Don’t buy a NavTool right now! There’s a major bug and they are totally useless until this is fixed.

I bought my NavTool directly from the company back at the end of Nov 2020. As of today, March 8, 2021, it’s still not working at all.

I do fully believe that eventually they’ll get it working properly. And, from what I’ve seen, it’ll be really good. But in the meantime, I’m out hundreds of dollars and still can’t use CarPlay.

The issue is that when I activate NavTool (hold down the navigation button) all I get are horizontal lines across the screen like this.

Sorry to hear that, it's annoying when things don't work...

Hopefully they will sort it soon...

I bought one middle of last year but not got round to fitting it yet.

I did some chatting to them before and they always seemed helpful, I used WhatsApp and always got a prompt reply.

It was Steve on +61 433 596 623

Good Luck  Pete

__________________________________________________
2014 L405 Autobiography SDV8 4.4 Loire Blue Ebony interior
2011 L322 Vogue SE 4.4 TDV8 Baltic Blue. Parchment over Navy Interior. Sold
2012 L322 Autobiography 5.0 Supercharged Ipanema Sand, Jet Interior. Sold
2002 L322 Vogue 4.4 V8 Epson Green, Ivory over Aspen Interior (Fatty Offroader) Sold
-Click for Project Fatty off roader-

NavTool (USA) https://www.navtool.com/contact-us.aspx

and

NaviPlus (Australia) https://www.naviplus.com.au/

Not to be confused as they are totally different products and suppliers.

I purchased the NaviPlus from Australia last year and as Haylands have not yet fitted the kit.

Is there any further feedback from members who have fitted either NavTool or NaviPlus. 2012 4.4 TDV8 Vogue SE Current
2015 E220 with AMG Sport Pack - Currently driven by my son
2010 3.6 TDV8 Vogue - Written off by my son

@lschwarcz Sorry to hear about the problems.

I fitted the NavTool some time ago.

I had to send the original unit back as, when I installed it, there was dreadful distortion on the audio. It was replaced without problem and on a quick turn around. Since then it has worked impeccably. (Kiss of death1) John
2008 Stornoway Grey 3.6 Tdv8 Vogue
2005 TD6 Java Black Vogue - Written off!!
GAP iiD BT
2003 Discovery TD5 Auto, Nanocom Evolution - gone to a new home!
MasseyFerguson 152 - No electronics!! - Sold

Haylands wrote:

Sorry to hear that, it's annoying when things don't work...

Hopefully they will sort it soon...

I bought one middle of last year but not got round to fitting it yet.

I did some chatting to them before and they always seemed helpful, I used WhatsApp and always got a prompt reply.

It was Steve on +61 433 596 623

Good Luck

Like you Larry I did find the chat "facility" was carp. Email was the best way to go. Hope they sort it for you.  John
2008 Stornoway Grey 3.6 Tdv8 Vogue
2005 TD6 Java Black Vogue - Written off!!
GAP iiD BT
2003 Discovery TD5 Auto, Nanocom Evolution - gone to a new home!
MasseyFerguson 152 - No electronics!! - Sold

Anyone know why this tread was moved to the "Off topic" forum? I thought that the "In Car Electronics" would be the most appropriate since this is an adapter for the in-car electronics to add CarPlay.

Thanks!
Larry. 2009 Range Rover L322 Autobiography
Bournville/Ivory
Save lives, give blood.

The latest update is now they are telling me that I just need to exchange it for a new unit! UGH! Why did they keep telling me it's just a software update when it's really a hardware issue?

And when the unit is disconnected, the navigation doesn't work. It just displays, "Navigation not fitted." They do have the option (Advanced Exchange) where they send you the replacement first and you give them a deposit. Great! But the online return form doesn't let me return it. I filled in all of the fields and click for the next step and get the message, "Item ... cannot be returned." WTF????

So what about the lifetime warranty?

So far it's appearing that this company has a slick website, lots of good video's, nearly no printed documentation, nearly unresponsive customer service and a product that if it works, is really good, but if it doesn't you're in for a nasty ride. Basically a chrome plated turd that might have a pearl inside.

Chat and e-mail support take days for a reply. Telephone support is better but you can't get directly through. You have to call and follow the options for them to call you back. The return call could be in minutes, hours, days or not at all. Since it's best to be somewhere that you can take notes so it's best to be near your desk. Basically once you request a call-back you're tethered to your desk or risk missing the call.

Once again, I'll keep you updated with any changes.

Thanks for letting me vent!
Larry. 2009 Range Rover L322 Autobiography
Bournville/Ivory
Save lives, give blood.

I hope you can get it sorted, I fitted one to my last RR and it was really good. I’ve moved onto a MY2012 now and I’m a bit disappointed that I can’t fit a Navtool as it’s head and shoulders better than the standard LR kit.

Good luck.

JoolsB,

Thanks! Me too. I've seen it work on an '07 and it's a good interface... when it works. It seem for the lucky ones it works out really well. But for many of us, it's just a huge frustrating ordeal.

