Inconsistent factory GPS after Naviplus CarPlay install and ceramic tinting

[gx2lc]

Hi all,

I was going to place this in the Naviplus CarPlay thread but figured this warranted its own thread in case it wasn’t related to the Naviplus install.

I had CarPlay installed and all window ceramic tinting done at the local TintWorld. CarPlay works great except for the steering wheel controls and the fact that my OEM GPS is not quite wonky. By wonky:
- 50% of the time the GPS works and shows me the exact location on starting the vehicle and the gauge cluster compass shows me the road I’m traveling on. As I’m driving it loses lock on the right location over time.
- The other 50% of the time the GPS shows me in a location between 5-50 miles away from where I am at upon turning on the truck. Sometimes it even shows me in the water since I am currently located on Long Island.
- While I’m driving the GPS shows me moving..just on the wrong location. In other words it detects movement but not always in the right location.

I’m planning to buy some pry tools and see if I can address this myself. Before I did, I wanted to solicit some ideas on how to diagnose the issue, especially from folks who’ve been through a similar install for aftermarket radio equipment. My assumption is the installer didn‘t properly seat the GPS antenna, but that wouldn’t explain why it sometimes gets the right location and sometimes doesn’t.

FYI The only mods I’ve made to the car is ceramic tint on all the windows include windshield and CarPlay install. I have another theory that the windshield tint could be causing some issues with the GPS antenna in the center of the dash.

Any ideas or theories on how to think about this would be appreciated!

 

[Casual Cruiser]

Hi all,

I was going to place this in the Naviplus CarPlay thread but figured this warranted its own thread in case it wasn’t related to the Naviplus install.

I had CarPlay installed and all window ceramic tinting done at the local TintWorld. CarPlay works great except for the steering wheel controls and the fact that my OEM GPS is not quite wonky. By wonky:
- 50% of the time the GPS works and shows me the exact location on starting the vehicle and the gauge cluster compass shows me the road I’m traveling on. As I’m driving it loses lock on the right location over time.
- The other 50% of the time the GPS shows me in a location between 5-50 miles away from where I am at upon turning on the truck. Sometimes it even shows me in the water since I am currently located on Long Island.
- While I’m driving the GPS shows me moving..just on the wrong location. In other words it detects movement but not always in the right location.

I’m planning to buy some pry tools and see if I can address this myself. Before I did, I wanted to solicit some ideas on how to diagnose the issue, especially from folks who’ve been through a similar install for aftermarket radio equipment. My assumption is the installer didn‘t properly seat the GPS antenna, but that wouldn’t explain why it sometimes gets the right location and sometimes doesn’t.

FYI The only mods I’ve made to the car is ceramic tint on all the windows include windshield and CarPlay install. I have another theory that the windshield tint could be causing some issues with the GPS antenna in the center of the dash.

Any ideas or theories on how to think about this would be appreciated!

I have the Naviplus installed on my 2018 and have experienced the same wonky oem GPS behavior. I rarely use the oem unit so have ignored it assuming the Naviplus antennas are causing interference. I did the install and the Naviplus antennas are just under the dash center grill. I don’t have any tint.

 

[psnyman]

I also have this issue with my OEM GPS not always active when in OEM Nav mode and it’s tracking my vehicle incorrectly. Funnily enough I have a mild tint and have an EC Offroad after market unit installed with it’s GPS antennae in the same location as above. I also have 33” wheels.

What I observed is that the OEM GPS lights up the icon “GPS” on the top left nav screen when active and then it’s accurate, but this is sporadic, and in between it seems like the OEM Nav tries to guess where you are based on the map it has loaded and the turns being taken, before auto-correcting when it decides to activate the OEM GPS again.

I was thinking it was maybe my slightly larger tires causing the issue but couldn’t figure out why the OEM GPS wasn’t showing as always active - maybe it’s trying but can’t always get a lock due to interference as mentioned above?

 

[gx2lc]

Thanks for sharing your experiences. I am somewhat happy to know I am not alone. I will post to the NAVIPLUS thread to see if others have the same experience or if there is some way of doing the install that prevents the issues.

 

[winkwallace]

I'm having the same issue. One location on the OEM GPS was so off that it triggered a time zone change on the clock. I'm interested to see if there is a simple fix, but certainly not a show stopper for me as I don't use the OEM nav system.

