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Explorer Navigation Tracking Problem

Just curious, did you notice if you had acquired GPS? Did you have the icon "GPS with a red X through it"?

It had acquired GPS. In fact, I have never seen it display the the GPS with a red X symbol. It can precisely track the location on a straight road, but when the road curves or I make a turn, the nav location often keeps going straight into a field, a lake or a nearby road. The system then believes that it is off-route. This occurs on perfectly clear days in areas with no obstructions.
 



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The word from my dealer is that Ford has no solution to this problem and no ETA for a solution. For now, those of us affected by the issue have a very expensive but useless option. The problem must affect a relatively small percentage of the vehicles or there would be far more postings about it.
 






Hi all,

Just to update everyone, I still haven't heard back from the dealer/Ford on this issue. I am starting to think that there is no hope in sight here. As you know, I previously posted the link to a DrivingTelevision.ca video clip review of the 2011 Ford Explorer in which the commentators refer to one of their "dislikes" being the Nav system that sometimes fails to track the vehicle properly. So, it seems to me that this problem is long lasting for Ford and that they have no plan to address it, since it still exists on my 2013 version (two years after the video clip review). We have all basically been sold a knowingly defective system. That is a rip off of hundreds of dollars for a useless option!
 






I don't think that all of the systems are defective or at least not equally defective. If they all worked like mine, which is nearly useless, there would be even more complaints online. I am going to start building a paper trail for possible arbitration if this can't be fixed in a reasonable time. I don't expect to be able to use the lemon law for a replacement vehicle but I am not satisfied with paying for an expensive navigation system that can't navigate.
 






OK. Keep reading this thread and my heart goes out to you2-3 people that have nav problems. I have a 2011Limited w/ MFT/Nav. Old nav system sucked. Since Ford switched the only time I've experienced your problem is when I lose signal.

Have you tried reinstalling the sd card?

Have you checked the antenna to wire connection? I know you'all have signal but maybe it's weak. There is a thread somewhere that talks about installing shark fin antenna and it tells/shows how to get old one off.

Have you tried the reboot app? It works wonders. I always run it right after an update and as soon as MFT starts getting hinky.

Have you run the diagnostics mode? GPS Diagnostics gives you how many satellites currently found by your system. When you have a problem you can run it and compare it to when your nav is working.

I know your dealers should have done all these things but some dealers don't care.

Have you pm'd Rebecca from Ford ?

Good luck.
 






OK. Keep reading this thread and my heart goes out to you2-3 people that have nav problems. I have a 2011Limited w/ MFT/Nav. Old nav system sucked. Since Ford switched the only time I've experienced your problem is when I lose signal.

Have you tried reinstalling the sd card?

Have you checked the antenna to wire connection? I know you'all have signal but maybe it's weak. There is a thread somewhere that talks about installing shark fin antenna and it tells/shows how to get old one off.

Have you tried the reboot app? It works wonders. I always run it right after an update and as soon as MFT starts getting hinky.

Have you run the diagnostics mode? GPS Diagnostics gives you how many satellites currently found by your system. When you have a problem you can run it and compare it to when your nav is working.

I know your dealers should have done all these things but some dealers don't care.

Have you pm'd Rebecca from Ford ?

Good luck.

Haven't tried the diagnostics mode, but will try.

The problem in mine seems to occur if there's been a slight change to the roadway, but it only re-acquires on restart of the vehicle. The problem is once it seems to go off course, it fails to "catch up" and reacquire coordinates properly. This is looking like a logic/programming failure that they need to fix. Thus far, the navi has been fairly poor by my books - it goes off course regularly and becomes more of a nuisance than useful to the point it's just easier to shut it off.
 






3.5.1 MFT + A4 Maps = GPS Fail

I updated my MFT to 3.5.1, and installed the A4 SD card. The navigation system now puts the vehicle a few miles off-road most of the time, and on occasion it will find the vehicle in the proper location.

The previous MFT + A3 maps worked just fine. I contacted the IVT team here by a pm a few days ago, but I've not heard anything back from them.

Frustrated -
Jim
 






Try the reboot app. See if it helps. Also I set up "home" sitting in my driveway at the road so nav could pin point my exact location. Read this in forums somewhere along, long time ago. Don't really know if it worked but I have no problem with nav as long as I have signal. Except one time (2012) when in Blue Ridge Mountains and nav told me maps might be incomplete. Don't know if that was problem cause kept loosing satellites too..
 






