Navigation Systems Put to the Test


One of the most popular options available for new cars is a navigation system. Often these add $1,000 to $3,000 to the sticker price and can even be wrapped into more expensive packages.

It’s certainly easier to swallow that slightly higher monthly payment if the navigation system you just paid for works the way you think it should. But after testing hundreds of cars over the years, we know they don’t all deliver.
So we took three luxury cars with the expensive add-ons and a simple $180 Garmin aftermarket unit — the kind you stick to your windshield — to the test around the bustling Chicago metro area.

With three navigation-equipped cars on hand — a 2010 Acura TSX, a 2011 BMW 3 Series and a 2010 Infiniti G37 — we put their routing to the test. All three cars use different navigation suppliers, and all three systems vary in price and features.

• The G37’s $1,850 navigation system requires upgrading, at minimum, to the G37 Journey — one rung up from the base model. It includes Zagat restaurant ratings, traffic and weather, Bluetooth streaming audio a larger hard drive for storing music, DVD capability and voice recognition. With upgraded graphics and technology for 2010, this system represents that latest and greatest Infiniti has to offer, spokesman Ray Daniels told us.
• BMW’s $2,100 navigation system is available on any 3 Series. Besides a traffic display, it also adds the automaker’s iDrive system, now in its latest generation, with improved graphics, a host of shortcut buttons and the requisite additional configuration menus.
• The TSX’s navigation system is part of a hefty $3,100 Technology Package that includes upgraded ELS audio, a six-CD changer, traffic and weather, a backup camera and nominal enhancements to the Bluetooth and climate control systems. Its grainy graphics reveal its age: The only DVD-based system in the test, the TSX’s navigation will be replaced by a faster hard-drive unit for 2011, spokesman Gary Robinson said.

To establish a baseline, we brought along a Garmin Nuvi 255W. Purchased last April, it retails today for $180. We configured all systems, including the Garmin, to eliminate any routing preferences, meaning highways and toll roads were fair game.

Most systems allow for route choices — a quick route or a short route, for example. We always selected the quick route. More importantly, we also eliminated traffic-based routing. Traffic conditions, reported to each car through a streaming data feed, can change by the minute. A slight variance in traffic could result in a navigation system directing a car another way, skewing the results simply because it was last in the convoy.

The routing is what counts. With three teams of drivers, we set out to see how the systems handle a series of progressive route complications. After all, seldom does a road trip go without a missed turn or a bathroom detour.


Whether a system costs $200 or $2,000, wonky logic can still send you blocks — or miles — out of the way to get back on track after a detour. Old map databases can direct you the wrong way down a one-way street, or refuse to shortcut you down roads built a year or two ago. We’ve experienced both.

“You have maps that, even though they are coming from different companies, are being integrated and aggregated,” said Mark Boyadjis, an analyst who is on the automotive team at iSuppli, a California-based electronics consultancy. “All navigation systems have a proprietary routing system, or routing engine. ... It’s that sort of software that determines how a car gets from point A to point B. So there might be variations.”

Our evaluations took us from our downtown Chicago offices along the following routes:

• A five-mile simple urban route from downtown to U.S. Cellular Field, home of the Chicago White Sox.
• A 20-mile suburban route from U.S. Cellular Field to Elmhurst, Ill., including a simulated missed exit off Chicagoland’s I-294 toll way.
• A 34-mile exurban route from Elmhurst to New Lenox, Ill., including a simulated bathroom break off I-294 with no clear entrance back to the highway and traveling along sections of I-355 that were completed at the end of 2007.
• Finally, to see the currency of each system’s map display, we checked out one of the numerous new subdivisions in Plainfield, Ill.

By day’s end, each team had detailed impressions — on routing, address entry and more. A fair fight? Weigh in with any thoughts below, and stay tuned for tomorrow’s results.

On Wednesday, we laid out plans to take several navigation systems — the pricey factory systems in an Acura TSX, a BMW 3 Series and an Infiniti G37, plus a $180 handheld Garmin Nuvi 255W — and see how they dealt with a range of simple and challenging routes. We started easy, then threw in everything from pit stops and missed exits to recently constructed highways and brand-new housing developments.

The results were illuminating. By day’s end, each of the systems had stumbled at least once. But when we tallied the evaluation, BMW’s Harman-supplied system won the day.

We’ll explain.




