phanatic

So this is my first integrated nav system. I've always used google navigation off my phone in the past. Google's ETAs are always right on +/- 1 minute and it seems to always pick the fastest route wherever I go. This Audi navigation chooses some wacky routes that are obviously multiple minutes longer on 30 minutes trips. I've been using it every time I get in the car to get used to it and it won't even have the "correct" route as one of the three options under alternative routes. Also, the ETAs that are displayed are way off. As in sometimes 5 minutes on a 30 minute trip. Even longer on longer routes. I assumed that maybe it's calculated on going the actual speed limit and no more but even that doesn't account for how much it's overestimating. Is this normal? Is there a setting somewhere that I'm missing? I've double checked that I don't have avoid highways or anything like that set on. Any thoughts?

VipinLJ

I had the same problem the one time I drove my car. For an 85 mile trip from the dealership to my house, it showed ETA as 4.5 hours whereas my A6, at the same time, showed less than 2 hours. I thought it would be a one time problem. Haven't driven my car yet except for that trip. Will check and update.

cruiserchuck

I had a similar problem yesterday while driving my soon to be new A4. The dealer I leased it from did a dealer trade to get the color that I wanted. I went with a salesman to the other dealer, so I could drive my car back to my dealer. We used the nav, and the eta was about 25 minutes off on a one hour drive.

sprior

For those of you who noticed this on the trip back from a dealer - are you sure that Audi Connect was set up before the drive? Makes me wonder if you were using the onboard trip time estimation instead of the online info. Did you see traffic data?

gguy

I have google maps on my nav, of course and I have seen the same thing. The weird thing is that the other day I wanted to visit my parents graveside and I put the cemetery in the search box and the nav could not locate it, it said it was not in its data base. It is a military cemetery. I went back home later and searched on google maps on my pc for same cemetery and it popped right up???? Then I searched for it on my other nav units and it popped right up. So I did a map update in my MMI and searched again and again it could not find it. So, I am wondering if I have a setting that is off or what.

VipinLJ

The sales executive activated it online while we were waiting at the dealership. My in laws could use navigation before we left the dealership so I'm guessing it was activated properly. Haven't used the navi on the A4 after that. So I don't know whether it shows the correct ETA now.

Buckingham

Few weeks ago, made a weekend trip from Chicago to Cleveland. Entered the hotel address into the car's navigation and started the trip. After about 20 minutes I thought the estimated travel time shown seemed to be way off. I turned on Google Maps via my phone (not connected to Android Auto) and my wife turned on Waze via her phone to get a fair comparison. Google Maps and Waze were within 15 minutes of each other for a 5 hour trip. Audi navigation was showing driving time that was over an hour more than Google or Waze.

I have owned the vehicle since July and Audi Connect has been set up. Since this trip I've learned that Audi nav is good for shorter trips of 30 minutes or less. Any trip length longer than 30 minutes I will connect my phone to Android Auto as I find it much more accurate. Also, when you only know the name of a business and not the street address, Audi makes it difficult to navigate using just a name. AA and CarPlay seem much easier finding points of interest when you don't have an address.

superswiss

Must be an issue with the newer systems. The ETA on my 3G+ seems very accurate. I don't pay that much attention to the ETA, though, especially on a long trip where traffic patterns change throughout the trip.

As for finding places by name, I don't think it gets much easier. Just press the voice button and say "Google search name-of-business" or use the MMI connect app on your phone to find the place ahead of time and then just send it to the car.

djm

Sometimes it's off by a full hour or two for a trip that should be two or four hours. Wheras Google Maps is accurate and suggests the same route.

My impression is the Audi badly overestimates the traffic sometimes, especially at times when there is some congestion e.g. you're leaving at rush hour. Maybe it sort of totals all the traffic along the route at the start of the trip rather than predicting how it might diminish over time?

Other than that I find the nav reasonably accurate when it comes to directions, not perfect of course. The address lookup is pretty terrible largely because it has no sense of context or popularity so it'll suggest some random match from thousands of miles away before a major nearby destination. I don't usually use the Google search feature maybe I should try that more. Sending an address from the app is helpful.

Another nav gripe: some of the info in the VC is surprisingly hard to read. The name of the next turn at the bottom is in such a big font that it gets truncated. To the point where key info such as whether you're supposed to get on the northbound or southbound parkway is chopped off. Which is obviously a distraction at best. The VC also only shows the ETA when there happens to be no turn coming up in the next couple miles, which is distracting because I start searching for it. Other than that I really do like driving with nav on the VC (actually discovered I far prefer the standard 3D map over Google Earth) and the main screen off or showing CarPlay music, and find that a very focused way to drive.. putting map on both screens is truly distracting.