andym172

I bought two of these just over 6 months ago - one to go in my VX220 and another to go in my parents Range Rover.

Since day one we had a problem with the one fitted to the RR and had to have it re-installed. It then worked, but still not as well as has been expected - cutting out when there was heavy cloud or rain.

Then a couple of weeks later both the main unit and the wire that connects the main unit to your pc (for updates) were sent off to be inspected as both were no longer working.
Thankfully Origin were helpful and had both items returned to us the following week.

I now find myself in the position where I no longer bother to use the unit in my VX as 95% of the time the bloody thing won't even turn on. No matter how much messing about with the position of the main unit in the cradle (fitted in the car) the unit just won't work.

The unit in the Range Rover DOES turn on but takes a-g-e-s to connect to the satellite's - most of the time the journeys ended by the time there's a satellite lock. If there's cloud, forget it! There's no chance of it locking on.
This may be due to the fact that the RR has a heated front windscreen, but surely the unit should have been better designed to overcome this?!
We've asked if we should move the GPS node but have been told by Origin that just behind the front windscreen is the best place.

So, it's now come time to pay for another 6 months+ subscription but this would be money down the drain in my opinion.

Have any of you other B2 owners experienced these problems? If so, how did you overcome them?
The obvious answer is to rip the B2 kit out of both cars and have them sent off, but what a pain in the backside! You wouldn't have thought that both kit's would be defective?!

Sorry for the moan...

Chip

Dont moan here if you havent done anything about it. Send them back to Origin. Their still under guarantee so get them to sort them out. You only need to unplug them.

Chip.

andym172

Have already sent them back to Origin and have had them returned supposedly fully fixed.

It's not as simple as unplug them, they're hard wired and so are fully fitted behind both dash's.

Thanks anyway!

SiDHEaD

Not got heated windscreens have you?? Can intefere!


Andy

andym172

SiDHEaD - the RR has a heated windscreen but I spoke to Origin about this and they said it should be ok.

I'm going to contact them tomorrow and see what they recommend. I was just wanting to see if any other users had experienced the same problems...

TaviaRS

Yep, mine would lose power due to it shifting in the cradle. Got a new cradle and things seemed fine. Guess what? The new cradle has just developed the smae fault. Something to do with the magnets being reversed polarity in the first one, not sure about the second.

King RA

original origin can sometimes take half an hour or so to lock on, other times can lock on in 1 minute, no apparent differences in weather. Power keeps going, screen slowly melting away... I could go on, made of crap.

wacky.banana

Andy,

I had similar problems with my Mark 1 verion and it took 3 exchanges to get it right. At the time Origin were having problems with some of their kit. The one I have now has worked faultlessly for ages. There are occasions when its slow to lock on to sats but that's proving quite rare now.

To be fair to Origin they never once quibbled about the exchanges and bent over backwards to sort it all out. In fact they alerted me to possible voltage spiking problems unique to scoobs before I knew about them, and defined the fix straight away.

My experience of Origin is that they are a friendly bunch keen to put things right as it doesn't do their product and image any good if it gets a pasting on a bulletin board. Not sure how much field testing they do though before releasing a product.

Like the man said, send them back or ask Origin to send someone out to sort it.

Good luck.

WB

Nick100

WB
What mod did Origin suggest ?
I've had a couple of instances when the laser alert has gone off under acceleration. I emailed Origin about a month ago when I heard about a possible mod on here, but have heard nothing back - bit dissapointed in that.

Otherwise I've been pretty happy. Lock is normally 10 to 20 seconds if stationary, maybe 1 minute if moving.
I've occasionally had a few of the buttons go off on their own (the ones on the left hand side) increasing the volume, but only twice in two months.

Still a nice small unit and I think I managed a neat install.
I'm considering the radar option which is due out in March (supposedly) - any thoughts ??

wacky.banana

Nick, its some kind of in-line regulator/resistor (was put in a while back so my memory is a bit dim on this). Basically it smooths out the voltage spikes that the WRX electrical system is famous for, enabling the Origin unit to work better/more consistently.

The non locking onto satellites was an entirely different issue though. Talk to Dave at Origin (he manages their database). Always found him helpful.

Let me know how you get on.

Cheers

WB