GPS Navigation APIM Radio Woes

[thingfromspace]

Resolution!
After a month, Ford was finally able to figure out it was the antenna. Got my car back and GPS is showing the correct location again.



Previous Post:
I've been following a few other threads on the GPS/Navigation issue and rather than hijack another thread, I thought I'd share my personal experience in case anyone is seeing something similar.

It started a few months back. GPS / Navigation was off a few miles and would self-correct after driving around a bit. AFter week or so of that was suddenly off by at least a 100 miles and wouldn't come back.

This creates a number of problems:

1. FordPass Charging settings are useless. Since the car thinks your at a different address all the time, there's no feasible way to set up a new instance for every "Home" address GPS thinks the car is at. (I'd like to see a "default" location in the settings so I can set schedule and percent regardless of where I am)

2. Bluecruise handsfree was unreliable. Since GPS was not correct, I wasn't able to use handsfree on "approved" highways. I've only been able to use it for about a mile.

3. Android Auto navigation was buggy if it didn't crash. The phone has the correct GPS location when it's disconnected from AA, but when it's connected, It appears to be in the correct location, but the direction spins wildly and location jumps around and Maps would eventually crash after 15-30 minutes of nav. Is there a way to ignore the car GPS and just use the phone GPS in Android Auto?

I've tried leaving the car out of the garage (to keep GPS connected), Sync reset, master reset. Nothing worked. The dealership updated the radio software (2 days for OTA) but that didn't work. They've already replaced the APIM last week but that appeared to be faulty and now I'm waiting on another (going on a week). Hopefully the new module will fix the issue for good.

I miss my car.

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[breeves002]

If they replaced the APIM and said the new one was faulty I'm betting it is more likely a bad GPS antenna...but I'm sure you'll see.

 

[Blue highway]

yikes. Mine has done this a couple of times but has "corrected its self" after a week or less each time. One of the menus I stumbled into in the APIM trying to do an APIM reset with the wrong button combination (volume down seek left I think) is a diagnostics mode which allows you to see things like the number satellites the GPS sees and the HDOP (accuracy) Because those both looked good, and yet the location had a fixed offset of a couple of miles, it is my opinion that there is a software bug, not a hardware bug at the root of the problem.

 

[Logal727]

yikes. Mine has done this a couple of times but has "corrected its self" after a week or less each time. One of the menus I stumbled into in the APIM trying to do an APIM reset with the wrong button combination (volume down seek left I think) is a diagnostics mode which allows you to see things like the number satellites the GPS sees and the HDOP (accuracy) Because those both looked good, and yet the location had a fixed offset of a couple of miles, it is my opinion that there is a software bug, not a hardware bug at the root of the problem.

You can access this in the Settings of the Navigation menu too

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