On my 2014 C7 nav screen, I set Routing Preferences > Use Carpool Lanes - Off.

So why, when on a route, does my nav constantly direct me into HOV lanes?

 

What are HOV lanes?

 

High Occupancy Vehicle. More than just the driver. Use them with just the driver only and you get a citation.

 

How exactly does you Nav direct you to the HOV lane?!? In general the HOV lanes are the leftmost lane (cept in stupid California where they are sometimes in the rightmost lane. In either case the Nav never directs you into a specific lane 'cept when it's time to exit this road, at which time it is perfectly legal to enter the lane for the purposes of turning. As such, how exactly is the Nav directing you to the HOV lane again?

 

Just the usual way it directs you anywhere. With an arrow on the Nav screen and the HUD telling you in 1/4 mile, or whatever, to enter the HOV Lane. Which makes sense since there is a Use Carpool Lanes ON/OFF under Routing Preferences, except I am unable to turn the annoying thing off.

 

Interesting. I guess I just have always had that set off so it's never told me about it. I'm gonna have to toggle it on to see if it starts telling me to use the HOV lane. Then again, maybe I won't be able to turn it back off!

 

Am I the only one with this problem?

 

My car does not do that!

 

I've had a number of Nav systems over the years, including a portable Garmin that has a European map. I have to say that they are really not improving. You have to treat your Nav system like an Idiot Savant. It has an unlimited number of pictures to show you and can usually tell you where you are, but it simply is not very good at giving directions. It's very, very literal when it "interprets" so if it can find a route that is 1/10th of a mile shorter, but takes you through some odd residential streets instead of the much faster arterial, it will do it, even though to a real person it is the silliest route to take.

You can't really trust it. One of my Nav systems took me the wrong way down a one-way street. Another was unaware there was a barrier over the median. It also thought it was perfectly fine to take me down a sidewalk. The current Nav system finally recognizes that a ferry boat is a route (None of the previous ones did) and now it insists I take the ferry when I would much rather drive around.

Some of these issues are a matter of updates that don't reach the system. This may be the fault of the Nav system people themselves, or it may be the fault of the DOT that does not report the updates.

The bottom line is that you cannot trust your Nav system fully, and you have to trick the system into doing what you want. On the one hand I think it's the stupidist POS I have ever used, and on the other I wonder how I ever got along without one. They are truly a mixed blessing.

 

Mschuyler, well said. This is my second car Nav. The first was my 2006 C6. You'd think there would be improvement a decade later, and indeed there was: a larger full-color screen. Other than that superficial improvement in video technology, the C7's Nav is, amazingly, a big step backwards in actual useability. Problems include goofy routing, cluttered display, an auto zoom feature that cannot be disabled, an excessive number of screen presses to toggle freeway use on/off, and, of course, my current inability to stop my Nav from constantly trying to force me into HOV lanes.

 

Here in Central Pennsylvania, Lancaster area, we have no HOV lanes but we do have to watch out for horse/buggies and road apples.

 

It didn't always have this problem (directing me into HOV lanes, even when I set Use Carpool Lanes to OFF). I'm not sure, but the problem may have started when I bought the newest USB stick to upgrade to the latest map version, about 6 months ago.

 

My 2014 does not due that for HOV lanes, but it does tell me to use the Express Lanes on the GSP here in NJ.

 

Can you turn it off?