Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Toyota navigation

Who knows about them? We have an ‘18 Highlander. The nav system has been great up to now. We’re at the far end of a trip and the nav system is going haywire. It works fine enroute with all the correct turns, etc. But, when we get to the end, it can’t find the final destination. It’ll put us 1/2 mile away on a totally wrong street and address. The 1st night out, it took us 1/2 mile away from our motel. Then, getting here yesterday, my wife was driving. We knew we were way off but then it told us to make a u-turn. She did. GULP! Then it tried to take us into a wrong subdivision.

It’s showing that we have the latest software update which is a few years old. Any suggestions?

Yes, waze or google maps.

I second google maps.

We have a 2014 Highlander and my step daughter also has one. The GPS system on it is so bad we cannot use it. We use our iPhone most of the time.

Early on when we used it we found that by just using the routes we new to be best in lieu of following the Highlanders route we could pick up to 30 minutes of more on a 5 or 6 hour trip. We go to Michigan, a 12 hour trip, a couple of times a year and if we again followed the Highlander it would be a 13 1/2 hour trip.

I complained to the dealership but as expected they claimed no one else had ever complained about the GPS.

Obviously the later ones will have updated maps but in our case it is the logic that is flawed.

We use google maps through the apple play on our Toyotas. Works better than factory options

The nav system in my wife's 2020 Highlander Hybrid is great. Never an issue or a wrong turn, but it does pick a strange route from our house to the major street. After that, just fine.

I'm looking to buy a 2020 for myself in the next few months, as used prices come down.

Google maps often screws up directions in the last mile too.

Find out which version you have in the 2020 highlander and compare to your older highlander. I looked at this when I owned one and the dealer finally got in the latest chip in 2019 I owned a 2017 . Involves the SD reader underneath the screen.


They don't update maps very often FWIW. Waize sucks plain and simple.

Toyota firmware updates

My current Highlander is a 2008. No nav system, just a tiny systems screen for the backup camera. Wife's previous car was a Lexus, which got nav updates a couple of times in the years she owned it. Funny that the same isn't true of Toyotas.

I have a 2018 Lexus and get updates all the time as well, cannot tell if any are GPS updates, I checked with the dealer and he said I was up to date on NAV . I thought for some reason you had nav on the older vehicle.


Toyota typically installs new features on the Lexus lineup a few years before their own lineup.

My wife has a 2019 highlander that the nav seem's to work ok. We have not had any issue's. For that matter our 2014 4 runner the nav seem's to work fine also. If the 4 runner went a little wonky I could understand it as it is getting old and never updated.

Nav went out on my 2018 Tundra 3 times before 70k miles. To say it sucked would be an understatement.

This isnt a map update problem. We’ve been here before and it worked fine. The thing is locating the address way off. It works fine all the way until the last mile then it goes wacky, giving irrational directions.
This is something new. We’ve had the car 4 years without any problems. Somethings gone wrong and I’m fishing for ideas on where to start looking.

If it's always to this one place, and only this place, I wonder if there isn't something that's interfering with the GPS signal. Like a 5G tower or something.

Toyota made their mark with reliable vehicles. Tech has been an issue for them and I'm not sure why, but their infotainment systems collect a lot of complaints from owners.

GPS will do strange things at times. I was recently in Monticello, Utah, a very small town. I knew they had a pizza shop there called Wagon Wheel, but didn't know which end of town it was on. Searched for it on Google Maps on my new iPhone, and it came right up - Wagon Wheel Pizza. The only pizza joint in town. Oddly it showed about 8 miles away (there's nothing at all 8 miles from Monticello). I hit Start and it began sending me north toward Moab until I was out of town, and I knew the GPS was lying to me. We were originally just 1/4 mile away from where the pizza shop is actually located and the opposite direction from where Google sent me. Google never did update and give us the correct directions - I just found it the old fashioned way.

The 1st time this happened was in Green River, Ut which isn’t far from Monticello. We’re in Albuqerque now when it happened again.

Rocky:

I like reading a map. I bet you have spent a lifetime using hard copy maps. I'll even use a digital map. I use GAIA for backcountry navigation and I use Google maps for getting around in the city or on a cross country road trip. But I also prefer to have a hard copy map as a backup. I use to figure it the other way. The hard copy map was my primary and the digital was my backup. I Guess I have evolved.

But I don't like some computer telling me which way to turn or where to go. I prefer to read a map and figure it out for myself.

We have an 18 Highlander. I added Apple carplay to the existing system so that we can have Waze integrated into it. It’s made by carabc for about $200 and it takes about 20 minutes to install. It’s all plug and play.

Not that I think it would make a difference fixing the navigation issue but you can upgrade the maps on the Toyota system for $29

I have never used the existing system, I added CarPlay a few days after we bought it

Get out one's phone and rely on the Maps app.