So who spent the 2 chips on Navi? Do you go on long trips is is it to raise the needle on the bling-o-meter? The Mod thing to make it work like a tv seems cool, but how many people really use the navi for what its intended...why not just goto mapquest and print out some directions? :p

 

to be honest. I'm very regretful that i didnt get the navi option when i bought the car back in march of 02 :banghead: :banghead:
TL has one of the sweetest navi on the market!!

 

This topic has been beaten to death. But I'll give you a brief summary:

- Majority of non-navi owners wish they bought it
- Majority (if not all) navi owners love it

Yea you can buy a $5 map but it's not the same. The navi fills in the gap so well and it makes the interior look more luxurious. The car looks so plain inside without the navi (no offense). Plus it's a great conversation piece and the all important....watching dvd movies on it.

In conclusion, I will never buy another car without a navi in it!

 

i love it even tho i dont travel so no big use for it. but its cool to have a screen light up at night in your car and ppl think its a t.v. lol i need the update!

 

I have had my car over 3 years now with Nav & I just love it.
I even changed my color choice on the car to get Nav thats how bad I wanted it. I switched from Firepepper Red/ Ebony to Nighthawk Black/Ebony because my 1st color choice was hard to get with Nav at that time. The Nav can do some good things for you like give good visual aids as to your location on the road in strange areas. This could be example water if maped or railroad tracks located by road. It also can give good aid as to turns /twist in the road great for night ,foggy,rain ect. driving. My car is used mostly for travel not city driving. If you are traveling & run into traffic jam the Map Quest print out could not get you around the jam. With the Nav you could push detour button & it would get you around the stuff if you can get off at the next exit & re route you back on the road after awhile. It does make the car look better inside. But factory or aftermarket Nav is the way to go I would not get another car without it.

 

FTM-1 u have aim/aol? i wanna ask u some question on the navi that i still dont know how to use.

post ur sn

thanks
mike

 

Get the Navi, I'm thinking about getting a custom job done to get a navi, I wonder how much it will cost me....maybe Ron at SE can help

 

Yup ... definitely get the NAVI.
In my opinion, the extra $2k is worth the look and the "assitant" when you need it.

The $5 map definitely does not help when you need to look for a gas station, or search for a restaurant.


Cheers !!!

 

Got my first one in 99 and I will do my best to never be without it again!

 

yeah, i wish i had got the navi....thanks for reminding me that i didn't.

 

i use it always and like it

 

The Navigation changes the whole TL-S....making it sooo much classier!!

Also, the ladies love it........

"Navigation leads to Penetration"

 

I agree it does make the inside look better.

 

I'm glad I got it. I wasn't going to get it and my wife talked me into it. I have used it many times with great success.

 

I love my navi system. Best $2 grand I ever spent.

 

I can only wish we had navigation here in Canada

 

since it was the only optional, i bought it just to have it and it's been a life saver the couple times i have used it. i also have the nav conversion so this i really nice too.

 

As said before, it does make the interior lok a hell of alot better by replacing that ugly digital clock, and the HVAC controls. I just wish they'd put in a better looking radio, but oh well. When i first got the car, everyone looked in and said wow.
Depending on where you live, navi may not be very helpful. At college, the coverage is far less than acceptalbe. At home though (westchester, outside NYC), the coverage is excellent. I hear they are planning to release, or have already released an updated DVD (which they should give to me for free because my car is not eevn 2 months old, but probably wont) However, just like mapquest, the navi sometimes sends you stupid ways. It likes to send you on major highways. Example- to get to my college near albany the navi sends me up the Taconic (which is good, mapquest tells me to take 87), but it tells me to goto 84 and go over the mid-hudson bridge and take 87 the rest of the way! It's 20 mins shorter to take the taconic all th way up to the end and hit 90 west. You live in TX, so these roads most likely arent familiar, but i suspect that there are times where it will send you ways that you know are longer.
With that said, its still a good thing to have if you ever have to go places you are unfamiliar with. I always thought that i would never use it, but when i'm home (cant get a parking permit at school till next year), i found myself using it all the time. I've only used the car for a weekend though when i was home, so i think its just a novelty that wil wear off. It is a big distraction though while driving, but im getting better at not playing with it while driving. the last thing american drivers need are more distractions while driving (beacuse most of them are idiots)!

 

 

My opinion has actually changed on this issue. Although it does make the interior/dash look A LOT better and I'm overall glad I bought it, in practical hindsight it does seem to be a bit of a waste of money at $2k.

If I had to do it all over again, I think I might just save some money and buy a portable unit that I could move to a different car when I sold this one.

 

I got my Nav at about $1500 above the price I was quoted for the non-navi car.

I utilize the NAV all the time though, even though I don't always travel far away from my house ... I don't have this area memorized too well (only been living here 2 years). That and the roads around here are very confusing (many roads have the same exact name except for the suffix and are cross-streets). In any case, I'm probably a little too over dependant on the navi, but I definitely get my moneys worth on utilizing it!

 

Once u go Navi, U dont go backY.... sorry i tried to make it rhyme.
Newho, so to beat the already beaten dead horse even more... get the Navi, youll regret it later if u dont ...
holla ............
ash

 

I think the navi is cool, and I don't regret the $1,500 I spent for mine.

Speaking of navi, I thought I'd post this problem here and see if anyone can shed some light on it. I often have difficulty locating business establishments when I have to look them up by PLACE NAME. Here is the prefect example:

I wanted to get a route to the Costco in Fairfax. So I punch in PLACES, BY NAME, and type in COSTCO. I get a bunch of categories and place names mixed together, and it is almost impossible to tell what is what. At this point there is no way to sort the list by distance or by municipality. So I am forced to look at each one. If I look long enough, I'll find out that Costco is under category Costco Wholesale Inc, subcategory Department Stores. This is not intuitive at all and very hard to find, and if you are driving, forget it.

