Originally Posted by MJ-bos

RayNA - while I agree with the safety premise ... you don't address the core problem we're talking about here - when a passenger can't use the nav while we're driving, it's a total fail... they get out their iPhone, and then I have to look at their phone for mapping info. How safe is that???!!??

Originally Posted by RayNA

...my solution is simple, just pull-over, stop and input whatever you want to input to the NAV, even better, do that before you start your trip.

Originally Posted by davisinla

That's an interesting solution.

Hey, why not go one better? Since pulling over on the freeway might not be safe, before you leave on your trip, you could pick up a map at a gas station and put a dot on it wherever you want to make a stop.

Originally Posted by RayNA

Ehem!, If I have to pull-over on a freeway I usually do it after taking the next exit and stop where it is safe, but I normally input my destination way before I start the trip and since I normally have only 1 destination/trip that isn't really inconvenient :wink:

Originally Posted by davisinla

Because we take frequent road trips, perhaps I expect more from my GPS than you do. Having to pull over whenever I want to use it to find something that I hadn't pre-programmed (restaurants, coffee, etc.) would be like having to find a phone booth whenever I wanted to call someone who wasn't in my cell phone's address book.

I'll agree that the RDX's GPS is great if you can enter all destinations ahead of time. But for use "on the fly" it positively sucks to the point of being useless. Potential buyers should try it and judge for themselves. But my eight year old Garmin (or the wife's iPhone) is far more functional.

YMMV

Originally Posted by davisinla

Having to pull over whenever I want to use it to find something that I hadn't pre-programmed (restaurants, coffee, etc.) would be like having to find a phone booth whenever I wanted to call someone who wasn't in my cell phone's address book.

Originally Posted by mdfree

And why does Acura get their traffic data from Sirius when they could get it from Clearchannel for free like Honda?

As grandpa would say "Just follow the money!"

Originally Posted by MJ-bos

RSLTSX09XMNAVWX that's great for your MDX ... but AcuraLink doesn't work for many of us in our RDX (I'm on Verizon and my husband is on Sprint - it's refuses to link to either). The RDX doesn't have the same push from phone functionality, and our voice recog. SUCKS, plain and simple.

Siri and Google Now are at least 5x more accurate, and that's really not a ringing endorsement of either of those technologies but a depressing observation of how bad Acura voice recog. is!

If I'm going to have to use a smartphone app to find a destination and push that to the car nav ... why wouldn't I just use the smartphone app?

I've recently upgraded to an iPhone 6+ and with a screen nearly as big as the built-in, I think I'm just going to be using that 100% of the time.

Originally Posted by davisinla

Yes, I think that could be considered a somewhat significant piece of information when addressing a room full of RDX owners in an RDX forum having an issue with their RDX.


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Originally Posted by RSLTSX09XMNAVWX

I did a Search over all forums to see if anyone was having a issue, and forgot to see what forum I was actually in. I was thinking RLX, not RDX... Sorry for the confusion...

Originally Posted by Redd

Stump, I'm a newb here and have no idea if Acura did something clever to make Real Damn Sure the car was parked, like using GPS speed data.

But AFAIK every nav unit on the planet is set up the same way: Cheap and simple. There is a dedicated wire that is used as a "parking sensor" which connects to the transmission switch (i.e. "P" position) and when that lead is grounded, the nav unit knows you are in park. Remove the ground, and it knows you are not.

Simple, cheap, reliable. And if you can confirm that from the wiring diagram for the nav unit, the solution is even simpler: Cut the wire. No wire, no ground, the nav unit knows it is never in park and you can take control back into human hands.

On some units you may need to force a ground, or a hot, but it always comes down to pretty much the same thing: One wire, connect or disconnect, and the nav unit's "park" function gets a lobotomy.

That can usually be unplugged from the pack connector, too, so it is fully reversible with no sign it has been done.

No one at the dealership will be allowed to comment on this, since it involves liability with a "safety" system. But if you can get hold of a schematic, I'll bet you find one wire that goes to the transmission's indicator switch from the nav unit. That's always the one.

To the best of my limited knowledge, the only smarter nav system is on the Nissan GT-R. On the Japanese domestic market models, it is connected to a speed limiter in the ECU, and it will not let the car exceed a set speed UNLESS the GPS has determined that the car is on one of the eight legal racing tracks in Japan.

Originally Posted by techman707

What there is REALLY no excuse for on a car costing $40,000, let alone one claiming to be a "luxury" car, is mirrors that don't fold electrically. Had I been aware of it before I purchased my 2014 RDX, I wouldn't have bought it. Now, before I can go into my garage, I have to get out and fold the passenger side mirror. So much for the worthless HOMELINK.