So I was going to a convention outside Philly this weekend, and thought I'd just punch it up on the Nav and be on my way. Well Vicki turned my 2.5 hour expected drive into a 4+ hour nightmare by sending me straight up from Bmore and over from York instead of around the corner toward Philly.

Now, I didn't know how close/far the place was to Philly proper as it's a new place this year - so I figured the Nav would be sending me the best way. Sometimes I even preview the whole turn list to check, but for the life of me I cannot ever remember how to do it on this crap system.

1. When you pull up a POI, there's no way apparently to check the address to be sure it's the right one. (When I sorted out where I should be, I was worried it gave me the wrong POI)

2. To pull up the turn list for the whole trip is buried way too deep.

3. Apparently the "Quick" route doesn't take into consideration when a full highway cuts off and turns into a 2-lane surface street through towns and residential. (Route 30 in Lancaster and east, FYI)

I even called onstar to see if they could get me to an 8-lane blacktop from where I was, and they said they couldn't unless I upgraded my package for $$. (Note: I've used onstar to find things I couldn't find with the Nav once before)

I want my $2xxx back, dammit. I'll get another Garmin. I'm going to rip this thing out of my dash.

 

Sounds like you need to familiarize yourself with the voice commands. I agree that the menu system on the nav is garbage: way too much crap burried too deep. If you learn the voice commands though, I think you'll start to like it. Changing it to prefer highways is probably all you needed.

Mike

 

It was on highways - matter of fact, I had it on allow everything except freakin Ferries.

 

The Nav Lady is just lonely and she want's more quality time with you.

-B

 

I have a Garmin C339....and love it!

As I'm likely going to trade up to an '06, I was thinking about getting NAV....but too many horror stories about the nav lady from he11!

 

check to make sure it is set to the right region of the country. If not it will still take an address but will run you all over the place trying to get there. I agree the Garmin is far superior.

 

One of the reasons that I did not purchase this option

 

No offense, but if you're outside of DC, why would you take any route but I-95 to Philly?

 

Like I said, I didn't know how far the new place was from Philly - the convention's name doesn't even have "Philly" in it anymore, and I had no idea where "Ft. Washington, PA" was, in relation thereto.

 

I had NO idea where Fort Washington was in relation to Philly - the convention has moved out of philly proper for the past few years and this year at least doesn't even bear "Philly" in the name anymore.

 

TomTom 300 - Only about $550 online

 

Sorry hear of your bad experience. I can only say that it appears that how well the unit works seems to be related to what part of the country you live in. I use my NAV system all the time and it works 99 percent of the time for me. I've one instance where it could not find an address for me because that information just isn't on the disc.

Here's something that might help you as far as POI's are concerned. You can use the phone number of the location you want to go to if you have it. Many of the POI's have the phone numbers of those locations so if you get a hit with the correct phone number to where you are going, you know you have the right location.

Personally, I don't have much of a problem navigating through the menus on the system. It takes a little time but it's not that bad. I always use the Quickest route for all my destinations. Using Shortest or Normal can give you some extremely odd routes to follow. Make sure you are in the same Region for your destination. If your destination is in a different region, you should change to that region and THEN plot your guidance. Example: If I were leaving California to drive to a location in Washington DC, I would change the region to the one that covers Washingtion. Then I would plot my route.

One more tip is to have the system reroute to your destination AFTER you have started following the guidence. In other words, let's say you've set up a route to a destination and you have been following the route for a few miles. I've found that if you do a ReCalculate, the system will sometimes give you a better route to your location. This is especially true for long trips. I recently did a 400 mile trip and started my guidence from my garage. Once I got down closer to my destination (about 100 miles away) I asked for a Recalculate. The system gave me a slightly different route that eliminated about 22 miles of unnecessary roads - a more direct route.

I have used other GPS units and have found this recalculate function to be effective in all of them at one time or another.

At this point, my only gripe about my NAV system is that the disc they gave me was outdated by about four years. I know the new version 2 disc has better information, at least for the area I live in.

Hang in there! Check this link for more information.
http://forums.corvetteforum.com/show...ce&forum_id=74

 

There is an option to show 3 routes before you pick one. This can help eliminate bad routing. I did this on the way back home from my NCM delivery. I agree, this system is nowhere as intuitive as others, and makes mistakes. They need to upgrade their software.
GM

 

Use it all the time but it takes some time to know what to say . I do not have a problem with the nav I like it

 

Question about this "recalculate" thing. Is it only manual? My Jaguar will recalc the route the minute I deviate from the one it es expecting. So if you hit a detour, you don't have to manually go back and tell it to rethink the route.

 

What? You used this to find your way somewhere?

The warning about using the nav while driving should be replaced by the one you see on horoscopes - "for entertainment purposes only".

 

Harry

 

In my Acura, I have noticed that when I use a POI, thinking it would take me to that point (seems reasonable) I have often been taken miles away. I found out that in some cases, the "corporate office" is the POI programmed into the system, which of course may be quite different that the place you really want. When I program in the actual street address, there is never a problem.

 

I think when he started cursing the NAV it heard him and screwed him over even more!!!

 

I think when he started cursing the NAV it heard him and screwed him over even more!!!