After several hours at my local dealership, which is a tiny facility that also is a GMC/Chevy?Jeep dealer, a guy named Kenny, who is a sort of dealership trouble shooter, has figured out the late 2018 early 2019 GPS system on the 12 inch screen. Do not waste your time with Chrysler Care, Connect care or senior case managers, who NEVER call you, email you or communicate with you.
I tried for three days to communicate with the so called, Senior case manager, LEONEL, who does not return calls or emails, either from myself or the dealership. The excuse given by Chrysler care, was he works the late shift ( they are working until 11:00 PM east coast time. Due to this, he was not Logged In at 8:30 West coast time.
So, Kenny went on line and researched not only this site, but any and every site where hundreds, if not thousands of complaints were registered regarding the GPS searching offline.
Here is what he has determined and some is taken on assumption.
1) The unit will only search "on line" if you are connected to 4G wi fi. This means you paid to connect to the 4G offered by UConnect, which is an annual cost, or, you are connected to Sirius XM Guardian. We tried the gps on a new 1500 where the owner registered for their free 1 year Guardian you get when you buy a longhorn or limited. I never registered for this. their unit searched onlin
2) when your unit is searching "offline", it is searching the database that it was loaded with when installed in your vehicle. My database is from a shipment of units from mid to late 2018. If you are searching for a street in a new development, such as in the south west of Idaho, it can't find it as it is not part of your database. Unlike a Garmin, you have to pay FCA, between $300 and $500 for a 1 time database update. It is something you would need to do if you want the unit current every couple of years. Garmin will sell you lifetime updates.
3) FCA over engineered the GPS and in trying to make it easy to use, actually made it a pain in the ***. Kenny had me enter 20 addresses I have in my phone, which meant a search in 6 different states. It searched "offline" for every one , but it found each one and set guidance to each one.
You can not just enter the address in the where to box at the top of the screen. That is good for local searches only. You could enter, say, chevron, or hardees, and the screen will list every chevron or hardees in your area. If its an address in your area, you MUST enter through that portal. If close to your local area, you must hit the right side 3 bar next to " in your area" and then hit, "in a city". Type in the city, then scroll until you see that city name and the correct state. For some reason, my unit defaults to Mexico , Central American countries or Caribbean Islands and I have to re-set the country almost every time.
For me, I use the "where to "icon in the lower left corner. Then I go to other destinations, then to either city or state. from there i can enter street and address.
when it starts to search offline, do not wait for the search to end. If you do that, it dumps and won't find it. The minute your location shows up in a dark bar in the middle of the screen, hit it. Then in bottom left it will have a green box that is getting the route. Hit that. Then a green Go box will appear in the lower left corner, hit that. This worked on every address I tried.
So, even though Kenny can't explain why the unit does certain things, he figured out how it will work for me. My 2017 Challenger, my wife honda are both enter address and if another state, enter that first, then go. I do have an iPhone and it interfaces with the Ram. It is much easier to use, so I may just go that route and live with a "Crappy" factory GPS
I tried for three days to communicate with the so called, Senior case manager, LEONEL, who does not return calls or emails, either from myself or the dealership. The excuse given by Chrysler care, was he works the late shift ( they are working until 11:00 PM east coast time. Due to this, he was not Logged In at 8:30 West coast time.
So, Kenny went on line and researched not only this site, but any and every site where hundreds, if not thousands of complaints were registered regarding the GPS searching offline.
Here is what he has determined and some is taken on assumption.
1) The unit will only search "on line" if you are connected to 4G wi fi. This means you paid to connect to the 4G offered by UConnect, which is an annual cost, or, you are connected to Sirius XM Guardian. We tried the gps on a new 1500 where the owner registered for their free 1 year Guardian you get when you buy a longhorn or limited. I never registered for this. their unit searched onlin
2) when your unit is searching "offline", it is searching the database that it was loaded with when installed in your vehicle. My database is from a shipment of units from mid to late 2018. If you are searching for a street in a new development, such as in the south west of Idaho, it can't find it as it is not part of your database. Unlike a Garmin, you have to pay FCA, between $300 and $500 for a 1 time database update. It is something you would need to do if you want the unit current every couple of years. Garmin will sell you lifetime updates.
3) FCA over engineered the GPS and in trying to make it easy to use, actually made it a pain in the ***. Kenny had me enter 20 addresses I have in my phone, which meant a search in 6 different states. It searched "offline" for every one , but it found each one and set guidance to each one.
You can not just enter the address in the where to box at the top of the screen. That is good for local searches only. You could enter, say, chevron, or hardees, and the screen will list every chevron or hardees in your area. If its an address in your area, you MUST enter through that portal. If close to your local area, you must hit the right side 3 bar next to " in your area" and then hit, "in a city". Type in the city, then scroll until you see that city name and the correct state. For some reason, my unit defaults to Mexico , Central American countries or Caribbean Islands and I have to re-set the country almost every time.
For me, I use the "where to "icon in the lower left corner. Then I go to other destinations, then to either city or state. from there i can enter street and address.
when it starts to search offline, do not wait for the search to end. If you do that, it dumps and won't find it. The minute your location shows up in a dark bar in the middle of the screen, hit it. Then in bottom left it will have a green box that is getting the route. Hit that. Then a green Go box will appear in the lower left corner, hit that. This worked on every address I tried.
So, even though Kenny can't explain why the unit does certain things, he figured out how it will work for me. My 2017 Challenger, my wife honda are both enter address and if another state, enter that first, then go. I do have an iPhone and it interfaces with the Ram. It is much easier to use, so I may just go that route and live with a "Crappy" factory GPS
