ltooz_a6_a8_q7

It's over a year without any hick ups, today, the temperature got up to 95 degrees, turned on the car, navigation and "please wait... initialize.." then "Please check navigation dvd". Reset the MMI, removed and re-inserted the dvd still had the same problem. The current DVD is 2012-2013 copy. Took out the old 2010, put it in, it loaded but it doesn't navigate or load the stored addresses but it did navigate with the 20 memorized destination. Weird software problem.
Came home, open the trunk, let the hot air out from the navigation bay, left the cover out. Put back the 2012-2013 copy dvd in (didn't even need to reset the MMI) - by the way, to reset MMI just in case someone doesn't know, tel + big **** + northeast button from where your sitting. I forgot and had to tried many combinations -
"new software found - update?"
Yes,
The MMI updated and voila, the navigation is back.
The moral of the story is, it's not the DVD, not the Navigation player, it's the heat that caused the problem. So, next time, if this happens, make sure the navigation bay is well vented... May be the car is designed only for optimum temperature of 70 degrees F. +/- 10 degrees... :-), if you live in the north pole or near the equator, don't buy this car.

Cheers,

Louis

mishar

It is Navigation Unit. Reading is weaker and temperature just tripped it off. Cleaning lens helps for some time. DVD quality makes additional difference.

Mike141

I had the same problem with mine but it eventually never came back on. It would go to the map for about 20 sec then back to please check DVD...I had to replace the drive. Glad to see yours isn't dead yet but looks like it may be going that route.

jakematic

Yes.
Mine did same, after taking apart and blowing out dust it helped.


Sorry to hear that Mike, that's what I was afraid of.



Consider that these units are now a decade old.
They live through massive heat/cool cycles, and bounce along the roads collecting dust and moisture let in when the trunk is opened.
They will and are, from what I'm see across all forums, failing just like CD changers because they are opto-mechanical devices.

ltooz_a6_a8_q7

For some reasons, regardless of how we think about the quality of Audi components - mechanical and electrical when they fail - too early or too late - As an electrical engineer, working with manufacturing and quality, I think this Navigation box is awesome. It tracks satellites fast, it recalculates new routes quickly, if you learn how to use the voice commands, it's great (well my daughter asked it to get her ice cream, the lady didn't).
I know about the heat can cause electronic components to malfunction, by looking at the MMI responding to commands, something was corrupted due to the heat - cache data - RAM - Flash or whatever the case might be. I'm sure Audi does test and qualify these OEMs manufacturers very well before they put this box into this flagship car.
How often do we use the navigation? I don't use that often, only when I have to go somewhere I don't know and I don't want to get off the wrong exit in a not so safe area.

- I did upgrade the software to 2012-2013 DVD and it asked to upgrade again --> the software was wiped out somehow.
- The Navigation bay is full of electronics components and I can feel the heat - HOT out side, I'm sure inside it's much more.

I want to see if this Navigation box will last 5 years for me, and I'm pretty confident, because it's Audi.

Cheers,

Louis

jakematic

I'm an EE too, and agree with your latest assessment.

My main use is either to see how close to a desired arrival time I'll be, or the "GTFO" method aka "Take me home".

If anybody can make it last 5 more years, my confidence is in you.
I just see so many of them failing these days and no doubt we'll be having this conversation in 5 years about the hard drive based NAV.

I'm appalled the lady would not get your daughter ice cream, you should fire her

MP4.2+6.0

Five months into its delivery life and only about 3 months after it was turned on after its US arrival, unit catastrophically failed. Was driving it when it happened. A few characteristic clicks of the hard drive you could hear in the dash as it sounded like it was doing a big time seek, a sudden attempt it made to restart, and it was all done. Happened sitting at a stop light 4 hours into a drive back from Tahoe on a pleasant (not hot or freezing) day with HVAC controlled interior temp. $3,000 part at list, all to replace like a 40-60 gig hard drive they probably hardly even make anymore.

Nice functions, but not impressed w/ the electronics quality from that and two other incidents so far--also the core ECU/ECM and the adaptive lighting controller.

ltooz_a6_a8_q7

When it comes to hard drive, there are only a few manufacturers that have reliable drives, I don't know where Audi buys them. If it's replaceable, I would get a Hitachi (old IBM-now owned by WDC) and clone the software to it. Seagate is the one I would avoid. Toshiba is also good. Other than those, I haven't tried any other.
In the hard drive, the knocking head is the most common failures for poor quality drives (WDC was famous for bad head until they bought the head maker company).
I don't think I would get into the D4 or newer Audi models that use hard drive until I figure out how to swap and clone hard drives. Hard drives are hard drives, they're generic, OS is the only thing that makes them operate proprietary.
I don't care what OS they use, as long as I can take the hard drive out, I can clone the whole drive to another, better one.

$1300? should be under warranty -

Cheers,

Louis

jakematic

Hitachi Deskstar would be my first choice too, but I thought WD (shudder) bought them ?
Seagate is my first choice for non-enterprise disk, have given me almost zero trouble in the last 15 years.

It's crazy they aren't using SSD.
I use a 120GB mSATA as cache in my Drobo arrays, and have a 120GB M500 on my desk to replace a failed desktop drive.
Both are less than $75 !

Even the eMLC drives aren't that bad anymore...

MP4.2 - what did you lose when the drive failed ? Just Nav or the whole MMI ?

ltooz_a6_a8_q7

mSatas have their own problems... Flash memories are using 1.4v-1.8V to save power, talking about heat that cause noises in signal integrity, corrupted data you will get in hot environment. I'm sure Audi has thought of it, besides the cost but also the operations. All hard drives or electronic devices have built-in numbers of power on/off and they will die, that's why only hard drives in servers will last many years and our computer at home only last a few years because we turn the computer on/off daily or minutely. In the car, how many times you turn on or off a day using it? If Audi is smart, the hard drive is still on, but in sleep mode even when the engine is off, but then it may draw current out of the battery? Hard drive is a noble option, but it may not be a practical and efficient option.

Instead of hard drive, Audi should use MMI that has a large cache memory - read the maps from DVD, cache the whole thing in MMI or a part just like google map on PC or MAC without wifi. Turn or put DVD in Sleep Mode. So, it's fast and efficient and save power and less problems. But I'm sure they already tried that.

Cheers,

Louis

Cheers,

Louis