Leg 1: Easy downtown route

Winners: G37, Garmin
The G37 and Garmin emerged strong. Both made quick work of the first leg, which took us from our Chicago offices to U.S. Cellular Field — downtown to the Dan Ryan Expressway, exiting near 35th Street, turning right to the stadium. The 3 Series and TSX struggled: The TSX’s navigation system couldn’t locate the stadium’s address (333 W. 35th St.), and the 3 Series needed its ZIP code. We procured the destination from a smart phone, thus satisfying the BMW, and found it in the TSX under the point-of-interest finder. But the Bimmer’s problems weren’t over. Stymied by the loops of the downtown parking garage, the BMW took us on a six-block parade of right turns before finally tracking down a highway on-ramp. Arriving southbound at 35th St., BMW’s female navigation voice instructed a left turn. The Sox played, in fact, on the right. <hr>

Leg 2: Suburbs, missed exits

Winner: 3 Series
From the ballpark to Elmhurst, Ill., the G37 and 3 Series found expedient routes that put us immediately back on the highway — the same routing Google Maps would have us take. The TSX and the Garmin, however, routed editors down 2.5 miles of surface streets before finally merging onto the highway. (That jaunt would cost four extra minutes, according to Google Maps.)

Upon staging a missed exit near our destination — Elmhurst Memorial Hospital — the TSX, Garmin and G37 routed us to the next exit down the highway. (Our intrepid editors in the BMW ended up taking the exit everyone else remembered to skip, so we can’t evaluate how it would have fared. Yarg.) All but the TSX used a four-lane avenue just north of the hospital to reach it; the TSX picked a stop-sign-ridden two-laner west of the hospital to arrive. It costs an extra minute, according to Google Maps.

More concerning: Upon inputting “Elmhurst Memorial Hospital” into the point-of-interest finder, the G37 routed us to the hospital’s business center, some three miles away. (We arrived, found Audis instead of ambulances, and backtracked.) The Acura gave us the option of both locations — specifying that one was a business center — while the BMW and Garmin defaulted to the actual hospital.

“If you don’t know the hospital’s address and are in need of medical care, this would be a very annoying detour,” editor Amanda Wegrzyn noted. That’s putting it lightly.
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Leg 3: Detours, New Roads

Winner: 3 Series
Our third leg took us south to New Lenox, Ill. The G37 chose a westbound highway that would eventually join our southbound route. It would’ve cost three extra minutes, Google Maps says. No matter; we ignored it. We had a pit stop to simulate, and it required sticking to the southbound route — the route the TSX, 3 Series and Garmin had automatically plotted. The pit stop landed us right off the interstate at a well-worn Arby’s, with no immediate entrance back onto the highway’s southbound lanes.

After a few moments’ recalculations, the G37, TSX and Garmin had us on a 3.5-mile loop to get to the next on-ramp south. The BMW, meanwhile, instructed a U-turn to head west, back under the freeway and away from Arby’s, and onto a second westbound highway. It joined up with our original southbound route, incurred minimal surface streets and got us to New Lenox with time to spare. Editor Joe Bruzek, who travels the area often, says the BMW took the route he’d choose.

The Garmin-toting TSX group arrived second, having both taken the 3.5-mile detour toward the next on-ramp south of Arby’s. The systems differed near the end: The Acura wanted editors to exit the highway some four miles early to take rural roads to New Lennox. It would have added about six minutes, Google Maps says. We stuck with the Garmin’s highway route, which had the TSX arriving 10 minutes after Team BMW.

Alas, the G37 had a mind of its own. Like the TSX, it directed us toward the next on-ramp south of Arby’s, followed by directions for the next highway interchange — but toward the northbound off-ramp, the opposite direction of New Lenox. It had editors driving a mile north, exiting an overpass and re-entering on the southbound side.

Naturally, the G37 was last to arrive.


The Winner: BMW 3 Series

All four systems took recently completed sections of the I-355, and all four found a new subdivision in Plainfield, Ill., though the BMW’s showed a few more roads than the others. In the end, the 3 Series’ system put us on the most expedient routes, even lopping off some time at the end. After a rough start, it completed the evaluation with few of the G37’s wrong-headed instructions and none of the smaller routing issues the TSX and Garmin incurred. It’s not the cheapest or most feature-packed system, but for simply getting the job done, BMW’s system won the day.