sound damping and deadening materials, rewiring signal lines to a new smart amp, rewiring my trailer lights, and building a new custom dual relay board to control a front facing cam and reverse cam with a 3way switch. There’s other stuff because this snowballed but you get the point.

All of this is attainable because I don’t have to rely on it as my only means of transportation. If you only have one vehicle, just use your phone for now and be more mindful during the next vehicle search. Either ensure it comes with CarPlay or at least a double din head unit (unfortunately dying off in newer cars).

Lastly, as a final side note to this novel, you could consider an old iPad mini that you set up to use as a dedicated infotainment. There’s more to it than simply slapping it into your car, as you’d need it jailbroken or with all the proper shortcuts to make it seamless. Just a thought.

I would never blindly trust anything from alibaba or the US version (Amazon).

You need to find the largest active forums for your car and start there. The biggest issue is that there’s usually a smaller following for cars that are not exactly an enthusiast car.

Check out clublexus.com… look at offerings from Grom audio. Their VLine series for your specific model. I’ll be honest, I haven’t looked closely at it but your options are limited.

You could just get a CarPlay module that is remote mounted or something of that nature. Not ideal but just a thought.

You need to look to Lexus forums. Crutchfield is just saying that there’s no drop in replacement that doesn’t require some small modifications. It’s a liability thing.

If critical vehicle controls are governed by the stock head unit, then you have to go a further step and integrate idatalink Maestro or equivalent or some other work around. I’m not familiar with your car but it could just be that the faceplate doesn’t play nicely with the stock dash. There are always custom options, but you’re unlikely to find it here.

If I get some time later I’ll look, but I suggest you find the largest forum covering your specific model and start digging. I guarantee you’re not the only one who has had this issue.

Crutchfield.com