Phone GPS sporadic while inside of vehicle, regardless of where it is

[deanproxy]

This is something that has recently started happening to me in the past few weeks.
My phone can not seem to maintain a GPS signal at all. Apple Maps, Google Maps, Waze… all have the same issue. It will lose my location frequently and for long periods of time. Sometimes it will find me, sometimes it will think I’m hundreds of yards away, turned around, etc…
I have narrowed it down to it being any phone inside of my vehicle, whether it’s connected to the vehicle or not. I have tried 3 different phones. All have the same issue, and none of them have the issue while in my partners car. I even went out and bought a brand new iPhone 15 hoping it would fix this issue, but it persists.
It is not CarPlay that’s the problem, as I have fully disconnected the phone from the Sync system and it’s not even connected by Bluetooth and the problem persists. What I have done is held my phone out of the window and suddenly, GPS works like a charm! As long as it’s outside of the window, it works great. When I bring my phone back into the car, even if it’s sitting in the dashboard, the GPS signal goes back to being completely unreliable. I’ve put my phone in the back seat, still unreliable. Outside of the car, bam! Works again.
It hasn’t always been like this. Just within the past few weeks or month. The dealer did some work on replacing the front camera module that was constantly failing, and it appears this may be the moment when this GPS issue started happening, however, when I call the dealership they are very quick to blame it on Apple (even though I’ve tried it on an Android phone too.)
Anyone have any suggestions for something I can look at? I’m guessing there’s some electrical signal that’s not properly shielded or grounded or something to that’s causing this interference. This makes using my phone for directions completely useless and it’s 75% of the reason I bring my phone to the car with me!

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[deanproxy]

Just tried something interesting. I got an app called GPS Diagnostics. I turned off Bluetooth and WiFi and opened this app. Had great GPS signal strength. Got into my car, closed the door. Still great signal strength. Turned the car on, bam, horrible GPS signal strength! The phone is not connected to the car since Bluetooth and WiFi are off. Just the fact the car turned on made the GPS signal go completely horrible. So this is definitely something faulty with the wiring in the car that’s causing it to interfere with the phone. I just don’t know where to even start looking.

 

[dj_stang]

Hm interesting, I've noticed bouts of this happening at random times. I also bought the same app to confirm. See if there's a difference using:
- Built in navigation: uses the car's built-in GPS obviously
- Wireless Carplay: according to Apple, also uses the car's built-in GPS
- Wired Carpaly: may or may not use the car's built-in GPS.

If the car's built-in GPS is ok and you can live with the compromises of wireless Carplay or Ford's built-in nav that may be a good enough option for the meantime.

 

[deanproxy]

What’s interesting is it does not appear wireless CarPlay uses the cars GPS. I always thought it did too and I may still be mistaken, but the phones GPS is still shitty and the signal strength is bad at the time. The cars GPS works flawlessly. It’s a workaround, but switching between the cars nav and CarPlay isn’t very seemless.

 

[Gullwingdmc]

What’s interesting is it does not appear wireless CarPlay uses the cars GPS.

It does not. Your phone always uses its internal GPS, the car does not share its GPS data.

I have had every iPhone from 12-15 and I have not had this issue. I do occasionally have a problem where my GPS position wonders or stops updating when another iPhone is in the car (my husband’s) and the same thing happens when I’m in his Mach-E. If the other person leaves or turns their phone entirely off the problem goes away. I haven’t had any issues driving by myself though.

 

[carbonizedbrett]

My Android phones do appear to get GPS data from the vehicle via Android Auto.

At one point, Google pushed a Google Maps update that broke this. I found the only places in the vehicle where my Pixel 7 Pro or Pixel 7 Pro got decent GPS signal was behind the frit next to the center mirror - where EZ-Pass transponders must be placed to work reliably. (Or pressed up against the side windows....)

Pretty sure my vehicle was on during all the testing I did; I'll have to repeat with my vehicle off and my phone disconnected from Android Auto.