Seth
'21 LC200

 

[gx2lc]

Hi all I emailed NAVIPLUS and got the following response:

Please use a aluminum foil and wrap the LVDS video cable and cover and locate our device away from the display as much as possible

 

[desmocruiser]

Interesting.

I now have Naviplus and yes my factory GPS does the same, however being said it didn’t act correctly prior to the NP install.

Before the install, It stopped working a couple of times, screen just stopped navigating and reset ( similar to when you first start up the car) and it would place me thousands of miles away on restart. For instance I was in Montana and it had me driving through buildings and water in Manhattan, NY!

 

[redeye]

Hi all I emailed NAVIPLUS and got the following response:

Please use a aluminum foil and wrap the LVDS video cable and cover and locate our device away from the display as much as possible

@gx2lc my steering wheel controls don't work either. Evidently I need to get into the initial config screen on the Naviplus unit, but the remote won't do anything. So it looks like I'll be taking the dash apart again to make sure the remote can "see" the little IR sensor - I hid it directly behind a dash panel figuring a little plastic wouldn't interfere but Naviplus support is recommending it.

Did you get an opportunity to enter the config screen like the instructions mentioned?

 

[CharlieS]

IR is infrared. Aka light. You are not going to get an IR sensor to work through a plastic panel.

 

[gx2lc]

@redeye i was able to get my steering wheel controls working by changing the input with the remote — my installer left the bead hanging out so the signal goes through. It looks a little odd but not totally out of place. I’ll bet pulling out the bead will let you change the input and the controls will work.

I’m going to try using the aluminum foil thing that NAVIPLUS advised to see if it fixed the interference to the factory GPS

 

[barium slinger]

I have a ‘21 LC200 with Navi plus and am having the exact same problem with the factory gps! After all of the mods I’ve added on top of the original price of the LC, *everything* should work. Tell me, did this wrapping with aluminum foil work? It sounds like a makeshift Faraday cage, in which case there should be no tears in the foil. Please let me know, and also steps to get to the cable in question would be awesome. Do you know which cable is the LVDS cable? I don’t expect the dealer to be of help here. It’s up to us! Looking forward to your update!!

 

[MCtree]

Barium,
See my thread about the GPS also on a ‘21.

GPS issues / errors

Question for you guy and gals; how long does your GPS take to lock on to satellites in the morning when you start out? My GPS takes a good 4 minutes of driving through Houston streets (some of which are heavily wooded) before it finds a signal. And then is pretty intermittent as I drive...

forum.ih8mud.com

I wonder if your issues are the same as mine and the Navi plus commonality is just a red herring.

I have a call scheduled with Toyota tomorrow as I escalate my issues.
And one with my dealer the day after on Tuesday.
The two are both saying I need to deal with the other. It’s crazy.

I’ll update my thread when I deal with them.

Ps. I think the ceramic tint thing is erroneous. At least on 2019 and more recent, since I think they moved the GPS antenna to the shark fin. Though I’m not sure on this… it’s just from looking at the diagram on the replacement antenna (which my dealer and Toyota won’t replace on mine!)

 

[barium slinger]

I’m not sure about the red herring, but it makes sense since the gps antenna is very sensitive to interference. One thing…dealerships are not that helpful with this. I have taped to 3. Two say the gps antenna is in the shark fin, one says it is in the dash. All day they are certain lol. I’m my research for parts, exploded diagrams seem to show it is in the dash which makes sense with the Navi plus situation. Thinking it could be in the shark fin, I removed the rearmost cross bar from my Prinsu rack… and no change. Let me know what escalating with to Toyota yields. Hopefully we can solve this on our own.

 

[barium slinger]

I’m not sure about the red herring, but it makes sense since the gps antenna is very sensitive to interference. One thing…dealerships are not that helpful with this. I have taped to 3. Two say the gps antenna is in the shark fin, one says it is in the dash. All day they are certain lol. I’m my research for parts, exploded diagrams seem to show it is in the dash which makes sense with the Navi plus situation. Thinking it could be in the shark fin, I removed the rearmost cross bar from my Prinsu rack… and no change. Let me know what escalating with to Toyota yields. Hopefully we can solve this on our own.

