The Satnav on my 2017 e350d Estate says I am currently driving several miles east of Ipswich (in the North sea!). I'm actually in South West London (UK). This has happened before 2 years ago when it thought I was somewhere in Germany. It did correct itself a couple of months later and has worked properly until now, so I thought nothing more of it. What causes this error? At that time, in May 2022 I filled in an online support query with Mercedes-Benz but received no answer. Could this be caused by an over-the-air map update? I've since manually updated the map via a USB stick but it has not fixed the problem.
Satnav location error
- Thread starter CyShroff
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How many satellites is the unit finding?
CyShroff
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It's finding 13 🛰
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Have you tried resetting the unit?
13 satellites should give you an accurate location.
CyShroff
New Member
Yes, tried a reset - hasn't helped.
I had an S212 2016 E350 that I purchased new and had this problem around 3 months into ownership, it turned out the antenna was faulty and needed replacing.
Bad new was Mercedes in their wisdom did not have any connectors near the fitting so the dealership had to drop the roof lining to carry out said repair, they had the car for a day and a half as this was the first one they had with a complete wire running the length of the car.
Good luck getting yours sorted.
Robin
Bad new was Mercedes in their wisdom did not have any connectors near the fitting so the dealership had to drop the roof lining to carry out said repair, they had the car for a day and a half as this was the first one they had with a complete wire running the length of the car.
Good luck getting yours sorted.
Robin
CyShroff
New Member
Ah thanks for the insight! I did buy another unit last time it happened but hadn't fitted it before it started working correctly, so I will fit it in a couple of months if it hasn't corrected itself. I believe it sits inside the shell of the driver's mirror, so I hope I can figure out how to do that
Any joy resolving this issue??
I have a 2016 W205 C class AMG Line Premium Plus with comand NTG5.2 which is suddenly having issues with GPS location and navigation issues.
The vehicle position is drifting off slightly relative to map roads etc. by enough that if following a route, it displays "road not mapped", and the nav system attempts to re-route.
The vehicle direction pointer is facing upwards, (with the direction of travel orientation set to upwards, not north) but the maps are scrolling horizontally left/right with the direction arrow at about 90 degress to the direction of travel according to the map.
The map and road should normally rotate so that the road is always vertical and in line with the vertica direction arrow.
The compass appears to be out by about 90 degress.
The system show 9 or so satalites found, so in theory enough for a good fix (although this does not guarantee the signal as processed is accurate)
There are no fault codes regarding the system or gps receiver etc. and the hermes module shows 38dbuv gps signal strength.
The maps are the latest version 15, updated July 2023.
I have ordered a replacement GPS antenna, but not confident that this will cure the issues.
So, interested in hearing any similar experiences/fixes, as there are not any definitive answers from my searches.
I have a 2016 W205 C class AMG Line Premium Plus with comand NTG5.2 which is suddenly having issues with GPS location and navigation issues.
The vehicle position is drifting off slightly relative to map roads etc. by enough that if following a route, it displays "road not mapped", and the nav system attempts to re-route.
The vehicle direction pointer is facing upwards, (with the direction of travel orientation set to upwards, not north) but the maps are scrolling horizontally left/right with the direction arrow at about 90 degress to the direction of travel according to the map.
The map and road should normally rotate so that the road is always vertical and in line with the vertica direction arrow.
The compass appears to be out by about 90 degress.
The system show 9 or so satalites found, so in theory enough for a good fix (although this does not guarantee the signal as processed is accurate)
There are no fault codes regarding the system or gps receiver etc. and the hermes module shows 38dbuv gps signal strength.
The maps are the latest version 15, updated July 2023.
I have ordered a replacement GPS antenna, but not confident that this will cure the issues.
So, interested in hearing any similar experiences/fixes, as there are not any definitive answers from my searches.
rf065
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My 2016 w205 after returning home to Scotland showed me sitting in the Bay of Biscay after a trip to Spain. Fixed under warranty by Mercedes, just checked the paperwork for it and strangely it states, "found faults for multi function camera and radar sensor caused by Comand Online. Carried out intitial start up of comand online and sound system. Cleared faults and tested - all OK."
CyShroff
New Member
I have not been able to resolve the issue -- my experience is very similar to yours. Its still showing me just north-east of Stuttgart. The direction arrow always points up ( whether the map is set to North Up or not) regardless of which direction I'm actually going in. I've done a factory reset to no avail -- I don't recommend it, you will lose all your data and have to start over!! When I get the time I will visit my local Mercedes-Benz dealer. Coincidentally this fault occurred after I took it in for a recall notice and they didn't actually have to do anything, but I was told they just, and I quote: "updated the system".
I'll keep watching this space.
Philc57
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I have a 2017 c class and I'm afraid to say I think the sat nav is not fit for use .
