portable sat navs not working in the car

Hi guys, I just got delivery of my Evoque yesterday and I have been so excited with it, bringing it out for spins. One thing I have noticed is that both my portable Garmin and TomTom sat navs have had really poor and intermittent (in some cases totally losing connection) connections to the GPS satellites for long periods of time when in use inside the Evoque and this happened when driving both in Central London and to Reading.

I have been giving this issue some thought I and was wondering if anybody else is having the same problem. I thought that this could possibly be down to two things. Firstly, maybe this could be down to there being a lot of wiring within the shell of the car thus creating a sort of Faraday cage effect affecting radio signals. Secondly, perhaps it is due to the solar attenuating glass option I have taken up on the car affecting GPS signals. Despite this, mobile phone signals have been working well in the car. I am kind of confused, any ideas? Thanks.

My first thought was what windscreen have you got fitted, as some do play up with the portable sat navs. If you have the heated screen that might cause problem, have you tried looking on the Tom Tom & Garmin websites for info?

Do you have the heated front windscreen? There are online discussions of GPS interference with this screen. You can purchase an external aerial for the GPS or find a location for the GPS near the periphery of the windscreen elements. It is a pain I agree.

Its becouse solar attenuating glass option

(18-12-2011 10:23pm)Kofer Wrote:  Its becouse solar attenuating glass option

+1 - you will need to get an external antenna for your Satnav - I will have the same challenge when my Prestige turns up - RoadAngel speed camera warning devices can't get a reliable satellite lock through heated windscreens either.

Having given my beloved A5 Cab back on Friday right now I have an Enterprise-renta-car Ford Kuga (base model), hopefully I'll have my RRE in two weeks or so...

Anyway I digress I have a trip into darkest Wales this coming week and need Sat-Nav, the Kuga has a heated windscreen....and I thought Satnavs don't work with those...we have a Garmin 3790t (we can highly recommended btw). Had a 100 mile round trip in the Kuga and it worked perfectly.

The Kuga is alright too - not RRE quality for sure but quite functional all the same.

(29-04-2012 12:05am)Straydox Wrote:  Having given my beloved A5 Cab back on Friday right now I have an Enterprise-renta-car Ford Kuga (base model), hopefully I'll have my RRE in two weeks or so...

Anyway I digress I have a trip into darkest Wales this coming week and need Sat-Nav, the Kuga has a heated windscreen....and I thought Satnavs don't work with those...we have a Garmin 3790t (we can highly recommended btw). Had a 100 mile round trip in the Kuga and it worked perfectly.

The Kuga is alright too - not RRE quality for sure but quite functional all the same.

Have you ( or anyone) had a change to test the the garmin 3790t in your rre.

(09-05-2012 03:45pm)evQ Wrote:  Have you ( or anyone) had a change to test the the garmin 3790t in your rre.

My RRE should be in my hands either Friday or Saturday of this week, so I'll be able to test it then. The mount we are using is Garmin's friction mount - that just sits on the dash and works extremely well. Garmin Friction Mount link

It's not the heated windscreen but the IR coating (sun-attenuating windscreen option). I had the same issue on my Ford Focus which was only resolved by fitting an external GPS antenna, which I placed in the car near the rear-view mirror in the "clear" zone deisgned for mounting road toll stickers/boxes where there is no coating.

Trust this helps

On a seperate note it would be intersting to know if the windscreen makes any difference to the temperature of the car a warm day. On my focus the windscreen was standard and didn't make a jot of difference (a bit of a con IMHO).

(10-05-2012 07:44am)BFGEvoqueMan Wrote:  It's not the heated windscreen but the IR coating (sun-attenuating windscreen option). I had the same issue on my Ford Focus which was only resolved by fitting an external GPS antenna, which I placed in the car near the rear-view mirror in the "clear" zone deisgned for mounting road toll stickers/boxes where there is no coating.

Trust this helps

On a seperate note it would be intersting to know if the windscreen makes any difference to the temperature of the car a warm day. On my focus the windscreen was standard and didn't make a jot of difference (a bit of a con IMHO).

GPS receivers with modern chipsets have usually no problem with metal coated windscreens any more, but the thin wires of the heating can cause a significant loss in field-strengh. All this can sum up and when you are in town, GPS reception is lost. A GPS repeater or an external antenna is a fix. Panoramic roof should help as well.