[ismelllikepoop]

At first I wasn't sure if my nav was just stupid, telling me to park a half mile away from my destinations and take these very roundabout ways. Now after trying to use it in a downtown area, it is just completely inaccurate. One time it was telling me I was traveling perpendicular to the road I was actually on, and other times it was saying I was on a road parallel to the one I was traveling on, even though it was at least a couple hundred yards away. Anyone else have this issue?

[Harplayr]

Mine’s fairly accurate.

I did have a problem once where the nav unit thought there was an exit where no exit existed, but other than that it works fine. The maps are out of date compared to my Garmin.

On other nav units in Downtown Chicago I have lost the signal due to the concentration of tall buildings, but haven’t tested this nav unit there yet.

[Want the thrill]

Mine has been acurate the few times I used it other than the one time she kept telling me to turn left and stay left when I was on a straight away with no turns/exits or splits in the road.

[Brutus1]

We used it on the way home from the PCD and were not impressed. Many times we were told to take a left or right also when there was not one at all. Once we were told to take a right which would not end up at our home at all and was miles and miles out of the way.

I need to get more familiar with it but am a bit hesitant after the first trip. Another time just for practice I programmed in a destination which had about 4 different ways to get there, had Googled it on the computer, and had a particular route in mind to take. (Had been there previously 2 other routes) Apparently you can't check the entire route in advance (?) like you can on the home computer and I don't have the capability to send it to the Nav system. Suggestions or tips besides just practice and manual reading?

[shaderman]

Originally Posted by Brutus1

Apparently you can't check the entire route in advance (?) like you can on the home computer and I don't have the capability to send it to the Nav system. Suggestions or tips besides just practice and manual reading?

Yes you can actually. Choose 'route' in the navigation options on the left in the navigation screen, and you can see the entire route in a small map to the right. It allows you to select alternate routes where they exist. You can also set your route preference in this screen.

[torzeck]

Interesting. On our trip from Spartanburg back to Portland we were amazed how accurate the nav was. Maybe we just were on the enough well travelled routes.

Do you live in a very low populated area?

[Sabian]

Ok Rant alert. I wasn't going post this before but held off till I saw this post. My nav experience has been less than stellar. I'm going back to the old fasion way of going on google and either writing down or printing the directions for a while and not going to trust the nav. Here is why...

The first time I tried to use the nav, I tried to put in my parents address to test it and drive to show them my new car... no such address could be found on this nav system. At first I thought it was the fact I didn't know how to use the system but it actually cannot find their address. My home address however, is there and it works fine... I've tried it coming home from several destinations, and it works great.

2nd... I just took a trip for part business and also to get away and break the car in. I entered the address I was to arrive at... it was working fine but I stopped off at a town to get something to eat along the way... during that time the nav voice was going wild because I was not on the correct route, so I turned that off... after driving around I turned the voice back on and continued to follow the directions only it had updated and re-routed me a completely different way that was 45mins to an hour longer than the shorter route. I didn't realize it till it was too late. Suddenly I knew I was going the wrong way and I thought wait a minute, this can't be right! Unfortunately I was out in the middle of timbuktu and there was no where to turn around for over 25 mins of driving... by that time it was faster for me to just continue with the current route rather than back track all the way to get back on the shorter route. To make things worse it was critical that I had to be at the location by a certain time and now by going the longer route I was under complete stress to get there on time. Fortunately, I made it in time ok but I was livid.

Other frustrations. The nav system will say Bear Right, or Bear Left... but they don't tell you street names to turn on. Several times it said bear Left and I got in the left lane which was a turn only lane right back onto the damn freeway I just came off of in the opposite direction when I really needed to take the next left after that.

Now the embarressing part... after I reached my destination and was done, another guy I work with said hey do you know how to get back to the hotel? I said sure follow me I got the address stored in the nav. So I used the nav from there and it had me going some strange convoluted way... then I saw the guy following me pass me by when I made a turn the nav told me too... he had a strange look on his face like where the f*&@ are you going? I continued to follow the nav and sure enough it got me there, but when I finally got there he was already parked and unpacked

Because I had these problems I recently compared it with a nav system in a Hyundai Sonata... first off, my parents address comes up just fine on that. Second, when it tells you to bear right or left, it tells you bear Left and prepare to turn on 32nd Ave or whatever, my nav just says bear left, then turn left when it's time to turn, but never says what street to actually turn on which can be confusing.