On a recent trip to London it was telling me to turn left , then two turns the right for a destination that was a 100yards or so in a straight line in front of me ,
On a recent trip to London it was telling me to turn left , then two turns the right for a destination that was a 100yards or so in a straight line in front of me ,
GrahamT
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- E-Class Estate E220d AMG Line Premium 5dr 9G-Tronic
Weirdly my location has now changed to show me just southwest of Stuttgart. I'm actually in Southwest London
This exactly mirrors my experience with my E220d Estate almost three years ago. A new satnav antenna fixed it and I have had no problems since.
Ok update.
I tried a replacemant GPS antenna, but as I expected, it did not fix the issue, and the nav and location error(s) were exactly the same as before.
I note that despite all the info I have, including the Mercedes workshop manual and parts system, the GPS antenna on my car (late 2015 C Class W205 amg line premium plus), the antenna is in the right front mirror housing and not the left hand side!
So, I am going to have to resort to booking the car into the Mercedes dealer for diagnostic and hopefully/possibly a system re-flash/update, may be required to fix the issue.
I will update again as and when I have more info.
I tried a replacemant GPS antenna, but as I expected, it did not fix the issue, and the nav and location error(s) were exactly the same as before.
I note that despite all the info I have, including the Mercedes workshop manual and parts system, the GPS antenna on my car (late 2015 C Class W205 amg line premium plus), the antenna is in the right front mirror housing and not the left hand side!
So, I am going to have to resort to booking the car into the Mercedes dealer for diagnostic and hopefully/possibly a system re-flash/update, may be required to fix the issue.
I will update again as and when I have more info.
UPDATE! Fault fixed. Note this is related to NTG 5.2. as fitted to C Class W205
So, as briefly as possible...I decided to get my own xentry and vediamo diagnostic system. (mercedes dealer wanted £180 just to do a diagnostic check, with no promise of finding the problem, and then quote for any repairs to fix).
The Laptop with openport vdi interface and xentry, vediamo and Monaco etc cost £259 on eBay, which is obviously very useful to have regardless.
Diagnosing, with xentry showed NO faults at all with the headunit or GPS antennas etc??
Further, research into the issue, I found that the NTG5 head unit has a uBlox chip which handles all of the GPS/Sat Nav data processing. This chip also has a onboard gyro sensor.
From the way my fault was presenting itself, I had already determined that the Sat nav was receiving GPS data from the GPS antenna OK, (confirmed by Xentry), as it appeared that the system was attempting to determine and display the correct vehicle position, (as it was always fairly close to the actual location, but would struggle to stay accurate, especially when moving, which meant it would wander off route and result in "route/road not mapped" message and the location shown not accurate (usually off by upto 50 meteres or so. The software was apparently trying to work, as it would "snap"the vehicle location to the nearest road.
However, the compass and direction of travel on the map display was consistantly incorrect. the compass would show a vehicle direction heading of 90 degrees or more out from true heading.
The sat nav map display would show correctly show the direction of travel arrow pointing upward, (as is correct when set to "direction of travel up" as opposed to north up) but this resulted in the map often scroling horizontally (with the display showing the vehicle travelling sideways and not in the direction that the arrow was pointing. Normally, the map display should rotate so that the road ahead is vertical and in line with the direction arrow, and the maps thus should scroll vertically.
As said the actual location was close to being correct, but the system appeared to be getting conflicting information from the live actual gps location and the compass direction of travel.
From all of the above I decided that the electronic gyro must be faulty, and this is not repairable. (without replacing the uBlox chip).
I subsequently purchased and installed a used NTG5 comand head unit and all is good.
Fitting the head unit is easy, but it does require the "Antitheft code" entering and I had to do some "variant coding" changes to match my vehicle (Using Vediamo). The Antitheft code is tied to the head unit serial number, and the code was pruchased from a well known online shopping site, costing £18.99.
Also, the map data is stored on the head unit hard drive, and this is tied to the vehicle VIN number. As I already had the latest V15 map data on a USB drive and pin number, I simply installed the map data again on this used head unit (after unlocking the antitheft), and it works perfectly again!
FYI. If you change your head unit, try to get one that has come from the same model vairant as your vehicle, as this will mean it has the correct vehicle model image displayed and the majority of settings will match your veicle.
The unit I purchased was from a C63 AMG (mine is a C250 AMG Line premium Plus) so, some settings were significantly different, particularly the vehcile model show was a C63 petrol and the "Dynamic drive" settings did not function correctly until I changed the vehicle from AMG to sport model.
In AMG varient model mode, I did have the AMG engine/performace data screen with the dials etc. (which was nice) but there was no data input so didn't dispaly any values, so useless anyway.
Apologies for the lengthy post, but hopefully it might help anyone with the same issue, as I found very little info online, except the common issue of faulty GPS antenna, which in my case was definately not the cause.
Finally, as a side note, I am not sure if the existing maps data will work if you swap the hard disc from the existing unit, (the map data and also the vehicle user manual is stored on the hard disc). And, I do know that the GPS chip is located on a "daughter board" in the head unit which plugs into the main board, again I'm not sure if swapping the daugter board would work without it activating the "AntiTheft" protectection.??
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