GPS Antenna Replacement - Cutting out rear windshield??

[Aggmeister2010]

Plenty of GPS ANTENNA FAKRA listings on ebay as well (but this has the female connector. Appears Tesla uses male connector on the antenna side?)

GPS Antenna Fakra C Female cable 3m For Audi VW BMW Mercedes | eBay

Impedance: 50 ohm. 100% Waterproof. Kindly Note Color:as shown.

www.ebay.com

Those are the female end, our cars use a male terminal on the antenna side.

 

[EVCarGUy]

Was it *always* off by that distance, or occasionally?

Mine is off by quite a bit more than that - sometimes up to 2 miles - but I'm trying to do some self diagnosis before I let the SC cut my window out.

The GPS was normally fine, but occasionally on speed bumps in my neighborhood, I'd notice the suspension didn't auto-rise, then look at the nav screen and see that it had the vehicle some distance away from the actual location. After unplugging the cable to the rear camera for a minute or so, the GPS location would correct itself, and I'd plug the camera back in. A few days later, the location would be off again.

 

[Aggmeister2010]

The GPS was normally fine, but occasionally on speed bumps in my neighborhood, I'd notice the suspension didn't auto-rise, then look at the nav screen and see that it had the vehicle some distance away from the actual location. After unplugging the cable to the rear camera for a minute or so, the GPS location would correct itself, and I'd plug the camera back in. A few days later, the location would be off again.

Interestingly enough, the Service Center replaced my GPS micro sd card, and it seems much more accurate ---- though now I have YOUR problem of being consistently about 100 ft off. I unplugged my rear blackvue camera, and now it's back to being accurate.

I'd like to use my rear camera, though - so I'm curious if putting a ferrite core on the GPS cable will help clean up the signal from interferance......thoughts?

 

[Aggmeister2010]

Alright folks, UPDATE. Replacing the SD card and unplugging my Dash Camera did not resolve this issue.

My GPS still goes off in random directions. Follows my turns and speed, just not in the right direction. The biggest issue is, that eliminates my ability to use navigation, and AutoPilot won't function (Because I show as driving through residential buildings when I'm on the freeway).

At the SC, they checked that the harness was functioning - I'm suspecting that the GPS antenna itself is faulty.

To avoid removing the glass, I purchased an aftermarket GPS antenna with the correct connector on ebay, and will just stick that to the inside of my rear glass to see if that fixes the issue.

 

[Aggmeister2010]

Folks,

My aftermarket GPS antenna came in today, and I put it in as a replacement. Super easy, takes about 5 minutes. The connector for the factory GPS antenna is stuffed up behind the rubber boot on the driver side of the rear lift gate. Just fish it out, disconnect it, and connect the new one.

The vendor on eBay was kind enough to include a 3D printed carrier for the antenna so I could mount it top-side-up in my rear window. Hopefully this will resolve my random GPS issues - if not, I know it's a wiring problem. You can't remove the factory antenna without removing the rear windshield, so it's still in there, just not in use.

I'm going to install it a little better once I know if this is the fix I need, but this'll do for now.

 

[Aggmeister2010]

Update for everyone - I sent my car in to the Service Center to have the factory GPS antenna replaced (while under warranty, figured it made sense).

They found that my antenna actually functioned okay -- and had to escalate to open a "Ticket with Tesla Engineering" to investigate further. They have already validated there's no excess resistance in my wiring harness, and replaced the main board and SD card up by the MCU. It'll be interesting to see what the end-all cause is.

 

[Aggmeister2010]

FINAL UPDATE: -- After having the car for 3 weeks, the SC fixed it.

It seems that at the end of the day, the issue was a combination of a faulty sensor and faulty wire back to the MCU. After replacing the antenna and running a new line for the harness, my GPS has worked flawlessly.

For what it's worth, they also replaced all of these items in previous trips, but that did not do anything to solve the issue:
- Re-Seat antenna wire connection
- MCU eMMC Memory
- Maps SD Card
- Replace GPS Board in MCU

 

[ArizonaP85]

FINAL UPDATE: -- After having the car for 3 weeks, the SC fixed it.

It seems that at the end of the day, the issue was a combination of a faulty sensor and faulty wire back to the MCU. After replacing the antenna and running a new line for the harness, my GPS has worked flawlessly.

For what it's worth, they also replaced all of these items in previous trips, but that did not do anything to solve the issue:
- Re-Seat antenna wire connection
- MCU eMMC Memory
- Maps SD Card
- Replace GPS Board in MCU

4 “repairs” which did not fix it until finally in the 5th repair they replaced enough parts to solve the problem. That’s bad enough when it is a warranty repair, but can you imagine an owner’s reaction if it was out-of-warranty and they were asked to pay for 4 useless “repairs”?
Tesla needs to up its service center game and get rid of “parts swappers” in favor of hiring real mechanics.

