Nav disk

[monepit]

I think my nav disk is crapping out. It works sometime and others it says no nav disk installed. I don't use the nav but I want the map on the screen. Does anyone have an old nav disk they want to sell after they upgraded. I hate to spend $200 on a new disk since I don't use it.

 

[Stella]

You should try bringing it to a used disk store and have them polish the disc.I've read it does wonders. Look at the Toyota version it's updated someone wrote about it on the forum.

 

[monepit]

I did that about 6 months ago. I don't know it's the disk because it's hit and miss. It seems to do it more when it's hot, about all the time here lately. The reason I think it's the disk is that when it does it I can take it out and put in a movie and it will play fine. After I had it polished it worked more consistent but it seems to be getting bad again.

 

[cubby558]

Dave,

Sent you a PM.

 

[johnpbaird]

You may wanna check out e-bay,....

I think my nav disk is crapping out. It works sometime and others it says no nav disk installed. I don't use the nav but I want the map on the screen. Does anyone have an old nav disk they want to sell after they upgraded. I hate to spend $200 on a new disk since I don't use it.

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Ive got a 2005 on e-bay, (Item number: 170905007054) Currently @ $55

 

[johnpbaird]

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Ive got a 2005 on e-bay, (Item number: 170905007054) Currently @ $55

SOLD SOLD SOLD

 

[hawkeye372]

The other day I was using my nav for the 1st time since I got my baby on oct 4th. I used it to see if it would tell me where I was. It showed the circle where my car was but no roads until I got to the main interchange. It did show a red dot but that was to show where the grocery store was. Maybe if I zoomed In it would have shown the actual road. This was the nav on the car not on my iphone.

 

[graytoad]

The other day I was using my nav for the 1st time since I got my baby on oct 4th. I used it to see if it would tell me where I was. It showed the circle where my car was but no roads until I got to the main interchange. It did show a red dot but that was to show where the grocery store was. Maybe if I zoomed In it would have shown the actual road. This was the nav on the car not on my iphone.

Without more info, I would say that you may have been in a newly developed area since your discs were issued: back when your discs were created those roads did not exist. We live in an area of a fair bit of growth and development and in certain areas we run into this all the time. That is the problem with disc based nav systems: the base data can not be updated.

 

[WB6BBZ]

The other day I was using my nav for the 1st time since I got my baby on oct 4th. I used it to see if it would tell me where I was. It showed the circle where my car was but no roads until I got to the main interchange. It did show a red dot but that was to show where the grocery store was. Maybe if I zoomed In it would have shown the actual road. This was the nav on the car not on my iphone.

Hawkeye, I notice that you have an 06. So do I and I found out something very interesting.
Bring up the Planned Route screen and hold your finger on the right lower corner of the screen for about 10 to 20 seconds.
On my NAV system, another panel pops up and if I touch the "RUN" screen button then it puts the system in a more versable mode that allows programming on the fly. If I look to the right upper corner, there is the bottom of another screen button that is really a "RETURN" button that returns you to the "Planned Route" screen.
What this option does is let my passenger program the system while driving down the road which supposedly could only be done on the 04 & 05 model years AND if you don't need the NAV system, the passenger can replace the NAV disc with a movie DVD if they'd like. Just don't let any law enforcement see that in the center of your dash.
The only draw-back to this function is when you stop and turn off the ignition, you have to go back through the procedure again.
My XLR is #165 of the 250 Limited Edition Star Black Matallic 2006 models. My XLR actually was built in Nov. of 2005.
Now, I don't know how many of the 2006 models were really built in 2005 or have the early systems like mine but it only stands to reason that there were 164 2006 Limited Editions models before mine that has the same NAV system that I have.

Also, while on the subject of the NAV Disc themselves, I recently purchased a Plextor DVD/CD Burner from Newegg.com for about $70.00 that will duplicate the disc so I can save my orginals and use the copies. I'll really be testing out the copies next week while driving down to The Texas Mile event in Beeville, TX. The local tests I've made here in the Los Angeles & Orange Counties have been just as good as my orginals which are the 2004 - 2005 and the 2008 - 2009 disc.
The Plextor system is a single disc RW system and the way it works is you'll need a blank 8.5GB DVD disc, a greater that 8.5GB USB memory stick. You put your GM NAV disc in the tray as the source disc, select the Disc copy function of the Plextor unit then insert the USB memory stick into the USB slot and push ENTER and in about an hour after all the data is copied from the disc to the USB memory. The unit will eject the source disc and instruct you to insert a blank DVD to burn for your copy.
Don't even think of trying to use a burn disc smaller or larger than 8.5GB as that is the size of the orginal disc and the Plextor system has a maxium cap. disc of 9GB.