Overall, my experience has been that if you are only driving around very populated cities etc it's probably much more accurate and works fine, but if you get way out into rural/less populated places, don't trust it.

ok end of rant... sorry for the long post, but it would have been even longer a week ago when this happened. I've had time to cool off

[sfax]

Most of these problems seem to be down to bad maps and route calculations. I have found it very useful and accurate in the UK and also in France and central Paris with up to date one way systems, street names, accurate directions on exiting motorways etc

You have got to make sure you leave route criteria on Fastest rather than Shortest or Most Efficient. This has caught me out before.

The bug where the arrow stays on after you reach your destination is annoying but easy to fix with a start/stop nav favourite button

[Want the thrill]

I had read a post on BMW USA Facebook of someone that just had bought a new 5 series and was pissed because the Nav info was so out of date. He complained to the dealer and BMWNA and was told that the software installed was not the most current but he could pay to update it! He was livid and was complaining all over the boards telling everyone that BMW sells their new vehicles without updated software when there is a newer version out there than can be installed for $250.00.

[Marmik]

Have to agree the nav has been WAY off when traveling rural two lane Wisconsin roads. I mean the thing gets just ridiculously lost, telling me to turn into a farms long driveway mid way to my destination. I have no faith, it seems useless. I like having the map on screen however.

[509trooper]

Originally Posted by sfax

Most of these problems seem to be down to bad maps and route calculations.

In other words the software is bad. Technically the maps are "data". If their routing algorithm sucks, that makes the system pretty worthless. These two items together are pretty much most of the system from a software stand point, it sound like the POI/address database isn't too up to date either.

[Nahoa]

Works well for me. I use it frequently.

[ismelllikepoop]

The thing is, I am in a pretty good sized city, and I understand outdated maps. But to say I was traveling perpendicular to the road I was actually on? That was f-ing crazy. I figure I'll take it in when I need servicing, but that's not for another 13000 miles.

[509trooper]

The traveling parallel thing is most like one of a couple things. The map data could ce wrong and the road is in the wrong place, or you don't have enough satellite data for the gps to properly calculate the vehicle position. This second problem could be the gps is just not locked on to enough satellites or that the LOS to one or more of them is obscurred.

[perto]

Not the most updated maps but it work fine to me.

[Brutus1]

Originally Posted by shaderman

Yes you can actually. Choose 'route' in the navigation options on the left in the navigation screen, and you can see the entire route in a small map to the right. It allows you to select alternate routes where they exist. You can also set your route preference in this screen.

Thanks for the info Shaderman!

[sfax]

Originally Posted by 509trooper

In other words the software is bad. Technically the maps are "data". If their routing algorithm sucks, that makes the system pretty worthless. These two items together are pretty much most of the system from a software stand point, it sound like the POI/address database isn't too up to date either.

On the contrary, it's not the software at all. The software is only as good as the data that is fed in. The data isn't just maps but vector data for calculating time and distance between two points and obviously real time GPS data.

Each sat nav device doesn't use its own route algorithms. The algorithms are quite complicated and well defined already in graph theory. The sat nav device just presents the data and provides an interface and BMW's iDrive does this very well IMO. Give it bad data, out of date maps or incomplete or inaccurate vector route information and it will simply present this bad data back to you.

From what has been posted in this thread it would appear that the UK data is higher quality than in some parts of the US

[Harplayr]

Who supplies this tech to BMW. Are they re-inventing the wheel?
Wouldn’t it have been much simpler to contract with Garmin, Tom-Tom or Google?
All their maps are much more up to date and feature rich.

[mibmwx3]

No problems on my trip back to Michigan from Spartanburg. Did make one wrong turn due to a little confusion on a bear right instruction. All road construction was also accurate.

[faston]

Originally Posted by sfax

The bug where the arrow stays on after you reach your destination is annoying but easy to fix with a start/stop nav favourite button

How do you do this? I find this very annoying and have tried using the voice command 'stop navigation' but it doesn't do anything to get rid of that arrow.

[Harplayr]

Originally Posted by faston

How do you do this? I find this very annoying and have tried using the voice command 'stop navigation' but it doesn't do anything to get rid of that arrow.

Use the I-Drive to go to the NAV menu and go to the Start/Stop Navigation setting.
Then long-press one of the 8 buttons on the dash to save that function to that button.

[bluesmachine]

My issue is the time of arrival - the second 'clock' that shows up of when you should arrive.

It ALWAYS shows a time that is inaccurate - basically 5-10 minutes later than the actual time of arrival.

If my house is 10 minutes away it will show a time of 15 or 20 min away.

BUT as im driving home the final time will adjust to sort of 'make up' for its own error.

sorry if the explanation is off, but if you have the nav you might understand.