Heated windscreen - impact on GPS-signal on phone?

[YvesGr]

Ready to order my first Cali, but some open questions:

I would like the Cali T6 to be as silent as possible, so I am looking at the option "Isolated glass in front cabine / heated windscreen". I do not want to order the navsystem, but want to use my iPhone and Apple Carplay for navigation => does the isolated / heated windscreen has an impact on the GPS-signal reception inside the car? Any experiences with this?

I am also looking at the DCC, what is the difference between the 2 options:
- DCC with dynamic chassis
- DCC with standard chassis
Would you order the differential lock? I am not going to do heavy offroading , but might be driving on rural unpaved roads, summer and winter

Any othe recommendations (do / don't)

Thanks

Yves

 

[Nick Stubbs]

Didn't have a gps issue with my Landrover which was fitted with a heated screen.

 

[Moakesy]

I’ve not noticed any loss of signal with the heated screen. I seem to recall that the place in the dash (on an ocean) does some sort of signal boost, but will have to check when I get home.

The DCC and dynamic chassis are two unrelated things. I have, and love, both.

DCC is like normal cruise control, but uses radar to ‘see’ the car in front, therefore allowing it to automatically slow the car down. If you’ve set cruise to 60mph but the other car is doing 50, it’ll maintain a safe distance until they’ve gone, then you’ll return to 60.

Dynamic chassis gives you three settings on your suspension. Comfort/Normal/Sport. You press a button to change the setting (no auto feature here). My vehicle came with the option already as it was ex-demo. Whilst I wouldn’t pay top dollar for it, I do use it much more than I thought and you can certainly tell the difference between the three settings. It’s a nice to have and not essential.

Both these features tend to divide opinion. Some are against them, but my view is it’s your money so spend it as you want.

For me, I would certainly buy dynamic cruise, but would only buy dynamic chassis if it was a great deal.

 

[MaxRed]

DCC is like normal cruise control,

That's ACC.
DCC is suspension control. I tried it on Multivan and liked it. Opted for it on ordered Beach.
Dynamic chassis is basically lowered suspension. The van in 30mm lower if I'm not mistaken.

 

[Perfectos]

Heated screen has no impact on my beach, using car play navigation

 

[Jay586]

I have a heated screen, no probs with phone. Pain if it needs replacing, well, it was in the summer as VW changed supplier & it was on back order.

 

[Gary&Heather]

No probs for us

 

[briwy]

We have diff lock and have used it a few times. Our avatar shows why we have it but TBH it's rae to have to use it but when we have it helped a lot.

 

[GrannyJen]

Ready to order my first Cali, but some open questions:

I would like the Cali T6 to be as silent as possible, so I am looking at the option "Isolated glass in front cabine / heated windscreen". I do not want to order the navsystem, but want to use my iPhone and Apple Carplay for navigation => does the isolated / heated windscreen has an impact on the GPS-signal reception inside the car? Any experiences with this?

I am also looking at the DCC, what is the difference between the 2 options:
- DCC with dynamic chassis
- DCC with standard chassis
Would you order the differential lock? I am not going to do heavy offroading , but might be driving on rural unpaved roads, summer and winter

Any othe recommendations (do / don't)

Thanks

Yves

DCC is marginal.

Diff lock is of no use whatsoever until that one time that you need to use it. If you are going over broken ground with multiple buggeration features then for the money the one time in use is worth everything and I speak from experience.

The Cali is a quiet vehicle. Attention to how you pack it is worth far more than fancy add-on's.

 

[MattBW]

So I have a problem with my 2015 which may be related.

I have always found if I have any heavy draw 12v items charging from the cup holder socket, it will often cause DAB to drop in and out more often than it would normally.

I have always put this down to the wiring not being sufficient for the ampage. Do you have anything charging at the same time? Try unplugging if so and you may like me find it improves.

The Gps antenna is in the mirror however so should be fine.

 

[YvesGr]

Thanks all for the useful replies!!

To summarise:
- heated / isolated windscreen makes no difference for GPS reception on a smartphone in the car
- DCC with dynamic chassis = 30 mm lower suspension => what's the benefit of this
- Diff Lock: recommendable

Other options that are very recommendable?

 

[MaxRed]

DCC - for me personally, the van drives better with DCC in sport mode: less leaning in turns; in comfort mode on highway no bumps are noticeable at all. This more of a personal preference, without DCC Cali also drives quite OK, but I like sport mode - I like more active driving style, and it helped there.

But I heard some advice that this option doesn't worth it. If your drive style is calm and relaxed you probably won't notice any difference.

 

[Shadrack]

Ready to order my first Cali, but some open questions:

I would like the Cali T6 to be as silent as possible, so I am looking at the option "Isolated glass in front cabine / heated windscreen". I do not want to order the navsystem, but want to use my iPhone and Apple Carplay for navigation => does the isolated / heated windscreen has an impact on the GPS-signal reception inside the car? Any experiences with this?