It is also possible to find COSTCO by selecting PLACES, BY CATEGORY, but then you have to know the damn category and subcategory. This doesn't help any vs. PLACES, BY NAME.

I just find this whole procedure to be terribly awkward. BUT, if it is something that can be found through the categories on the menu pick-list, like restaurants, travel, etc, then that works fine, cause then its possible to get a sort by distance (or by municipality) selection right away to help filter the list. Also, the POI (phone lookup) works pretty well.

Has anyone figured out a way to do what I wanna do, only better?

 

Maybe, but 2k buys a real nice laptop with dvd player and a handheld GPS unit and mapping program.

Just another opinion,
Lou

 

Then get both!

 

The Nav is worth every cent. It was the main reason I got the TL (Nav in my car was manditory).

kennelm, I agree with the place names, I hope the next update is a bit better in that respect.

 

I'm originally from Mount Vernon, so although I wasn't driving yet when I lived in NY (moved here @ 12), I know the area Guess Ill probably try and find a used TLS with Nav.

 

When I bought my car I had to have Navi, but i thought it would just be a toy.

Wrong. I use it all the time, especially to find alternate routes out of traffic jams, it's definitely worth the cost.

NAVI will be a determining factor in any purchase I make in the future.

 

I have a NAVI now...and I wouldn't get another car without one. If I was in a situation where I couldn't afford a TL-S with NAV I would of gotten a TL-P with NAV. If THAT was still too much, I would of gotten an Accord with NAV.

But as for myself...I would never go back.

 

if u don't need it all it is is bragging rights. i have bnavagation in all my cars cause i do lots of traveling and its the only factury one i have..........the other 2 are alpines

 

We're in the minority here--but I'm with you on this one, Fla-TLS. Garmin is coming out with a KILLER Nav for under $500 (the IQUE 3600) in a few weeks. That, the Street Pilot III, or the Nav-Man are nice looking portable units (the Pilot will TALK to you telling you where to make a left, etc) and they are portable, allowing you to use them in more than one vehicle. The navi screen that Acura supplies does look sweet, but you can save a grand or more if you get a portable.
Of course, the Street Pilot and other portables won't play the DVD, but let me whisper something to those of you who have the DVD unit: PUT THE FREAKIN' NEWSPAPER DOWN, FINISH YER COFFEE, AND TURN THE DVD MOVIE OFF! I'M TRYIN' TO DRIVE HERE

 

I love my navigation system even though I hardly use it. If I were to purchase another TLS it would be navigation only.

 

The portable units are getting pretty good, but they're still a ways a way from the built-in systems. Factory navs are integrated with the car's on-board systems. If for some reason, if you're driving in an area with a lot of trees, based on your speed and direction, the system trys to compensate for the signal loss and still show your direction on the map. It's called dead reckoning.

 

I'm also not sure but I would assume that the portable units do now have gyro sensors. So factory Navi is better.

 

Today, for the first time, I found myself wishing I had NAVI in the TL-S.
I got lost and was almost late for an appointment.

Then I realized why I didn't get it in the first place...
The $2k I saved puts me 1/2 way to the Vortech S-Trim I need for the Pony so I can stay up with those damn WRX-STi's & EVO's.
It's all a matter of what is more important to you.

To be honest though, I doubt I'll even look at my next purchase if it doesn't have NAVI.

I guess it's just like some other things in life...
once you've had it, you can't live without.

 

the answer to your question is YES, YES and YES again.

 

Or if you just want to be able to find places and direction, Garmin streetpilot GPS is a good alternative. It has a large display and voice prompt for next turn. I saw a ad in Circuit City that it is now 799. p.s. I believe it also include Canada. check it out.
www.garmin.com

 

Yeah, well, I'd almost believe that if you paid CASH for your car. But if you didn't (like 99.5% of us) then only your monthly payment would have gone up a little (but not 2K's worth). Of course I don't know the details of your purchase... but using a standard 4-year time period... a 2K increase in price adds about $48.00 to the monthly cost. Not trying to flame you here... just trying to respond to all those (past, present, and future) folks who say they didn't buy the Navi because they're saving the 2K for other things for the car.

Later,

V.

 

I didn't get NAVI because I felt it wasn't cost effective for the number of times that I would use it.
I have never used a map in my life while driving, and only occasionally do I access MapQuest.
I have rented many cars with NAVI for weeks at a time (for my job) and used it only sparingly. Taking into account that I was 100's of miles from home when I actually did use it, I felt I could better spend the cash elsewhere.
Don't tell me U can't find someplace to spend $48 a month for the next 4 years...
(how about FREE CABLE or Direct TV for the next 4 years!)
I'm spending it on a Vortech for my other car or a vacation to Italy.
Either way, as I said before. My next car WILL have NAVI.
All I am saying is that I can understand why alot of people opt NOT to get it.
2K is 2K. If it was a $750 option, I'm sure most people would get it.
I bought my TL-S for it's performance but I would have much rather had an extra 35 horses or AWD for 2K. THAT I would have paid for in a second...

 

This was pretty much my logic for NOT getting the Navi in my 2002 Maxima. The Maxima I test drove was identical to my own except that it had Navi. I liked it but for a car used mainly to go to and from work, it was a totally impractical option.

Like Catchawave, I use Neverlost (Hertz) in my rental cars but that's really only for areas that I'm TOTALLY not familiar with (i.e. Miami, Orlando, Columbus and Southern California, to date).

Peace.