neuronbob

I was going to post this Friday, but the site outage delayed things.

I received a call from a survey company representing Acura and was asked some questions about the new navi disc.....like did I feel it was accurate? Yes, for my built-up area.......any trouble using it? No, it was seamless.........how much do you expect a navi disc to cost? I expected $189 because that's what Acura charged in the past. At this point, the interviewer said I was one of only a couple of people she'd interviewed who stated the correct cost, and that most people expected to pay nothing or $20 or a similarly small amount, and were angry when she told them how much was actually charged. She said Acura might be "very surprised" when they found out what people actually wanted to be charged as opposed to what the disc cost. She asked how often I expected a new DVD; I answered "yearly" as I felt that was a reasonable answer and Acura has not always been fastidious about yearly updates for their navi systems.

The last question was an important one......would you rather pay yearly for the disc, or have the cost of the disc built into the price of the car and receive discs yearly at no extra cost? I answered the latter because I'd rather just pay up front for the cost of 3-4 discs and get them mailed to me automatically.

So how would you, the collective wisdom of Acurazine, have answered the questions?

1. Do you feel the new disc is accurate?

2. Any trouble with the new disc?

3. How much do you expect a navi update to cost?

4. How often do you expect to see a navi update?

5. Would you rather pay up front (in the MSRP) to have "no-cost" yearly navi updates, or pay yearly for a disc?

viper-tl

1) Haven't received the car yet, but I would hope so.

2) No car yet, I hope not

3) I would think that should depend on the amount of updates, the more updates it contains, the higher price I may be willing to pay. I'd put a ceiling at around 100-150 though.

4) Every 1-2 years

5) Would much rather have the new discs paid for by the equivalent of the standard factory warranty, eg. updates provided at no cost until 4 yrs/50,000 miles, or longer if ext'd warranty was purchased.

vp911

I just got my 05' so I assume i have the newest dvd

1. Do you feel the new disc is accurate?
For the most part

2. Any trouble with the new disc?
No.. well if you want to change the background color of the screens, you cant..that feature stopped working when they released the version in late 2003/early 2004 (dont remember the exact date...but the feature was working fine on my TSX before the dvd upgrade)

3. How much do you expect a navi update to cost?
I expect the $185 + shipping... I would rather pay $20 of course...but it does take a lot of time and effort to put those together

4. How often do you expect to see a navi update?
Once a year

5. Would you rather pay up front (in the MSRP) to have "no-cost" yearly navi updates, or pay yearly for a disc?
Up front and automatic mailing of new dvds to me

rets

Obviously, you are in their list... you got free Navi DVD plus the interview... Umm... I have to figure out what's wrong with my credential now...



I don't get new disc yet... but if any Acura rep calls,

1. I'll ask them to mail me one now
   
   
2. Supposed not to
   
   
3. Lower would be better
   
   
4. Yearly would be enough
   
   
5. Considerable
   1. if it's transferrable upon selling the car
      
      
   2. if we could get good deal such like $200 for 5 years annual update disc

PhilB

1. Do you feel the new disc is accurate?
Pretty much.

2. Any trouble with the new disc?
No.

3. How much do you expect a navi update to cost?
A better question is what do I think a new disc is worth. To me it would be worth about $25. If that doesn't match what Acura can produce them for then I guess capitlist theory would say that I won't be paying for an update. I wonder if Acura could sell enough at $20-$25 to cover the development costs since we know that it doesn't cost $189 to press a DVD. Which is better, 1000 discs/year at $189 or 8000 discs/year at $25?

4. How often do you expect to see a navi update?
Yearly

5. Would you rather pay up front (in the MSRP) to have "no-cost" yearly navi updates, or pay yearly for a disc?
Depends on what the up front cost is, but if it's on the order of $2000 (the price of the Navi system) I'd say definitely not.

caball88

didn't get a call but yearly update would probably be sufficient. although i am skeptical of how much of the disc gets updated and of that update how much is directly effected in my regional area.

1995hoo

I haven't gotten the new disc, nor a call from Acura. I like your idea of paying a little extra up front and getting either a couple of years of updates, or getting, say, four "credits" that you could use to order updated DVDs when appropriate.

I would probably be a pretty good person to speak to the accuracy of the new disc if I got it since I live right between two major highway construction projects (the Springfield Interchange and the Wilson Bridge) that are both eight- to ten-year projects. The Springfield Interchange project involves turning the old interchange on the left in this picture into the one shown on the right, and every year they open a few new ramps, so it would be a good way to test the Navi updates.

jd0225

I would like the option of buying an update subscription.

go_blue

I got my 04TL in Aug 04, VIN 6XXXX. How do I know if the navi disc is "updated" or not?

The position of the car can be off by up to half a block, or 1/8 of a mile, which has create some problem for me while driving in San Francisco, where the blocks are short with many 1-way streets. In other parts of Bay Area then it's not a big deal. After I merge or turn, the system would adjust itself, but it takes a few seconds.

Can I get a 05 disc now?

Thanks.

neuronbob

The new navi disc was released at the end of November 2004, so you didn't get an updated disc. So far, the discs are being sent out only to certain people. We don't know how Acura is choosing. I have such a disc and I figure Acura is just testing the discs prior to widespread release.

dashotgun

wow that sucks as I bought the car in mid november what is the number onthe disck

midas69

I didn't get a call but I was shocked today to get an invite from a survey company I'm signed up with. It started asking about what car you own and if you had NAVI on the car. But after that it really asked a lot of questions that were specific to the TL such as voice recognition, DVD-A and HFL. They either did a lot of research on each model or it was really a survey for Acura. It's hard to tell, but often you get bounced out after the first few questions where they tell you that you aren't in the group they are looking for.

Geting back to the topic, here's my take.

1. My car was manufactured 11-04 so I don't know if I have the latest disk or not. But the mapping itself seems to be very accurate but the routing leaves a little to be desired.

2. As I mentioned, not really impressed with some of the routes it picks out.

3. Well my last car (Maxima) disks cost $120 each, but those were CD based. I guess I expect them cost slightly more. That doesn't mean that I don't think they are way over priced. The fact is they need to continue to develop the new disks for the new cars as they are manufactured. The actual pressing of the disk costs next to nothing.

4. I expect them yearly but at the current pricing I'd probably only get an update every other year.

5. I think it should be rolled into the price of the car for the duration of the warranty. This should spread out the cost per unit to a pretty small number and thus should only add about $100 to the cost of the car. This is assuming you'd get 3 updates and less than 20% of the people pay for yearly updates.

neuronbob

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