I finally got an e-mail reply saying that I'll need to fill out an on-line form. But when I do, I just get the error message, "... cannot be returned." What's funny is that the form has a selection box to choose from, "Refund," "Exchange," "Warranty" and "CarPlay Upgrade." I'm not asking for a refund (yet), "Exchange" tells me I can't since I bought it more than 30 days ago, "Warranty" gives me the above error and "CarPlay Upgrade" doesn't apply to me.

I sent them a screen shot asking what I should do so I can do the return for a working unit and their reply, a day and a half later was, "yes we will fix it". Yes, that's the exact reply. No capitalization, no punctuation, nothing addressing the error message. A totally useless reply. Like most of the replies from them.

When you call, if they're just backed up, and not really backed up, you get the option for them to call you back when it's your turn. I'm still waiting from 11:14am on Wed (almost 30 hours ago).

I really do hope that I can eventually get a working unit but I could never recommend that anyone buy anything from these clowns.

It seems that the singular goal of the customer service group is to reply. Not that the reply has to be useful or informative or even get close to answering the question. Just reply with something. Anything!

I'll keep the group posted!

Larry. 2009 Range Rover L322 Autobiography
Bournville/Ivory
Save lives, give blood.

March 21, 2021 - UPDATE:

Yesterday, after not hearing back from NavTool for a long time I finally asked, "Hello??? Is anybody out there?
Been waiting more than 3-days for a return phone call." They quickly replied, "Yes we are here".

I then asked when the on-line return form would be fixed... dead silence.

Finally today they replied saying, "should be done today they ar upgrading server still". Well, they told me it would be fixed back on the 18th so we'll see if it'll actually be fixed or if they're just stalling for more time while they do nothing... still!

Again, I'll keep everyone posted on this issue.

Larry. 2009 Range Rover L322 Autobiography
Bournville/Ivory
Save lives, give blood.

Have you make any progress on this Larry?

Piet,

Yes, just this week, after them not returning any of my calls, I figured they recognized my phone number. So, I tried a little experiment. They have this nice feature where, after prompted, you can press the "*" key and they'll call you back. They say you won't lose your place in line.

This past Wednesday, 7 April 2021, I called on our landline (the phone number I've been using all along) and then waited 20 minutes and called again using my cell phone. About 90 minutes later they returned my cell phone call. Today, 9 April, they still have not called me back on my home landline.

I'm thinking they have just been screening and intentionally not calling me back.

Anyway, when they called I gave a brief explanation of the issue and that the RMA process to do the "Advance exchange" process just gives me an error message. He put me on hold for a few minutes and then tells me that I have to do a regular exchange because they're not doing the "Advance exchange" right now. Hmmm. They couldn't have told me that WEEKS ago?

I had to remove the NavTool adapter from my car and shipped it back to them. They did provide a pre-paid return label but it's FedEx ground. I live on the west coast of the USA and they are in New York on the east coast. It'll take roughly a week for them to receive it. They said they'd ship out the replacement the following day and then another week to get across the whole country to me.

In the meantime, with the NavTool removed, I don't have access to my factory navigation.

I'm not totally confident that the replacement will work any better. At one point they told me that this horizontal line issue is effecting all of the units. So I'm guessing the replacement has a high likelihood of having the same issue.

A friend has an '07 FF with a NavTool and his works fine. When it works, it looks like a really good device. But so far their quality control and customer service are crap. On a scale of 1 - 10 I would give it a zero or a negative number if possible.

Considering that it's a very small company (I read they have something like 10 employees) it isn't like one department isn't getting information to another.

I hope to have more news in a few weeks. Hopefully good news but I'm not expecting anything more than the same broken device as the first time. .

Larry. 2009 Range Rover L322 Autobiography
Bournville/Ivory
Save lives, give blood.

Thanks for the update.
I have my fingers crossed for you Larry.

Finally, after NavTool said I have to send it back for replacement and they can't do the "Advance exchange" I got the replacement. I installed it yesterday and it seems to be working! One small issue right now is that I got a phone call and I could hear the caller but they could not hear me. I'll have to double check my microphone wiring first. If that doesn't fix it I'll poke around to see if there's a config setting. If that doesn't work I'll have to contact NavTool. UGH! That'll take a LONG time.

So far my impression of this is that once it's working, it's a great product. But, their customer service is the worst. I'm totally serious. They give the impression from their website and outgoing phone message that they'll get back to you and you have multiple ways of contacting them. You can submit your questions via phone, text or on-line chat. But the end result from all of them is the same, no reply, no help. The fastest I've ever gotten a reply was about 90 minutes! A miracle! More typical is they don't reply at all. You leave a message via any of the contact methods and wait weeks with no reply.

To me this is worse than other companies where the only way to contact them is via e-mail. NavTool gives you the impression that they'll respond quickly (at least the same day). But in reality, you're lucky if you get any reply at all.

So far, on a scale of 0 - 10 I'd give them a solid 3 (10 being the best).

Once I get everything working correctly I'll try to do a more thorough writeup on it. At this point, unless you have a LOT of patience and are prepared to eventually give up and return it (after having cut/spliced your car wiring harness) I would suggest avoiding them.

If I knew then what I know now I would never have bought this.

Good luck to anyone who buys one!
Larry. 2009 Range Rover L322 Autobiography
Bournville/Ivory
Save lives, give blood.