Aarrghhh

The windshield on my 2005 Boxster (987) broke. Last Friday it was replaced. When I took the car in, I showed the manager that EVERYTHING worked and there were no warning lights. The Boxster's Nav system has been a delight, and very, very accurate.

You know where this is going, don't you? Exactly.

Today, I drove a couple hundred miles to Halifax. I turned on the car's Navigation (PCM2.1 which I really, really like), just to see how close I was to the major highway (I prefer travelling on secondary roads.

The Nav screen told me, essentially, my car is amphibian. It showed my car in the middle of the ocean, a hundred miles away. I am not happy.

Has anyone had this happen?

Presumably it's an antenna issue of some description, but I have no idea. Maybe they put the wrong windshield in. Maybe the GPS and new windshield have to be synchronized or something.

If ANYONE has run into this before, I welcome your input.

Incidentally, I HATE having my windshield replaced. In any car. It's been my unfortunate experience that, if they can mess something up, they will. And no, it wasn't done through the dealer, who is 3 hours away.

Sorry to hear of your misguided experience, Roger.

The antenna is, of course, in the windshield. Does the stereo in your car pull in stations? If so, the antenna must be hooked up OK.
Note to self: After 12K miles, I really should turn on CURVEN8R 2's stereo to see if it's working. Just that I hate to have even a bar of the Symphony in Flat Six corrupted by other sounds.

Not sure if there's an extra antenna just for the Nav system. If so, it might have been disconnected during the windshield replacement.

As far as windshield replacements, I don't think that dealers normally do this. I believe it's normally farmed out to one of the major windshield replacement chains.

After giving it some more thought, I doubt that it could have anything to do with the antenna (windshield or otherwise). If it weren't working you wouldn't be getting ANY signal/positioning. With my Garmin, when driving through an extended tunnel, it freezes me in one position and the young British lass tells me I've "lost satellite reception". So, it must be something else that's gone wonky (sorry for getting so technical.)

Does it always show that you are off by about the same distance and relative position?

Guenter, I almost never used the radio in my '99, and the same holds true currently with my '08 Boxster S.

Like you, can't find any music to compete with the engine.

Particularly johnsimion's reply
[986forum.com]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/24/2014 09:01AM by Laz. (view changes)

Thanks Laz, and Guenter

Guenter, my Nav worked perfectly when I dropped the car off, and didn't the first time I drove it after the windshield was replaced. I don't believe, for a moment, that this was simply an unhappy coincidence.

Laz, that thread is interesting, as it suggests the antenna is beneath the black plastic cowl, which the shop removed and reinstalled in the course of replacing the windshield.

I've spoken with the shop and asked them to talk to their technical people to ascertain what went awry.

According to this article, it's located on the underside of the cowl

[www.planet-9.com]

I was under the impression that all a GPS antenna did was to send its signal. Then it needs to receive signals from at least 3 satellites to triangulate its position. It appears it's certainly more complex than a radio antenna.

According to this website, a GPS antenna can/needs to be calibrated. So it could be that something changed the calibration of your GPS antenna during the windshield installation.
[www.ngs.noaa.gov]

Hopefully, you can get this sorted without too much trouble.

Forgot to ask, what happened to your windshield? Stone?

The glass place speculated that the maybe the nav or antenna had to be recalibrated.

I took the car to the dealer, who quickly discovered that the Nav antenna had been removed from its mounting position on the undersside of the panel (as part of the cowl removal) and was left flopping aound, uninstalled, when the glass installer 'finished' the job.

I understand that people can forget to reinstall components, but this failure was clearly visible as soon as the cowl was removed, and firther, whatever 'checking' they did with their 'tech people' was pathetic, if it was done at all.

I'm not impressed. For those in Canada, the place was Speedy Glass. This is strike 3 in less then a year (the other was my BMW). I'm done with them,

Glad to hear it was a relatively easy solution, Roger. So the NAV system now has you back on dry land?

Was it the same shop where you have had both your bad experiences? Maybe that one is a dud. Reason I ask, is I had a stone chip back in April. It was quite visible and I was worried it would require windshield replacement. The local Speedy Glass filled/repaired it so it's all but disappeared and looking good so far.