Talked, not taped

 

[barium slinger]

The fact that Naviplus support is telling others on this thread to wrap some of the Navi plus cables with foil to reduce interference suggests to me that the gps antenna is in fact in the dash, not the fin.

 

[barium slinger]

Barium,
See my thread about the GPS also on a ‘21.

GPS issues / errors

Question for you guy and gals; how long does your GPS take to lock on to satellites in the morning when you start out? My GPS takes a good 4 minutes of driving through Houston streets (some of which are heavily wooded) before it finds a signal. And then is pretty intermittent as I drive...

forum.ih8mud.com

I wonder if your issues are the same as mine and the Navi plus commonality is just a red herring.

I have a call scheduled with Toyota tomorrow as I escalate my issues.
And one with my dealer the day after on Tuesday.
The two are both saying I need to deal with the other. It’s crazy.

I’ll update my thread when I deal with them.

Ps. I think the ceramic tint thing is erroneous. At least on 2019 and more recent, since I think they moved the GPS antenna to the shark fin. Though I’m not sure on this… it’s just from looking at the diagram on the replacement antenna (which my dealer and Toyota won’t replace on mine!)

Was escalating this with Toyota helpful? I am thinking about dismantling my dash and checking the gps antenna and naviplus cable situation.

 

[MRego]

Was escalating this with Toyota helpful? I am thinking about dismantling my dash and checking the gps antenna and naviplus cable situation.

Chiming in here. I do not have the Naviplus unit, but have the same issue with the Beatsonic unit. Works like a charm and flawless, but after I installed it my factory GPS went awry and shows me all over the place. I spoke with Beatsonic customer care and they suggested I might have loosely plugged the factory GPS cable when installing the Beatsonic unit. I am not 100% sure, but to be fair I have not had the time to go back and look. It is such a pain to undo the dashboard parts (vents specially) that am just postponing. Also, I never use the crappy factory GPS, so no issue to me.

I can see that if you forked the money to buy a new or almost new 2021 LC (mine is a 2018 and bought pre-owned), you would want everything perfect, but once you start "aftermarketing" it, you are bound to have something a little off, when compared to pristine factory truck.

BTW, my Beatsonic unit is not in the dashboard behind the factory unit. It sits down near the passenger footwell (per their recommendation), so not sure the interference is only when the two are in close proximity.

 

[gaylon]

Was this resolved?

 

[psnyman]

I also have this issue with my OEM GPS not always active when in OEM Nav mode and it’s tracking my vehicle incorrectly. Funnily enough I have a mild tint and have an EC Offroad after market unit installed with it’s GPS antennae in the same location as above. I also have 33” wheels.

What I observed is that the OEM GPS lights up the icon “GPS” on the top left nav screen when active and then it’s accurate, but this is sporadic, and in between it seems like the OEM Nav tries to guess where you are based on the map it has loaded and the turns being taken, before auto-correcting when it decides to activate the OEM GPS again.

I was thinking it was maybe my slightly larger tires causing the issue but couldn’t figure out why the OEM GPS wasn’t showing as always active - maybe it’s trying but can’t always get a lock due to interference as mentioned above?

Update: I had one of the first EC Off-road units that had a GPS receiver and after a few months of testing I eventually pulled it out and the car's OEM GPS issues were solved. I think there is merit to what @gx2lc shared about shielding the LVDS video cable with foil, there was definitely some sort of interference caused by the aftermarket unit that was the root cause of the factory GPS showing my driving in the middle of the ocean

 

[MCtree]

Was escalating this with Toyota helpful? I am thinking about dismantling my dash and checking the gps antenna and naviplus cable situation.

Barium,
Sorry, I missed your question when you posted it two years ago!

And the answer is embarrassing.
Yes, I think it was helpful escalating to Toyota. It finally made the dealer take notice and I was able to speak to the head mechanic there. He was helpful and I think willing to try to solve the issue, unlike all of his underlings.

However, I was heading out on a month long trip and didn’t want them messing with anything right before a trip like that.
And then upon my return, things kept coming up when it was never a good time for them to solve the issue for a year or two until I was too embarrassed to bring it back up to them.

And my GPS is still completely hit or miss.
It’s useless around town but on long drives it tends to sort itself out. But even then, there are moments on long drives when it goes bonkers.

Was escalating this with Toyota helpful? I am thinking about dismantling my dash and checking the gps antenna and naviplus cable situation.