Apple CarPlay Intermittent in my 2021 Sunstar 27PE

[High Concept]

The 2021 Sunstar 27PE comes with a Sony AV Receiver AXV-AX3000 which doubles as the backup camera and turn signal camera monitor. It also features Apple CarPlay, via a USB cord only, most important for Google Maps, Apple Maps, or Waze for real-time, onscreen navigation.

Since day one, we've been plagued with the Sony dropping CarPlay intermittently, at random, without warning, with a little chirp. The map that you were navigating by disappears -- for us usually just before a critical turn on an overcrowded 5-lane freeway where 70MPH is just a suggestion.

Being a geek and all that I tried different cables, four different iOS devices, an iOS upgrade, and even took the Sunstar's console apart to check all the wiring for a bad joint or loose connector pin. Nothing found, nothing helped.

The workaround is to pull the USB cord out of the iPhone or iPad, then re-insert it. 70% of the time, CarPlay (and your navigation) comes right back. But that may be for a few hours, or 30 seconds. No obvious trigger.

Has anyone other than me experienced this? I'm not quite sure who to escalate this with (Winnebago or Sony), but it sure is irritating and inconvenient!

[creativepart]

A Google search shows this to be a problem with the Sony Unit. It is 2016 technology which may play a roll. But may not.

Here's what I found on this issue (but also found complaints that this isn't much help.)

Apple CarPlay Disconnecting

The device would randomly disconnect from newer iPhones leading to Apple CarPlay malfunctioning.

Siri Inactive

One of the main reasons for this problem is having Siri inactive. The stereo would not recognize the iPhone without Siri being active. To resolve this issue, the user should turn on Siri and make it active while the device is on.

Apple CarPlay General Settings

Most iPhones would have applied Apple CarPlay restrictions applied when the phone is new. This may prevent the device from recognizing the phone; thus, the user needs to adjust that through the phone's general settings. To do so, General -> Restrictions On My Phone -> Turn Off. This process should definitely resolve the issue.

[High Concept]

@creativepart: thanks for your research.

It appears that I have to complain to Sony. In my case, all of the settings were in the optimum mode for ALL 4 Apple devices I tried. I also tried cables of different lengths, including a short Apple-brand cable.

If you take the dashboard apart (I did) to see how the console-mounted USB jack is connected to the Sony receiver, you discover that there is about six feet!! of USB cable hard-wired to the receiver (through a grommet straight into the receiver's metal chassis). That six feet+ of cable is bundled up and cable-tied into a 6" "sausage", with the panel-mount jack on about a six-inch pigtail, coming out of this bundle, and stuffed behind the console cover, just behind the coin trays.

All of that extra cable is totally unnecessary, and may be the source of the problem. There is a vast amount of electromagnetic noise around that part of the dashboard, and a coil of wire -- any coil -- is an antenna. Although the cable itself would be internally shielded, it may not be enough. The engine, for example is just 18" away below the fiberglass doghouse, and has 8 spark plugs firing constantly. It may only take one pulse to make the receiver think the USB was just unplugged, leading to its annoying, rapid "chirp-chirp" alert, and the loss of CarPlay on the display.

I'm sure Sony supplied that huge extra amount of USB cable to allow OEMs like Winnebago to mount the USB jack at any location on the dashboard, left side to right. But in this case, they only needed an 18" straight run.

I intend to complain to Sony. But first, I have to take the receiver apart, and see if it is feasible to un-solder the termination of the USB cable from the PC board, shorten it by 75%, and re-solder. It's too bad that they simply didn't put a USB jack on the back of the receiver -- so any length cable could be supplied by the coach OEM -- but I suppose they were worried about the plug vibrating out (like most of the screws in this Winnebago!).

Another solution, and one I should try first, is to put ferrite cores around each end of the cable, one where it enters the receiver, and the other just before the panel-mount jack.

Depending upon how the USB interface is designed on the receiver, Sony Corp. might be able to fix the problem with a microcode change, making the receiver's response to a supposed "dropped connection" a little less hair-trigger, a little more fault-tolerant.

If I see that this thread generates some interest with fellow owners with the same Sony console displaying the same bad habits, I'll update it with new information.

[creativepart]

That all sounds good. However, when i did my searching I found that the folks that fixed the issue replaced the Sony unit.

I know that's not preferred.

Winnebago buys these kinds of things in bulk and they buy them upfront of the build process. So, by the time the RV is built, transported and sold the electronics are very old. Which as we all know with electronics old is not optimal.

Heck I'm almost 72 and I'm finding that "old" is not optimal on a great many levels these days.