I recently bought a 2006 TL (non navi) that came with MusicLink. I'm not exactly thrilled with the placement of the cable in the glovebox since I use my phone for navigation and phone calls (the car's bluetooth isn't working). I'm looking into 3 options at this point...

1) Relocate the unit
2) Replace just the iPod cable with this one (then run it to where my phone mount is)
3) Replace the whole unit with the iSimple Gateway

My questions are as follows:

Regarding option 1, is there enough cable behind the dash to relocate the unit to the other side and run the existing iPod cable up to the area of the lower left windshield?

For option 2, is the plug that the iPod cable plugs into unique to the MusicLink or is it a "universal" plug? iSimple has an 11' iPod cable that plugs into the control unit. Any idea if that would be compatible? This way I could just swap out the iPod connection cable for a longer one and leave the control unit where it is.

For option 3, well this is just more expensive so I'd rather try option 1 or 2 first (although if I bought a new unit I could add the BluStream)

Also, in case anybody was wondering, iSimple has Apple's "stamp of approval" to make peripherals but has not yet been approved to start making lightning cables for the iPhone 5. So for the time being we're stuck with the 30-pin/lightning adapter

 

The Musiclink was more or less flawed from the start (and is generally universally panned here)- get a USA Spec, Grom, or iSimple and have better connectivity.

 

Thanks, erdoc (I'm a ff/paramedic btw...). That's definitely my preferred option but I'm tight on cash right now.

Do you think it would be possible to just swap the MusicLink to the other side?

 

^^ Honestly, I don't think it would be too difficult to move the cable to a more preferable location- there's instructions on taking apart the center console (easier than it sounds) in the 3G garage.