Say good bye to outdated & unsupported Navigation, say Hello to Factory Retrofit Sat Nav for Mas
Maserati is one of the most expensive supercar brands in the world, well the definition of 'Super Car' differs to everyone's opinion.
Their sports coupe, Maserati Gran Turismo has been featured in many TV series, movies and video games thus well-known super car among other vehicles from the company.
Meanwhile, Quattroporte was somewhat family sedan type super car, that is sort of underpowered compare to its brothers, yet for 4 door sedan with 404HP of power as a stock without turbo / supercharged, it was insanley well designed strong sedan.
But due to it;s price tag of $120K - which was decent consider its class, yet still was less competitive compare to Holden Caprice or Mercedes E Series.
When the Maserati has been sold to Alfa Romeo (Who owns Ferrari) from Fiat, their line up went huge but long term based exterior / interior rebuilding.
(Not to mention Ferarri's de-tuned / rebuilt engine were injected to Maserati too.)
And that makeover has applied to last revision of 5th gen of Quattroporte, then when 6th Gen came out on Nov of 2012, people and automotive industries were amazed with its new features and how well the car was rebuilt.
Maserati Quattroporte 6th Generation - Geneva Motor show 2013
And Alfa Romeo made it unofficial but Maserati's vehicles pre 2012 are still supported in terms of mechanical issues, yet the radio and entertainment systems won't be supported anymore.
Which led people to be disappointed, consider their factory system is although outdated, still had Navigation and other features.
Us, Naviplus had few customers in the past who had same concerns, and asked us any solutions we have for their Quattroporte.
Under one condition though, all of them didn't want to remove their audio unit from the car. At first we were planning to install double din unit from Phillips or Eclipse along with Fascia (Which wasn't hard to find yet hard to get in Australia). But since the customer only wanted Navigation system, no additional features, and as mentioned above, he didn't want any aftermarket headunit places itself on his Quattro's dashboard.
Luckily our manufacturer was one brilliant company who could give us the solution of retrofit the navigation software (backed by GPS hardware box) to the exisitng audio screen.
The problem was, at that time We barely had any experience with Maserati vehicles. (It's not really an ordinary or daily vehicle for Car audio shops.) And in order to install a navigation system, the audio has to be eiher:
1. Came out with Touch screen.
2. Touch Panel has to be implemented.
As Maserati 5th Gen Quattros never came out with Touch infotainment system, it had to be no.2
Which was fine for us as we've had many experience with implementing touch panels to cars without touch screen like BMW / Merc / Audi / Nissan / even Lamborghini LP570.
So the installation was began.
The Quattroporte we've worked on = Maserati Quattroporte 5th Gen. 2007
Factory screen integrating Nav system is somewhat our specialty so installation method wasn't a problem. But you know, every car has different data and differnt settings. And frankly speaking, the installation didn't finish on that day due to we struggled & the customer had urgent call so he took off about 20 mins after the installation began.
2 days after, the Quattro came back to our workshop and the round 2 began. This time we were prepared as we've gained much help as we could from the manufacturer and who tested from Korea. And the installation took hour and around additional 40 mins for Navigation installation - that includes touch panel implementation. And also an another hour for Reverse Camera as the customer wanted one on his car.
The GPS Navigation system powered by iGO Primo 9
The 'Quick' box poped up on top left screen was because the system was in admin mode. It's not visible during normal use. Also you will see the wired button under the screen. - That button is a switcher
between Radio and Navigation.
Those features are granted by iGO Primo Map.
Reverse Camera fitted - It shows parking guidelines however it only shows distance & stationary lines.
The perk of this whole system is, you won't lose any factory radio features nor dashboard will be modified.
Also, as you can see, rear camera can be added & it will perform just like standard rear cameras like new cars on the market. You put car on reverse, the rear sight shows up no matter what you were running in audio.
After all the installation was done, the customer was both pleased and disappointed.
He was pleased that he got Reverse Camera and Sat Navigation system wokring on audio.
He was also disappointed that he actually wanted to fit something by himself - He wanted to join the installation job due to he loves crafting.
It will still take longer installation time than any other cars, even we've had few more Quattroporte and 1 Gran Turismo worked on.
However, We are confident that we can deliver best option with cleanest installation and no after-faulty.
Thank you for reading.
J.Blake
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We are always open to hear your enquiry about Maserati.
Please keep this in mind that Maserati vehicles pre 2012 will require a lot more components
than standard Navigation systems hence will take bit longer prepartion.
