Sat nav woes

[Phil Croxley]

Originally Posted by SignumGB

I am guessing the pop up became an annoyance and possibly why Volvo changed the design making it integral to the dash? Looking at images of it, it looks like it blocks the windscreen view a little?

It isn't too bad as far as visibility goes, what is annoying is the way it dims with the dash lights on a cloudy day making it hard to read. That, and not being touch screen.

[SwissXC90]

Originally Posted by Phil Croxley

It isn't too bad as far as visibility goes, what is annoying is the way it dims with the dash lights on a cloudy day making it hard to read. That, and not being touch screen.

I really dislike touchscreens in cars

I find that using buttons is easier, and stops the screen getting mucky

And while the design of the XC90 nav with popup screen is a decade and more old, I find it easy to operate from the steering wheel, and you could do more with it that the 2018 XC60 I had last weekend.

In fact, the XC90 popup nav allows you to control 100% of all functions without every taking your hands off the steering wheel. You cannot do that in the newer cars!

[Tatsfield]

I've always felt that dash sat nav screens are less safe than either pop-up or screen mounted stand alones. If you intend to look at the screen while driving, it is much safer if the screen is in your line of sight with the road ahead. True any screen will distract you but to have to look down and away from the road ahead runs counter to the trends set in areas such as the military and aviation where ergonomics outweigh cost economies. The ultimate safe display is head-up on the screen but the pop-up and the ancient plastic suction screen mount are still streets ahead of the low mounted dash system in terms of driving safety. You should be able to look at the screen without moving your head, just your eyes as little as the screen placing will allow. So my elderly TomTom is a much safer unit than the dash mounted Sensus unit.

The comments about being able to control the sat nav from the steeering wheel are valid for the pop-up screen but I've found using the clumsy steering wheel control system with the dash mounted Sensus to be downright dangerous when driving and once stopped, unnecessary.

[sanjaime]

The MMM2 Sat Nav or Road and Traffic System (RTI) on my 2010 XC60 is also specified for similar vintage V70, XC70 andS80 Models according to my Operating Manual therefore having found little information on the old XC60 forum I've come here.
In the recent cold weather my MMM2 Sat Nav has decided to get stuck on a location in Canterbury, Kent which is miles away from me in London.
The display still works fine showing a map of this wrong 'Current Location'.
I can still enter destinations and use all the functions available, I was even able to go to Settings and clear everything back to the default options. I have even changed the disk in the boot but the Current Location is still showing as the car being in Kent not London.

It seems to me that the GPS has packed up or the signal from the roof aerial is not being received by the unit.
When going into the Menu system and asking to display the Current Position the Display shows : 'Received position Satellites 0' - with nothing showing in the Latitude and Longitude fields.
However lower down the screen under the 'Map matched position' - it does show figures in the Latitude and Longitude fields with a valid road in CANTERBURY, UNITED KINGDOM. As far as we know the car has never ever been there since being manufactured back in 2009/2010.
Does the 'Satellites 0' display confirm the unit is failing to get a GPS signal ?

Any ideas ? Anybody else had problems with the GPS side of the MMM2 system.
What is usually shown against the 'Satellites X' display - is it 'Satellites 1' ?

[apersson850]

My 2012 XC70 has the RTI system that doesn't have any DVD installed during use. Everything is transferred to a hard drive in the unit.

When in use, it will receive a max of eight satellites, when the view of the sky is free from obstacles.

The "location on map" is the modified location for display. If you follow a road and get a satellite based position 14 m to the right of the road, the system will adjust the position to show you on the road. It will assume that if you go parallel to a road, at speed, you most likely are actually on the road.

If the system has no GPS input, it will rely on dead reconing, counting wheel turns while looking at a gyro to estimate turns. If GPS has been dead for a while, this system will evetually drift far away. It's good enough to keep good track of you while going through a tunnel, or passing high buildings downtown. But it doesn't work for any longer time, if it doesn't get recalibrated by getting GPS position inputs now and then.
A friend of mine has a V60, where GPS obviously was dead. The navigation system placed him in the sea north of Denmark, instead of in southern Sweden.

The 2016 XC70 we also have is equipped with the TFT main instrument cluster. It allows display of turn directions in the center of the speedometer, right ahead of you. Not a head up display, but not too far from one either.
In the V70/XC70, the center display is located fairly high up. It's lower down in a V60, for example.

[sanjaime]

Many thanks for your informative post. It does seem then that the GPS is not working.
From what you say there should be a figure of 1 to 8 in the
'Received position Satellites - x ' field and also valid latitude and longitude parameters.

