I just had the F900BT installed today.

The GPS was working fine when I left the install place, but right before I got home it suddenly lost signal. I turned the car off and then back on again, and it was working. Later, when I went out that night, it knew where I last was but didn't get signal until I was driving for a little bit. On the way home from that, it totally lost signal and thought I was in British Columbia? I restored factory settings and it put me in Los Angeles. The whole time, with both those places, it's been unable to get signal. I click on the sattelite view and the dots are all yellow except for one red, and the globe doesn't have countries, it's just a blue ball.

Anyone having these problems or know how to fix them?

Where is your antenna installed? If it is hidden under the dash at all that might be the problem. Under the dash is fine but it has to be placed on something metal and cant be surrounded by metal. Find out and troubleshoot that as the problem until you rule it out. Other than that it might be a defective unit.

It's on the exterior of the car on the rear windshield near the top.

I'm going to take it back to the install place today and see if they can move it to improve reception.

It needs to be mounted on the roof, not on the rear glass. It really needs to be mounted on a metal surface to work correctly.

Just took it in.

It was actually above the glass on the metal, and had trouble working. When we moved it to the glass(using the metal sticker that comes with it) signal improved drastically.

Signal is still somewhat sketchy and every once in a while it flashes a message about the wiring to the parking brake being incorrect and drops entirely(the install place is going to check that Monday morning)

Is the signal normally this sketchy though?

I've only had mine installed a few days but the GPS signals I'm getting are solid. I have my GPS antenna installed on my roof, sort of above the front seats / 6" back from the edge of the front window. With my previous (much older) system, I had tried the GPS antenna on top of the dash under the front window and that worked pretty well, but being outside at the middle of the roof worked best for me.

For these GPS antennas to work properly and reliably they should be on a flat metal surface and should be oriented properly, i.e. not sideways or anything like that.

One other thing to check would be that the GPS antenna is securely plugged into the back of your nav unit. If the cable is loose, that would certainly cause a flaky signal. Loose connectors might also cause the intermittent parking brake warning.

Yeah i have never had an issue with gps reception, I keep mine in the rear window with the sticky back plate under it.

I would say either a damaged antenna or a lose/defective connector in the back. Also make sure the antenna wire/cable isn't pinched or damaged somewhere.

So the story continues.

If I'm parked, and I go outside and adjust the antenna, it will usually pick up a signal. It also does that sporadically when I'm stopped in traffic.

However, as soon as I move, signal is lost.

I drive an 05 Prius and there really isn't a flat surface on it anywhere. Stupid aerodynamic body.

Also, the parking brake error will come up occasionally, so I'm hoping it's either that or a loose GPS connection in the back.

Ideas?

You never mentioned what you did so far to try and fix this. If you checked the gps antenna, checked the length of wire made sure its not pinched or damaged, checked to make sure the antenna is plugged all the way in the back of the unit, then I would say your unit is defective and needs to be serviced.

Call pioneer and ask them, the number is on the website. They will most likely have you go through a nice little check list of things to figure out frist, then they will probably do a RMA on it, check it and ship it back.

That is really all you can do. It's either the antenna or the unit itself, or installation error. Mine have never given me any issues, the d3 or the f900bt as far as signal is concerned. So yeah, defective unit or gps antenna is it.

The device was previously at an angle and I moved it to less of an angle. The part of the wire that I can see is not pinched, and I'll have them check the rest of it when I take it in Monday.

The rest of the unit works perfectly.

I'm planning on calling Pioneer tomorrow. I called today, but their service was down for updates.

The parking brake error is indicative of a bad install or a non updated unit. The first firmware release of these units gave the parking brake error even if it was installed correctly. Nevertheless, I would be concerned about the dealers competence of your install. Is this place a reputable place? Does the box of the unit have the blue dot on it indicating that it has been updated. If not, your dealers credibility is in question in my eyes.

The device was at a angle? What do you mean the head unit or the antenna? It doesn't matter if the antenna is facing whatever way, just as long as its not blocked. Perhaps someone used the gps antenna as a whip for disciplinary action on one of the installers, and it hit the cement a few times knocking it out of its place inside the antenna casing. Never know.

All you can really do is try to find a spare antenna, and rule that out. All you have to have is it looking up at the sky, either it works or it doesn't. Anything flaky points to broken wire, or loose connection. That's about it.

Unless of course your in the middle of gigantic skyscrapers everywhere, that could certainly be an issue, but im guessing that isn't the case.

That is a good point, check the firmware revision its in the system menu. If the number is lower then 17 then its the original unit and would explain quite a bit.

I just checked and the unit has been updated. It's Ver. 1.001700.

The install manual says to have the antenna as level as possible. When I say it's at an angle, I mean the antenna is on the back of my car, which is about a 25 degree angle sloping downward.

The installers are the most reputable in the area. When I was selling cars at the local Ford dealership, we sent them all our cars if sattelite radio, etc needed to be added.

All I can guess, like you've been saying, is that there's something wrong with the wire itself. Either pinched, damaged, or a loose connection. The rest of the unit works perfectly, I just wish the GPS did.