I took wife's ES350 to a Lexus dealer in the SF Bay area for upgrading the map of the GPS. It has been with the dealer for 5 days. They told us that they don't know how to upgrade the map. How is this possible?

I first called their service department 2 weeks ago and ordered the parts. I was told that it would take about 1 to 1 1/2 hours to do it. Then I showed up last week at the Lexus dealer and the service writer told me that it would take 2 to 2 1/2 hours. Fine. But at the end of day, the work was not done. I was told that they would call Lexus engineers to help on Monday and so I left the car at the dealer.

It is Thursday now and they called to tell us that they couldn't successfully upgrade the map and they don't know what to do. Shouldn't upgrading the map an easy job?

 

You should be able to do this yourself. IIRC, the 2010 still uses a DVD for the map data. Here's a vid showing the procedure:


I would ask the dealer exactly why they can't do this. It's a relatively simple procedure.

 

 

The car has been with the dealer for a week now and they still cannot do it. They told me that they had the 2019 version of the map and the GPS system on my car wouldn't take it. They also said that they had been getting support from Lexus.

 

 

 

They are assigning a case manager to look into the issue. This is my wife's car and she is not tech savvy to use Waze while driving.

 

 

You read frequently about how hard it is for dealers to hire good technicians....... but reading your plight really bodes badly for that dealership.

 

Finally the service director at the dealer called me, after I got Lexus HQ to assign a case manager to follow up for me. They dealer's technician locked up the GPS head unit while uploading the new map data. They had a new GPS head unit already. But they are deciding who should pay for the $2,000 head unit. I told the guy that it wouldn't be me. The service director told me that the original head unit is not functional anymore and there is no way for them to fix it.

Dunno if it is going to get nasty. I am wondering if this is a known problem. When I took the car to the dealer, the service writer tried to discourage me from updating the map...

 

How can it be locked up? Sounds like the update also updates the head unit's firmware. Spooky that they can't just swap the harddrive to get you going again. For sure, you shouldn't be responsible for a new head unit! There should be no "deciding" about anything... it's on Lexus!

 

Our E350 has been in the dealer's service department for 3 weeks already! I got a call from them yesterday that they had the new navigation head unit, and they wanted to put their best technician to work on it. The guy is on vacation. So it will be another week before I can get the car back. Amazing, 4 weeks for a simple map update.....

 

 

Yes. We got an RX as the loaner car.

 

Considering the map changes year to year are insignificant I never saw a need to update which for my 2010 was just a new set of disc's. Never had a problem finding any new location with my nav. system and if I wanted to use maps it was just a 2nd opinion. Year after year the systems improve and now are BT through your phone or are being internet driven. It will be interesting to see if your replacement unit will not expose another module that was bricked. Good luck.