Once the car is moving the sat nav tries to follow roads shown on the erroneous 'current location', but gets completely confused as we keep moving, even showing the wrong compass position and eventually when we are actually going north, it seems to think that we are going south from Canterbury and after some 30 miles heads out over the English channel - just the blue of an expanse of water.

So the question is which part of the GPS system is faulty and is it worth fixing.
I find using an iPhone is possibly better than the 10 year old MMM2 system anyhow.

The system went faulty on a very cold wet evening when going to pick up an eBay item we purchased.
I have previously noticed sometimes there are signs of water having dripped from the rear headlining onto the XC60 'boot cover' and sure enough there were signs of water ingress again dripping down, when investigating the sat nav problem.
So possibly there is a water corroded sat nav connector behind the headlining, which will be a real pain to investigate.

Plan A is to leave the sat nav off and use the iPhone...... hoping that the sat nav will suddenly start working again in the sunny weather.

Plan B is a part exchange for an XC40, but second hand prices of petrol versions are holding up too well just now.

[SwissXC90]

Originally Posted by sanjaime

Many thanks for your informative post. It does seem then that the GPS is not working. ...
So the question is which part of the GPS system is faulty and is it worth fixing..

The very first thing to do is go into the diagnostics menu of the GPS system and see what it says.

To enter diagnostics:

From a COLD boot: press ENTER - BACK - ENTER - BACK continuously during boot up, either with the steering wheel controls or the remote control.

A COLD boot is when the nav starts up after a total shut down. That's about 5 minutes after ignition off and key out. Use the spot lamp in the roof to see when the car shuts down. A car gone to sleep will switch off the roof spotlight.

After start up in diagnostics mode you will see the diagnostics menu appear.

Go through all of the hardware diagnostics, what do they report?
Take photos and post them here if need be.
Here's a video showing the diagnostics mode:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFik5QFi2oY

[sanjaime]

SwissXC90, thanks for your advice and guidance.
I tried to follow your instructions but failed - unable to get into a Diagnostic mode.
The car has the old MMM2 CD Disk in the boot system, with a fixed dash display which is not like the one shown in youtube video.

I tried the Enter/Display sequence with no luck.

We last switched off the sat nav when it was showing an expanse of blue - which we thought was the English Channel.
After switching on again with the engine running after failing to go into diagnostic mode things have changed slightly, which i think confirms the GPS system is the problem.

The Current Location is now coming up in the middle of a completely blue screen which is labelled NORTH SEA, although sitting on my drive in South London.
The car is facing south but the compass shows N is straight ahead which is S
(I took some photos on the iPhone but have no idea how to post them here as I use a Windows 10 laptop to post on here.)

I am reluctant to take down the rear headlining to check the connection to the GPS Aerial as the last time we did a similar exercise on my son's Merc A Class it was never the same.

The car is due for a Service so may ask the Volvo dealer if they can run any diagnostics on MMM2 CD drive system.

All in all we have used the sat nav very infrequently, as we know where we are going most of the time. It is just an annoyance that it has packed up in the cold wet winter weather.

[SwissXC90]

Originally Posted by sanjaime

I have previously noticed sometimes there are signs of water having dripped from the rear headlining onto the XC60 'boot cover' and sure enough there were signs of water ingress again dripping down, when investigating the sat nav problem.
So possibly there is a water corroded sat nav connector behind the headlining, which will be a real pain to investigate.

As far as I can tell from VIDA the GPS antenna in a 2008 V70 D5 SE Sport 185BHP Auto is the same as my 2009 XC90: in front of the rear view mirror on the front windscreen.

That lump is the GPS antenna, as well as GSM phone antenna.

And the diagnostics should work, it was the same method in all the MMM and MMM+ navs

[sanjaime]

Thanks for your reply.
My Operating Manual covers the xc60, v70, xc70 and s80.
There are 3 pages in Chapter 02 Get to know your navigation system showing Overview pictures - 1 for XC60 with inbuilt fixed screen, then V70/XC70 with what looks like a pop-up screen then a page giving the Overview S80 again with a above dash screen.
In all cases the 'Antenna for GPS' shows a picture of the little shark fin at the rear with the description 'The antenna is integrated into the roof antenna'.
The description of the Main unit confirms 'The GPS receiver and the receiver for traffic information (TMC) are integrated into the main unit'.

I tried again to get into 'Diagnostic mode' but no luck.

The display is now all blue, stuck in the middle of the North Sea. The voice prompt says that there are no roads available from your current position.

Definitely a GPS failure of some sort, but we've decided there is no hurry to fix it.

Thanks for all the help.....