Wilfred

1. It takes forever for the thing to boot, and it doesn't boot as soon as you start the car, but when you first select Nav.

2. If you're moving when the Nav first comes on, it's "off" by the distance you've moved between the time you turn the Nav on and when it completes its first calculation. This results in being "off road" even when you're on road. If you go back to the same place you started, stop the car, restart, activate the Nav, calculate your route and THEN begin moving, it's dead accurate.

3. The Nav can be crashed by entering commands when they aren't expected or when the dashboard isn't displaying Nav stuff. Done it twice already. To reset it, you must remove the CD and re-insert it.

Wow! I feel like I'm debugging this car on a day-by-day basis. Has anyone tried replacing the IDE CD-ROM with a faster one? Is the processor socketed? I can't do this to mine (leased vehicle), but I'm willing to bet the Nav can be significantly improved by upping the processing capability and the CD-ROM speed.

4. The Nav is so cool that I'm likely to spend even more time racking up miles. I'm longing to go to some really arcane place now, just to see how it works out when I *really* don't know the way.

5. I do love that the odd and even addresses are separated.

Wilfred

I'm likely to rummage through the CD tomorrow, trying to figure out what could be done to improve its operation. My guess is that it's a 486 or earlier-based MS-DOS-like box with a stock BIOS. If it were a custom BIOS or firmware-based system, it wouldn't take forever to boot, as Steve points out...

GMCountry

One thing that really gets me down is that the CD starts from the North and goes down to Monmouth/Ocean county New Jersey, I live in Monmouth. I make family trips to Virginia and this means having to switch CDs, but I'm never going to go Maine. Also, when entering specific sites, the routes are anything but the easiest. Yesterday I put in directions for a diner, and instead of guiding me through the back way, which wouldve taken a few blocks, it told me to get onto a highway, go north for two miles, make a jug handle (u-turn) and head back south. But I think its a handy 'toy'. Wouldn't necessarily recommend it over other options.

Wilfred

Ouch! That's pretty bad. Living near the CD border must make it pretty painful, too.

I know I'm contemplating a drive to New Orleans (from San Jose) and not fond of the idea of buying more CD's I'll only use once or twice. Also, I can't plan my trip from here to there on the Nav. I have to cheat and use MapQuest, which voids the point of the Nav. They definitely need to implement a DVD-based Nav.

I think of the Nav as a way to get somewhere when I don't know how to get there at all, knowing that all mapping algorithms have flaws and corner cases. It's very difficult to explain to a computer how to use irregular routes to get from point A to point B. If it's just a toy, I want my money back. I added the Nav because I intend to use it, plus the phone as my primary guidance tools when I'm going to a new place. Namely, call for the address and, having a vague idea of how far/which direction I should be going, program the Nav.

You might want to check that you have the "prefer highway/freeway" option turned off. Also, try the "traffic jam" feature to ensure that the path you wanted to take is on the CD. With the options off, the Nav should try to find either the "fastest" route or the "shortest" route, depending on what you've selected as your preference. If you're not forcing it to use the highway and it's on the CD, I'm really disappointed that it let you down like that. I think it would be great to gather a list of complaints like this and forward them to Audi/Blaupunkt.

deresky2

In addition - it will learn from your choice of routes. For example if you take a particular back road it will initially slowly recalculate your route and later remember that is the preferred way that you proceed towards that address.

Brian-PA

while I was moving. I'm talking accurate to within several feet. No missed turns, unknown roads etc. . . My nav takes less than 10 seconds to ready from the off mode. The calc route takes about the same time. This is considerably faster than the GPS I use in the aircraft I fly. They are aprromimately the same technology generation and my av nav uses the twelve sat method.

Could be something in your area, hardware, antennae or all of the above. Any laser equipment can also throw off a gps.

petrie

mine works fine, but takes a whole lot more than 10 secs. to boot up.