 

[Aggmeister2010]

4 “repairs” which did not fix it until finally in the 5th repair they replaced enough parts to solve the problem. That’s bad enough when it is a warranty repair, but can you imagine an owner’s reaction if it was out-of-warranty and they were asked to pay for 4 useless “repairs”?
Tesla needs to up its service center game and get rid of “parts swappers” in favor of hiring real mechanics.

Yep, I totally agree. The service lead was very open with me that the techs were trying to avoid the cost of taking out the rear window, and in the process made me bring in the car 4 times to try other things.

I *hope* that this was due to the fact that the car is under warranty and they figured "well, he's not paying, so let's take it one step at a time." But even still, it was incredibly inconvenient for me.

 

[Y Cmbust]

Great thread, really enjoyed the camaraderie and the tips on solving this GPS issue. I'm also being told I have to replace the rear window on my model 3 because the Wi-Fi and cellular antennas are peeling off from the glass. has anybody used any aftermarket antennas to replace the factory glass ones?

 

[Wratran]

Can you post the link for the GPS ANTENNA?

 

[MMinehan]

Update for everyone - I sent my car in to the Service Center to have the factory GPS antenna replaced (while under warranty, figured it made sense).

They found that my antenna actually functioned okay -- and had to escalate to open a "Ticket with Tesla Engineering" to investigate further. They have already validated there's no excess resistance in my wiring harness, and replaced the main board and SD card up by the MCU. It'll be interesting to see what the end-all cause is.

Hi @Aggmeister2010 . I wasn't sure if your 3rd party GPS antenna worked. In June you mentioned your has purachsed the GPS antenna off eBay and then August you mention that the SC are going to replace the factory antenna. But did the eBay antenna trick work?

I'm having the same issue with my out of warranty MS and don't want to pay a fortune to take out the rear window if I can avoid it.

Thanks, Marty.

 

[Plaidish]

My 21 MSLR was in the shop for the car location being off 50-100 feet, making autopilot, navigation, homelink(auto) useless. These are big deals and very frustrating. They said they replaced the gps antenna.

Still having the issue.

 

[Cailert]

Folks,

My aftermarket GPS antenna came in today, and I put it in as a replacement. Super easy, takes about 5 minutes. The connector for the factory GPS antenna is stuffed up behind the rubber boot on the driver side of the rear lift gate. Just fish it out, disconnect it, and connect the new one.

The vendor on eBay was kind enough to include a 3D printed carrier for the antenna so I could mount it top-side-up in my rear window. Hopefully this will resolve my random GPS issues - if not, I know it's a wiring problem. You can't remove the factory antenna without removing the rear windshield, so it's still in there, just not in use.

I'm going to install it a little better once I know if this is the fix I need, but this'll do for now.

View attachment 676222

View attachment 676221

Hi, can you link the product that had the right fakta connector?

 

[Aggmeister2010]

Hi @Aggmeister2010 . I wasn't sure if your 3rd party GPS antenna worked. In June you mentioned your has purachsed the GPS antenna off eBay and then August you mention that the SC are going to replace the factory antenna. But did the eBay antenna trick work?

I'm having the same issue with my out of warranty MS and don't want to pay a fortune to take out the rear window if I can avoid it.

Thanks, Marty.

My car is still under warranty. So, I bought the 3rd party antenna to cover me for the several months it took Tesla to finally just replace the factory antenna. And for that, it worked fine.

 

[petit89254]

So I have been having intermittent issues with my 2017 MS75 losing GPS signal - meaning it would get stuck and not update the location which obviously causes Nav not to function but also causes TACC and Autopilot to not work.

Was told this morning after a remote diagnosis that my GPS antenna needed to be replaced, I asked if this was something I could wait for or drop off and was told that it would take 3-4 hours because they need CUT out the rear windshield to replace!!! WTF!! Seriously...does this sound right to anyone?

Tesla Model S compatible GPS antenna | eBay

Condition is New.

www.ebay.com

 

[VegarHenriksen]

1004794-00-B is around $60 from Tesla
Disconnected the old antenna, taped it up and tucked it back in.
Since I have the Plaid liftgate trim I had one of the original clip holes unused so I drilled that larger and pulled the connector through there. Then put on some NVH foam on the antenna and tucked it behind the liftgate trim.
Works like a dream and stupid cheap. Also extremely easy to replace in the future.