JRGUSC

Let me preface this by saying that in February of this year I had the iVIC system installed in my car by a reputable shop that has performed the same install on other Lexus vehicles. No major problems with the unit.

So...today I'm in the SC mountains driving to a destination I input into the nav system. Typically when traveling on roads that don't exist in the database, the nav system throws out a warning. That did NOT happen. Great...it has all the roads mapped out I will be on I thought. So I'm going up the road which is VERY windy...lots of switchbacks. The nav system appears to be working well. Then out of nowhere the system is now tracking me in areas I don't recognize and even places the vehicle location in the middle of fields, etc. I thought perhaps it had something to do with multipath issues based on GPS sat radio waves bouncing off solid structures like buildings...or in this case, trees. This tends to create distortions when triangulating your position. When I got back to wide open terrain, I thought for sure it would clear up...nothing. So I stop my car, clear out the mapped destination and turn off/on the car. Still the same.
Then I tried a new different destination starting at a spot where my car was miles away from the area where my nav first started screwing up. The nav system still thought I was on top of the mountain and was trying to navigate me from that "stuck" spot to the new destination I input into the computer.

WTF?

1) Has anyone ever experienced anything like this?
2) How did you resolve it?
3) Is there a way to "reset" the nav system?

LucianoLee

iTrader: (1)

Did you try to reset the ECU by disconnecting the battery for 1 minute?

miketranis

iTrader: (1)

try to reset the system by unlug the battery and wait for atleast 1 min, lmk if it fixes the problem.

JRGUSC

Upon the advice of resetting the ECU, I disconnected the battery for about 90 seconds and then reconnected it. Started vehicle up and the screen said it was booting and to not power down. After running through the boot sequence, I went to the Navigation screen and.......it's STILL not right. The good news is that the map shows me away from the mountain I was on but the bad news is that it shows my position about 45-50 miles due west of my actual position.

Could the iVIC install cause this to happen?
I assume the sharkfin antenna on the roof of the vehicle houses the GPS antenna along with the other antennas. Could the GPS functionality cease but other services such as the terrestrial radio and SiriusXM radio continue to function? Are there different connections into the back of the head unit for GPS vs radio reception? If so, would a disconnection cause this issue? From my understanding the car uses GPS and physical rotation of the tires to calculate actual position and distance.

Bichon

I suspect that the problem is that the GPS antenna was not plugged in correctly (or at all) when the iVIC was installed. The sharkfin is not for GPS, it is for satellite radio. Terrestrial radio, satellite radio and GPS each use different antennas.

Look for the word "GPS" under the map scale indicator. (In the upper left hand corner, under where is says 0.25 miles in the picture above). The "GPS" indication shows that the navigation system has locked onto the GPS satellites. My guess is that you won't see it on your car, and that your car is using dead reckoning (speed and steering sensors) to estimate your position on the map.