Volvo Penta IPS, Autopilot, and steering lockout

[asali]

I own a new Prestige F4 with Volvo Penta IPS650 engines, with all Garmin electronics. I have the following problem: When the engines are in neutral and the Autopilot is engaged, I get the drive steering lockout error (the pods are locked and RPMs are limited). To clear this condition, I must turn off the engines, ignition, and batteries, followed by rebooting the engines. The steering lockout occurs easily in the following two contexts: (i) I drive with an Autopilot engaged and then switch to another station, by first putting the engines into neutral; (ii) I reach the end of an Autopilot route and switch the engines into neutral without putting the Autopilot into Standby first. Of course, I don't expect the boat to keep the bearing when the engines are in neutral, but it seems the steering lockout is a steep and unnecessary price to pay for forgetting to put the Autopilot into Standby, especially when the alternative is for the IPS drives to simply ignore the Autopilot instructions when the engines are in neutral (and maybe write a gentle warning message on the MFD not to expect the boat to keep its bearing under such conditions). This behavior is not just an inconvenience - it is also potentially dangerous to lose control of the drives while changing stations or completing an Autopilot route for almost a minute before the engines can be rebooted. Did anyone else experience this behavior? Is it a feature or a bug? I received varied opinions from local VP experts. An alternative explanation involves a fault in the drive steering motor or some component of the system. Thank you!

ps: here's a dropbox link to a movie documenting the condition: WhatsApp Video 2024-07-17 at 1.09.48 PM (1).mov

 

[asali]

for it is worth, it looks as the cause of my problems above was a significant misalignment of the drives.

for Volvo Penta: maybe the warning messages could be more informative and the consequences of a misalignment less dire.