pvsurfer

Just got my RDX Tech a couple of days ago, so I still have to learn how to adjust lots of things, but I've noticed that the Nav display is washed-out when it's bright outside.

Any suggestions, or is that the way it is?

chyllintsx

close the sun shade on the moon roof... and just adjust the contrast and brightness..

i neverhad a prob with it when i picked it up ... with the sun shade open

jbinnyc

unfortunately that is the way it is & no adjustments will improve it that much. the salesman told me up front that was a problem.

pvsurfer

It was a surprise to me finding that it's not nearly as visible in bright daylight as the nav in my brother's Lexus RX330.

sasair

I haven't had a problem with it at all....

pvsurfer

Really? ....even in bright daylight?

rdx4fun

Try turning the brightness all the way up and turning the contrast to like 4 bars and the black level to like 2 bars. Also try changing the screen color to white color for day. It seems to be moe vibrant than the tan color. Also when changing the settings under setup and color make sure you click on the contrast block for instance once you have adjusted the contrast you want this will save your settings. Than go back in after you exit out and make sure it made the change. Sometimes I notice if you go in and change things fast it will not save your changes. Also I have my front windows tinted so it probably helps allot. But like sasair said I really dont have this problem. Hope it works out for you.

bobq

For those of us who have other Acuras, the RDX display is definitely not as good. My wife had an 01 and 04 MDX and I was expecting the RDX nav and backup camera to be just like what they looked like. What a disappointment to see that it was not. Now that she has the 07 MDX, she is complaining loudly as it is not acceptable. I don't expect Acura to do anything because the newer navs are all not as good. However, they will hear our complaints for what it is worth.

sasair

Yeah, in any light. I don't think mine is even near it's full brightness either. I do have 20% tint on my front side windows so that probably helps alot.

chyllintsx

well for me, i think it was the same before or after tinting.. i never had a problem with this... maybe im used to it becuase my tsx was much worse in the sun

dennarda

I have noticed on both the RDX and my 05 TL that there is a "warm up" period where the screen is much dimmer/washed out. Within a few minutes, the display is at full brightness. The problem is worse during cold weather. I live in Florida, thus cold is below 50, so I image this problem is really amplified in colder climates.

This is particularly problematic for the backup camera since the time I use it most is when I first crank the car!

JOHNNYnTN

That might be what happened. I've had my RDX for a month and twice the Nav screen has been too dim to see during the day. It was about as bright as it is at night and turning my headlights on did not change the brightness from dim to even dimmer...also my night time screen would not display when I switched on my headlights (I used white for day and blue for night). It stayed dim white with the headlights on or off. The second time this happened was yesterday and it was 38 degrees. I called the dealer and the salesman that I bought the car from assured me "that is was something I had done to the screen to make it dim" he patched me back to service to make an appointment to have it looked at. At the next stoplight I turned the car off and then back on and it worked fine. This may be a problem with the screen.

JOHNNYnTN

mickie

I changed my screen to a grey or off white and that helped a lot in the day.

flar

One thing to watch out for, the dimmer button on the center console has priority over the light switch. If you accidentally hit it then the screen brightness will no longer track the headlight status until you turn the car off and back on again. See page 104-105 of the Nav system manual...

kirkacanada

Isn't the sunlight sensor supposed to detect sunlight and make the screen enter day mode...even if the headlights are on?

flar

Sunlight sensors are typically tied to the automatic climate controls. I haven't seen my display doing anything other than tracking the "day/night/off" switch and/or the "brightness" setting in the setup screens.

rpeete

This might be totally bogus but...

It appears that if you press the jog-dial when you first turn on the engine, the screen is much brighter than if you let the screen 'turn off' and then press the jog-dial to wake it up. If it was to warm up, it takes several minutes to do so.

Has anyone else seen this? Now, I always just press the jog-dial first thing after starting the engine.

kirkacanada

In the navigation package user's manual, the priority settings clearly state the sunlight sensor is supposed to detect sunlight and adjust the NAV display to DAY mode...even if the headlights are on, and the center console brightness display is not set to MAX. I have a technician at our local Acura dealership looking into it.

flar

I went back and read that in the Nav manual. Learning new things every day.

Unfortunately, in my testing over the past 2 days this doesn't appear to function at all. Today I even went about 3 minutes in bright sunlight directly overhead with no clouds or shadows and the display stayed on the night settings the entire time.