 

[BoughtTheXLR]

Without more info, I would say that you may have been in a newly developed area since your discs were issued: back when your discs were created those roads did not exist. We live in an area of a fair bit of growth and development and in certain areas we run into this all the time.

Smaller roads and streets will not be shown unless you are zoomed in far enough. Otherwise the map would be illegible. But graytoad is also correct in that it could be the map does not include the street(s).

That is the problem with disc based nav systems: the base data can not be updated.

Not exactly true. Most DVD-based nav systems can be updated by purchasing an updated disk. Our cars and a number of early-2000's Toyota and Lexus models all use a Denso Generation 3 system, and the map and POI data format is the same. GM/Cadillac cut their losses and stopped producing updated disks while Toyota continues to supply them for their older cars. Unfortunately, the *structure* of the .kwi files is somewhat different -- for example, the voice data is coded a bit differently. Since the map format is the same, you can use an up-to-date toyota/lexus disk in our cars, but you lose the voice responses because that's done differently.

I studied the structures quite a bit a couple of years ago, and wrote enough code to conclude that it would be quite possible (but not at all fun) to write a program to extract all the data structures from the .kwi files of both an XLR disk and a newer Toyota/Lexus gen3 disk, and build a new disk with updated maps. I also concluded that I simply have no interest in doing that much work, and that if I did some lawyer would likely come calling.

The really dumb part about all this is that Cadillac could both make money and make XLR owners happy by making a new disk. Newer raw-form data is obviously available, since Toyota makes new disks each year (and yes, they actually have newer maps). The software that turns the raw data into an XLR disk almost certainly requires little (if any) updating, and if the map data costs Cadillac anything, that gets paid for by the income from selling the disks.

 

[agwondra]

The really dumb part about all this is that Cadillac could both make money and make XLR owners happy by making a new disk. Newer raw-form data is obviously available, since Toyota makes new disks each year (and yes, they actually have newer maps). The software that turns the raw data into an XLR disk almost certainly requires little (if any) updating, and if the map data costs Cadillac anything, that gets paid for by the income from selling the disks.

Unfortunately GM is not interested in making $$$s from updated Nav discs, they really want to make $$$,$$$,$$$s from selling and leasing new cars.

 

[BusaMan]

Great idea, but it doesn't work on my '06 (VIN xxx1443). When the panel pops up w/ the RUN button on it, it doesn't seem to accept the touch to that button. One can press on it all day, but "no joy". I can RETURN, just as you indicated, but my system is still in that "brain-impaired" mode where it won't let me program the route while moving. I've never tried to play a DVD on it at all, but if it won't let me do routing, it likely won't let me have a DVD running while enroute.

I can only surmise that a dealer "upgraded" the software for the first owner.

Tim

Hawkeye, I notice that you have an 06. So do I and I found out something very interesting.
Bring up the Planned Route screen and hold your finger on the right lower corner of the screen for about 10 to 20 seconds.
On my NAV system, another panel pops up and if I touch the "RUN" screen button then it puts the system in a more versable mode that allows programming on the fly. If I look to the right upper corner, there is the bottom of another screen button that is really a "RETURN" button that returns you to the "Planned Route" screen.
What this option does is let my passenger program the system while driving down the road which supposedly could only be done on the 04 & 05 model years AND if you don't need the NAV system, the passenger can replace the NAV disc with a movie DVD if they'd like. Just don't let any law enforcement see that in the center of your dash.
The only draw-back to this function is when you stop and turn off the ignition, you have to go back through the procedure again.
My XLR is #165 of the 250 Limited Edition Star Black Matallic 2006 models. My XLR actually was built in Nov. of 2005.
Now, I don't know how many of the 2006 models were really built in 2005 or have the early systems like mine but it only stands to reason that there were 164 2006 Limited Editions models before mine that has the same NAV system that I have.