First post, hello all, great forum, very informative!

I'm having the exact same problem. Position on the nav screen is approx. 500 feet off the actual position. The system constantly recalculates and finally all it says is "off route".

I tried to perform the fuse 29 reset but gave up because I could not get to the fuse box w/o running the risk to break my back :D. Who ever came up with the idea of placing the fuse box there, must have been out of their minds. This is the most ridiculous thing I've seen in a long time.

So I guess a visit to the dealer is next.

Other than that I really enjoy the Sport, great car!
 






First post, hello all, great forum, very informative!

I'm having the exact same problem. Position on the nav screen is approx. 500 feet off the actual position. The system constantly recalculates and finally all it says is "off route".

I tried to perform the fuse 29 reset but gave up because I could not get to the fuse box w/o running the risk to break my back :D. Who ever came up with the idea of placing the fuse box there, must have been out of their minds. This is the most ridiculous thing I've seen in a long time.

So I guess a visit to the dealer is next.

Other than that I really enjoy the Sport, great car!

Yep, just took mine in (again) today ... lemons suck :/
 






So I guess a visit to the dealer is next.

The visit to the dealer probably won't help. Ford Customer Care told me today that there is currently no way to fix the tracking problem with my nav system, which has never worked. They said that the engineers are working on a solution, and they will call back in 10 days with an update.
 






The visit to the dealer probably won't help. Ford Customer Care told me today that there is currently no way to fix the tracking problem with my nav system, which has never worked. They said that the engineers are working on a solution, and they will call back in 10 days with an update.

Had it to the dealer today, they confirmed what you where saying, no fix yet, they are working on it..... frustrating to say the least.
 






This was the basis of my lemon law complaint, which I won.
20120529_093717.jpg
 






This was the basis of my lemon law complaint, which I won.

I have lots of similar photos and will start building the paper trail for a lemon law complaint in case this isn't resolved soon. It is interesting that yours showed that it didn't have a GPS lock. Mine has never displayed that, but it cannot accurately track the location even when it finds 9 satellites.
 






I had no gps reception a majority of the time. The most satellites it was ever able to see was 5.
 






It is hard to believe, that it takes Ford such a long time to fix this problem. Depending on info gathered all over the net, this goes on since months and there is still no fix? This must be a huge problem if it takes a company like Ford that long. This is frustrating and absolutely unacceptable.
 






They are flying an engineer from Ford down on Monday to look at mine. I recorded three videos in a row of it showing it locking up and not finding me, over and over. I, too, have started a paper trail; if this was a cheaper car I might just trade it in, but a $46k vehicle ... not so much. Thinking I might put my Cobra up for sale and move to a new brand if this plays out. :/ Hope Ford does the right thing.
 






Just buy a Garmin: Free lifetime maps updated six times a year........
 






They are flying an engineer from Ford down on Monday to look at mine. I recorded three videos in a row of it showing it locking up and not finding me, over and over. I, too, have started a paper trail; if this was a cheaper car I might just trade it in, but a $46k vehicle ... not so much. Thinking I might put my Cobra up for sale and move to a new brand if this plays out. :/ Hope Ford does the right thing.

Can you share what came out of the engineers visit?
 



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Can you share what came out of the engineers visit?

Sure! They wiped everything and unplugged my vehicle so that it was a full reset. Evidently from what the Service Director was saying, their manual doesn't explain to go to that level.

The guy that came down said that it seemed that my indexed (and cached) music contained some otherwise unreadable music in it, which might be some MP3s that I got from a Chinese phone that I imported some years ago (the tags and the like are all in Mandarin), or an app, but they weren't sure. They asked me to wipe my phone (it's an iPhone 5) and see if that was the cause (they said once it caches the 'bad data' it needs a full reset again. The downside was that it was connected via Bluetooth so I think that it could have snagged some bad data at some point which is unfortunate and this morning it did lag again on boot up (but only for 2 or 3 minutes as opposed to the normal 10 - 15 minutes).

I'm going to see if it gets any better, but the director said if it fails again he will reply my APIM for a 2nd time to see if that helps any. When I was using my rental Toyota Avalon it sync'd up with my phone just fine and had no issues, so I'm a bit skeptical of it being the iPhone or my music being hard to read honestly. :/

MTF this coming week. On a good note, they did put the fix in for my exhaust leak smell into the cabin, hope that is fixed! that'd be a win in my book at least.
 






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