This actually happens to me a lot since I park in a dark parking garage and my brain thinks that I need to turn on my headlights when I start up my car during the day. When I exit the garage the dark Nav screen is usually my clue that I'm spacing out with my headlights on.

neo1738

nav does not react to sunlight sensor, only headlights or the override button on bottom left.
Nav does need time to warm up especially in cold weather, i have found in 20 F weather it could take up to 10min to warm up completely
No tint and only need to close moonroof if sun directly on the screen, and I use the nav a lot as i travel a lot. My

neo1738

just noted the other day 52F outside, and gps was dim for about 5min

PreciousBusterbird

Hello -

I am brand new to the forum and the vehicle. This may have been mentioned elsewhere, but I noticed that my polarized sunglasses in combination with bright sunlight wreak(s) havoc with the NAV display - I can't see it at all.

Anyway, I am not far into the manuals yet and I hope to find a setting that will work for me. If anyone has advice (aside from read the manual) it would be greatly appreciated! Thanks.

sasair

I don't think you are going to find a setting that changes the look with polarized sunglasses. On my nav screen it appears that they made the different colors of the screen polarized at different angles. So when I wear polarized sunglasses, I see a different color depending on which way I tilt my head, but I always see something. This also helps when you don't have any polarized glasses on to cut glare from different angles so that you can see better in any condition. Some LCD panels don't do this so that if it is polarized the same way as your sunglasses, you don't see anything.

yessirnosir

I have been driving a 2007 RDX loaner vehicle for a few days while my MDX waits at the dealer for a part. I was glad to get a chance to drive one, because I'd been thinking about the RDX as a possible future purchase. But I immediately noticed the same problem with the navigation display being almost unreadable, even at maximum brightness settings. Then I discovered, like PreciousBusterbird, that the problem went away if I took off my polarized sunglasses. Or if I rotate the sunglasses 90 degrees, the problem goes away too.

I'm an owner of a 2006 TL and a 2006 MDX, both with Navi, and neither of them suffer from this issue, so definitely something is different about the display being used on this RDX. I Googled a bit and found that many people have problems with LCD's and polarized sunglasses, but clearly there are ways around it -- some Garmin navigation products even state that the display is "compatible with polarized sunglasses", so obviously there has been awareness that this is an issue. Acura needs to address it if they ever want me to buy another of their navigation systems.

MikeRDXNJ

I thought my nav looked washed out too when I first saw it during the day but after adjusting it as someone suggested (find the right combination of contrast. black level etc) now it looks fine even with polarized sunglasses.

yessirnosir

I wonder if the LCD's are being sourced from more than one supplier? So maybe we are not all experiencing the same thing? Because I've fiddled with all the adjustments you mention and on this RDX you just can't make it look normal through polarized sunglasses. So if yours looks OK, I've got to believe that it is a different LCD.

After my original post I was reading on an MDX forum about one guy's experience where the original LCD on his 2006 MDX exhibited no problems with polarized sunglasses, but when that screen had to be replaced for unrelated issues, the replacement screen had the polarized sunglasses problem. In that case the poster speculated that the replacement screen was from a different model-year, but I suppose it is possible that even within a model year different LCD's could be used. If you follow all the developments of LCD TV's and LCD computer monitors, you hear about new production lines coming on stream all the time, so it's certainly conceivable that the sourcing of this component isn't fixed for a whole model year.

DJ Iceman

The antireflective/anti-scratch coating on all nav screens is also a polarization filter, which actually gratly helps visibility in bright sunlight. Unfortunately, if you're wearing polarized glasses that filter in the opposite direction, you're not going to see any light out of the LCD at all!

I don't know why the RDX seems to have this problem more than other cars. Did they use polarization 90° off from what everybody else uses? I don't know, but I do know that I've experienced the same thing, had to crank up the brightness, contrast, and black levels, and still have to take off my sunglasses to get a really good look at the screen.

scudzuki

LCD displays will operate with reduced brightness in colder temperatures. All LCD displays. My 01 MDX display was practically invisible after first starting the vehicle on the coldest days (maybe 5 degrees F).

Joe

catnippants

Hmmm...I'm thinking it may not be the LCD as much as the backlighting - especially if they are using cold cathode. Cold cathode tubes don't do as well in cold temperatures. In fact, cold starts tend to shorten their life. If they had used LED backlighting, this wouldn't be an issue.

As far as the LCD itself, I can see it being more sluggish in cold temperatures - but I'm not clear on the temperature effects on contrast. In the old days, LCDs did indeed tend to 'darken' as they got warm. Later technologies like supertwist, QSTN, DSTN, TFT, etc. all tended to be better. Are even modern TFTs affected by temp? (Again, I'm not talking about the backlighting, but the contrast of the display LCD itself).