<snip>

 

[hawkeye372]

Great idea, but it doesn't work on my '06 (VIN xxx1443). When the panel pops up w/ the RUN button on it, it doesn't seem to accept the touch to that button. One can press on it all day, but "no joy". I can RETURN, just as you indicated, but my system is still in that "brain-impaired" mode where it won't let me program the route while moving. I've never tried to play a DVD on it at all, but if it won't let me do routing, it likely won't let me have a DVD running while enroute.

I can only surmise that a dealer "upgraded" the software for the first owner.

Tim

Wow #165 where can i find out what edition mine is? My # out of #?

 

[hawkeye372]

Hawkeye, I notice that you have an 06. So do I and I found out something very interesting.
Bring up the Planned Route screen and hold your finger on the right lower corner of the screen for about 10 to 20 seconds.
On my NAV system, another panel pops up and if I touch the "RUN" screen button then it puts the system in a more versable mode that allows programming on the fly. If I look to the right upper corner, there is the bottom of another screen button that is really a "RETURN" button that returns you to the "Planned Route" screen.
What this option does is let my passenger program the system while driving down the road which supposedly could only be done on the 04 & 05 model years AND if you don't need the NAV system, the passenger can replace the NAV disc with a movie DVD if they'd like. Just don't let any law enforcement see that in the center of your dash.
The only draw-back to this function is when you stop and turn off the ignition, you have to go back through the procedure again.
My XLR is #165 of the 250 Limited Edition Star Black Matallic 2006 models. My XLR actually was built in Nov. of 2005.
Now, I don't know how many of the 2006 models were really built in 2005 or have the early systems like mine but it only stands to reason that there were 164 2006 Limited Editions models before mine that has the same NAV system that I have.

Also, while on the subject of the NAV Disc themselves, I recently purchased a Plextor DVD/CD Burner from Newegg.com for about $70.00 that will duplicate the disc so I can save my orginals and use the copies. I'll really be testing out the copies next week while driving down to The Texas Mile event in Beeville, TX. The local tests I've made here in the Los Angeles & Orange Counties have been just as good as my orginals which are the 2004 - 2005 and the 2008 - 2009 disc.
The Plextor system is a single disc RW system and the way it works is you'll need a blank 8.5GB DVD disc, a greater that 8.5GB USB memory stick. You put your GM NAV disc in the tray as the source disc, select the Disc copy function of the Plextor unit then insert the USB memory stick into the USB slot and push ENTER and in about an hour after all the data is copied from the disc to the USB memory. The unit will eject the source disc and instruct you to insert a blank DVD to burn for your copy.
Don't even think of trying to use a burn disc smaller or larger than 8.5GB as that is the size of the orginal disc and the Plextor system has a maxium cap. disc of 9GB.

Where can i find out my # build out of #?

 

[hawkeye372]

Smaller roads and streets will not be shown unless you are zoomed in far enough. Otherwise the map would be illegible. But graytoad is also correct in that it could be the map does not include the street(s).
Not exactly true. Most DVD-based nav systems can be updated by purchasing an updated disk. Our cars and a number of early-2000's Toyota and Lexus models all use a Denso Generation 3 system, and the map and POI data format is the same. GM/Cadillac cut their losses and stopped producing updated disks while Toyota continues to supply them for their older cars. Unfortunately, the *structure* of the .kwi files is somewhat different -- for example, the voice data is coded a bit differently. Since the map format is the same, you can use an up-to-date toyota/lexus disk in our cars, but you lose the voice responses because that's done differently.

I studied the structures quite a bit a couple of years ago, and wrote enough code to conclude that it would be quite possible (but not at all fun) to write a program to extract all the data structures from the .kwi files of both an XLR disk and a newer Toyota/Lexus gen3 disk, and build a new disk with updated maps. I also concluded that I simply have no interest in doing that much work, and that if I did some lawyer would likely come calling.

The really dumb part about all this is that Cadillac could both make money and make XLR owners happy by making a new disk. Newer raw-form data is obviously available, since Toyota makes new disks each year (and yes, they actually have newer maps). The software that turns the raw data into an XLR disk almost certainly requires little (if any) updating, and if the map data costs Cadillac anything, that gets paid for by the income from selling the disks.

YEs my area is only 13 -17 yrs old