 

[dj_stang]

It does not. Your phone always uses its internal GPS, the car does not share its GPS data.

I have had every iPhone from 12-15 and I have not had this issue. I do occasionally have a problem where my GPS position wonders or stops updating when another iPhone is in the car (my husband’s) and the same thing happens when I’m in his Mach-E. If the other person leaves or turns their phone entirely off the problem goes away. I haven’t had any issues driving by myself though.

Well, you say that pretty definitively, all the external evidence suggests that the vehicle is required by Apple to share GPS information for wireless carplay compatibility. However my GPS Diagnostics app doesn't show a clear difference when I'm connected to WLACP vs not.

Slide 93
722_developing_carplay_systems_part_1.pdf

I'm actually interested to find out definitively myself.
Is CarPlay using iPhone's internal GPS or car's GPS unit? | MacRumors Forums

 

[Mach-Lee]

Just tried something interesting. I got an app called GPS Diagnostics. I turned off Bluetooth and WiFi and opened this app. Had great GPS signal strength. Got into my car, closed the door. Still great signal strength. Turned the car on, bam, horrible GPS signal strength! The phone is not connected to the car since Bluetooth and WiFi are off. Just the fact the car turned on made the GPS signal go completely horrible. So this is definitely something faulty with the wiring in the car that’s causing it to interfere with the phone. I just don’t know where to even start looking.

Mach-E is a GPS jammer eh? I'll have to check that out.

 

[mpshizzle]

It does not. Your phone always uses its internal GPS, the car does not share its GPS data.

I have had every iPhone from 12-15 and I have not had this issue. I do occasionally have a problem where my GPS position wonders or stops updating when another iPhone is in the car (my husband’s) and the same thing happens when I’m in his Mach-E. If the other person leaves or turns their phone entirely off the problem goes away. I haven’t had any issues driving by myself though.

I can confirm with 100% certainty Android auto uses the car's GPS. I'd imagine car play does the same, but I've not tested that

 

[Nym]

It does not. Your phone always uses its internal GPS, the car does not share its GPS data.

I have had every iPhone from 12-15 and I have not had this issue. I do occasionally have a problem where my GPS position wonders or stops updating when another iPhone is in the car (my husband’s) and the same thing happens when I’m in his Mach-E. If the other person leaves or turns their phone entirely off the problem goes away. I haven’t had any issues driving by myself though.

This does not appear to be accurate, at least according to Apple. When available (equipped?), Carplay absolutely uses the vehicles GPS (in conjuction with the apple device GPS). See video around the 12:45 mark.

Developing CarPlay Systems, Part 1

 

[Gullwingdmc]

Well, you say that pretty definitively, all the external evidence suggests that the vehicle is required by Apple to share GPS information for wireless carplay compatibility.

I can confirm with 100% certainty Android auto uses the car's GPS. I'd imagine car play does the same, but I've not tested that

This does not appear to be accurate, at least according to Apple.

I could be wrong, I just haven’t seen any proof that my phone switches GPS sources when I get in the car.

 

[mpshizzle]

I could be wrong, I just haven’t seen any proof that my phone switches GPS sources when I get in the car.

The reason I know (at least for Android) is back in late 21 there was a bug in sync where occasionally the GPS would show my location as about .3 miles east of my actual location. The first time that happened I switched to Google maps and low and behold it showed the EXACT same location.

As far a erratic GPS behavior on iPhone, I have observed that behavior on a few cool workers iPhones as well as my partner's. But in every one of those cases it was while connected to car play.

I've not seen it happen for a few months but the phone would just stop updating location, like gps data just got stuck. I've seen it happen dozens of times across my car, several suburbans (they seem to be particularly bad) and a Rav4
But again I've only seen that while attached to car play

 

[Logal727]

Mach-E is a GPS jammer eh? I'll have to check that out.

I mean the whole thing is an EMF, so that would make sense, maybe something isn’t shielded. We see what happens with EVs and AM radio.

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