Mike

ref77

I have the same problem with a dim, washed out display. On bright sunny days, I might as well turn it off as it becomes useless. The problem is especially bad on cold days(<20 degrees). It only becomes readable after the interior has wrmed for an hour or so. I complained to the Acura dealer and they thought that the display was OK. I drove down to Texas and noticed that the display wasn't as bad in warmer climates. This explains why I didn't notice the problem in the summer. You can see where acura cut costs. This display is garbage and should never be installed in a car in this price range. Acura used to use high quality TFT displays a while back that didn't suffer from these problems. They where brighter and had sharper images much like a laptop display. This on top of the poorly inplemented, outdate and error prone navigation system does not warrant the $3500 premium over the base RDX. Had I known this when I bought the car, I would have saved the $3500 and purchased a $600 Garmin instead.

blued157

Polarization of the display doesn't have much to do with contrast or brightness controls. It is actually a film that is built into the LCD that is creating this optical effect.

At correct angles, it will transmit full spectrum of light but at odd angles, it will cut them out.

It's likely put there to reduce glare but it looks like the NAV polarization angle is 90 degrees off from the polarization of sunglasses (all sunglasses come polarized horizontally).

Some engineer didn't really think about this long enough. Doh!

catnippants

Ok...today the washed out nav really got to me. My car has been sitting, soaking in the cold weather for almost 2 weeks. It's -2 F here today, and when I started the car, I could JUST BARELY read the screen, even in my dark garage. It stayed that way almost all the way to work. It was finally more readable by the time I parked. After a 1.5 years of ownership, I'm pretty confident that this thing is far worse this year than last. Now I'm worrying that Acura didn't check this backlight strategy out in cold weather and I'm going to have to have it replaced maybe next year. Has anyone complained to their dealer or Acura about it? I plan to at my next visit.

Thanks,
Mike

vrflyer

I'd hate to agree to disagree, but even portable units will act the same under these adverse cold climates. I left my recently purchased MIO 520 portable unit inside my Civic in error(really was pure lazyness) and boy it took almost 12min or more to get a "readable" display.

catnippants

Really? Was it because of a dim backlight, or because the LCD was just responding very slowly? My issue here is with the backlight, not the response time of the actual LCD. I was under the impression that the older units that Acura used were much better. (BTW, 12 min is slightly more tolerable....Mine took close to 35 min to get readable.) Again, if they can light the dash adequately using LEDs or bulbs, I see no reason why they can't adequately light the Nav screen in cold weather. I really think it all boils down to using cold cathode lighting instead of LEDs...

Mike

vrflyer

Backlighting is the most common problem on any LCD's (in cold conditions)...

catnippants

So how do our Acura screens compare to other OEMS - like Infinity, Lexus, BMW, etc? Do they have extreme lighting problems in cold conditions as well? Or are the Acura screens much worse?

Mike

ref77

A friend of mine has a Lexus RX350 and her navi screen is bright and colorful even on cold weather startup. Her screen starts as bright as ours will ever get. The Lexus has a high quality TFT screen where ours looks like a crappy STN display. Yes cold cathode lighting takes a hit in cold weather, but it should recover fairly quickly. Acura has one of the most expensive navi systems in a car but uses a cheap display. It’s bad enough that I have to wait about an hour on cold bright days to begin seeing the display but the backup camera becomes useless with this display when backing out of the garage.

Trip

I've noticed cold weather sensitivity in both the map screen and the secondary LCD display in my 08 Accord. The LCD display does a "slo-mo" fade out and in as the info changes. The map screen is just dim. When the interior warms up, both screens work/look normal.

I did switch the map display to a white background versus beige and that has brightened it up considerably.

This was never an issue in my 06.

Funny, even with the polarized, anti glare cover on the 08's screen, I generally have more issues with glare on the screen than I did with the dash mounted unit in my 06. In the 06, the sunlight had to come thru the moon roof juuuuuust right for a glare to be an issue - which was rarely and easily fixed by closing the sun shade. The high mounted screen on the 08 is way more susceptible to ambient light from the moon roof, side windows, and rear window. And my polarized sunglasses make me see purple streaks sometimes - even without the bong in the car.

catnippants

Yeah, that's what I suspected. I think I'm going to complain to my dealer and see what they say. It's downright useless for a good half hour....and ditto on the rearview camera. Frankly, this sucks - especially if it's going to be even worse next year. I wonder if anyone will come out with an aftermarket screen upgrade/replacement...

Mike

catnippants

Out of curiosity, does anyone know if they're still using the older, better display in the TL and TSX since they apparently have stayed with touchscreens?

Seems like it would be a bad marketing move if only their SUVs (and the MDX being their flagship SUV) came with the crappy screens.

I'm hatin' this screen now. This actually might be a reason for me to give up on my RDX and move on to something else...

Mike