I am also looking at the DCC, what is the difference between the 2 options:
- DCC with dynamic chassis
- DCC with standard chassis
Would you order the differential lock? I am not going to do heavy offroading , but might be driving on rural unpaved roads, summer and winter

Any othe recommendations (do / don't)

Thanks

Yves

Hi YvesGr,

Not sure on heated glass and effect on signals inside but when installing my speaker upgrade a couple of years back I found the following gizmo living behind the front n/s door card.
With the Ocean having a stronger signal area in the dashboards phone pocket I guess this is the signal amp for it.
I think the phone atteni lives in the mirror...
For me the signal I receive is excellent when phone is within this dash compartment.

Hope this helps.

 

[YvesGr]

View attachment 40000


Hi YvesGr,

Not sure on heated glass and effect on signals inside but when installing my speaker upgrade a couple of years back I found the following gizmo living behind the front n/s door card.
With the Ocean having a stronger signal area in the dashboards phone pocket I guess this is the signal amp for it.
I think the phone atteni lives in the mirror...
For me the signal I receive is excellent when phone is within this dash compartment.

Hope this helps.

Hello Shadrack,
Thanks for the feedback. Probably this is the option ‘Comfort Mobile phone interface Bluetooth + antenne + build-in charger.

The sales guy told me this increases the quality of the mobile phone reception, but he did not mention it also strengthens the GPS-signal.

I would like to be quite sure abouth this, as today I sometimes have issues getting descent GPS-location on my iPhone, in a Mercedes E-class without heated windscreen.

Maybe I should just skip the ‘heated screen’ option and stick to the option ‘insulated glass’

 

[YvesGr]

DCC - for me personally, the van drives better with DCC in sport mode: less leaning in turns; in comfort mode on highway no bumps are noticeable at all. This more of a personal preference, without DCC Cali also drives quite OK, but I like sport mode - I like more active driving style, and it helped there.

But I heard some advice that this option doesn't worth it. If your drive style is calm and relaxed you probably won't notice any difference.

Hi Maxred,

Thanks for the feedback on the DCC. I think I will go for this option, as I like it very much on my current car (Mercedes E - air suspension) => I always drive in comfort mode because I like a smooth drive, but from time to time the sports mode is more efficient (and fun )

Still not sure on the difference DCC - normal chassis and DCC - dynamic chassis. You mentioned that probably the dynamic is 30mm lower (what is the benefit of that?) but are not quite sure.... Can somebody confirm?

And what abouth the stiffened roll-bars? I can’t check them as a option in the configurator when choosing 4WD / DCC chassis => are they part of that pack?

 

[Shadrack]

Hello Shadrack,
Thanks for the feedback. Probably this is the option ‘Comfort Mobile phone interface Bluetooth + antenne + build-in charger.

The sales guy told me this increases the quality of the mobile phone reception, but he did not mention it also strengthens the GPS-signal.

I would like to be quite sure abouth this, as today I sometimes have issues getting descent GPS-location on my iPhone, in a Mercedes E-class without heated windscreen.

Maybe I should just skip the ‘heated screen’ option and stick to the option ‘insulated glass’

Hi YvesGr,

Interesting what you say about the Mercedes. The lack of signal could be caused by many external factors and not that just of the type of vehicle or glass type.

I think with the Antenna in the campers mirror it is less likely to be “screened” by other influences within the attached to the vehicle.

The addition of the gizmo in the door panel on my camper brings the same mirror signal, it’s quality and strength to a compartment within the camper. Not sure on any cleaning up, boosting or filtering it may do.

Personally if I particularly wanted heated screen and it would be something that was useful to me I would go ahead and have one. Let the electronics sort themselves out.
As others have said on the post they see no negatives.

 

[MaxRed]

Lowering the chassis brings vehicle's center of mass closer to the ground, which improves handling a bit more. But in the other hand makes off-road a bit more difficult.

 

[flying banana]

I believe the screen has a communications gap behind the mirror to allow signals through. Or am I wrong?

 

[YvesGr]

Hi Maxred,

Thanks for the feedback on the DCC. I think I will go for this option, as I like it very much on my current car (Mercedes E - air suspension) => I always drive in comfort mode because I like a smooth drive, but from time to time the sports mode is more efficient (and fun )

Still not sure on the difference DCC - normal chassis and DCC - dynamic chassis. You mentioned that probably the dynamic is 30mm lower (what is the benefit of that?) but are not quite sure.... Can somebody confirm?

And what abouth the stiffened roll-bars? I can’t check them as a option in the configurator when choosing 4WD / DCC chassis => are they part of that pack?

A sales guy told me that the difference between the DCC-normal chassis and DCC-dynamic chassis is that the dynamic chassis allows to change the height of the Cali, e.g. if you drive offroad... Never heard that the height of a Cali could be changed. Can somebody confirm?

 

[WelshGas]

A sales guy told me that the difference between the DCC-normal chassis and DCC-dynamic chassis is that the dynamic chassis allows to change the height of the Cali, e.g. if you drive offroad... Never heard that the height of a Cali could be changed. Can somebody confirm?

First I've heard of that ability as well.