I've been having a reception problem with my nav system (01 LS430 Ultra). It takes a long time to locate satellites, and even when it does, it is inaccurate. On cloudy/rainy days it may never find them.

Going to the NAVI GPS menu, I can see that the readings are much, much lower than they used to be given the same location and conditions, and oftentimes it goes from 3D to 2D. It can never get more than 4 satellites.

I brought it to one dealer and they said, "You need a whole new computer". I brought it to another and they said, "Seems to work fine."

At the second dealer, I demonstrated the problems, but they weren't sure what to do. I suggested a new antenna, and they said they would do it if I wanted, but it would be $1400 ($700 parts/$700 labor), and they couldn't guarantee it would help.

Any other ideas out there? Can anyone think of anything other than the antenna it could be?

Note: I have no tint or anything. Despite what some other threads said, the second dealer said that the antenna is under the dash, not in the rear. They even photocopied the page from the service manual where it shows how to get to it.

This started happening out of nowhere, as it used to work fine.

 

very strange problem indeed. I'm not sure where the nav antenna is, but If you don't have any tint, or introduced any new electronic items in the car, i dont see how it would start acting up.

You can search on eBay, and your bound to find an antenna for very cheap. Seems like a very isolated incident of the antenna failing.

 

I looked at the repair manual from the techinfo.toyota.com site and it shows the nav antenna under the dash, just ahead of the nav screen. However, I really thought it was the box just to the right of the rear view mirror. The useless antenna in the back is for the Lexus Link system (like GM OnStar mostly a waste of money) and I wish they had simply removed the antenna on my 2006 since Lexus Link wasn't even offered that year.