nottabrat

After purchasing my CL-S with Navi, and hoping to enjoy what would be endless hours of not worrying about missing turns and roads due to the voice prompts form the system, I realized that this system really sucks...lol

A phone call to Navi Acura DVD sales confirmed my disbelief. "Not all areas are mapped" he said politely, "but most larger metropoliton cities are.."

Hmm I cannot even find the MAIN road that I live on in Lancaster, PA. A road which, BTW, connects 7 major roadways and cuts HOURS off of trips of you already know the way. My input to them...Drop the listings for the Dance Lessons, the Demolition Crews, and the phone number cross reference for businesses.
There are entire states in the continental US that aren't even mapped, that is, in any major detail other than a major route goes thru it. And of course, as true to murphy's law, any place that I currently go on vacation isn't mapped in ANY detail. Oh, the system can probably get you to the city or town, but then you still need to ask for directions.

DOES ANYONE know of another company that sells a more informative mapping system that works with our CL's NAVI. OF course the Acura company that sells the DVD won't tell you anything other than, 'only our DVD will work'. My 1991 street atals USA (39.95) on CD has 1000x's more information in mapping than this joke of a system. I guess I will have to move to L.A. or Gettysburg PA if I want to be able to find my way around....

Disgusted for not trying it out first..

Notta...

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Aegean Pearl Blue
Type S w/ Navi

kensteele

Relax. Before you purchased the Navi, all you had to do was turn it on and see how much details there was. If you were satisfied, buy, if not, don't buy. It's amazing that you didn't research this before you bought, it's like buying a cellular phone, going home, then finding out that you house in not within coverage.

But you have bought already, so it suffices to say that the next CD version that should be released for the Navi this Fall is supposed to have the entire country mapped out. If they get their data collected and corrected in a timely fashion, they will release a new CD, but there are no promises that every dirt road and every farm road in the Big Horn Mts in Wyoming is going to show up. What for?

Don't blame the Navi, it's the map company that decided that your home town was not viable. They go by population, not the size of the road, or how many intersections there are, etc. The Navi probably covers 90% of the entire country's population, not 90% of the roads. Nothing in America goes by geographic space, mostly by POPs. The Navi works fine for me, showing me about 99% of the roads that I drive on.

I have SA8. If Street Atlas was packaged to sell at $2,000 per CD and it was designed primarily for high end consumers in the big city, it wouldn't have all those little roads on it either.

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* 2001 Acura CL Type S * Blk/Blk * Navigator * Spoiler * Moonroof Visor * V1 *
* Since 3/31/2000 *
* Road Warrior *

nottabrat

While I agree that the rule 'Let the buyer beware' applies to any purchase, the average user (like me) needs time to figure out these things. When sales are the key to buying a car and getting a huge discount, you sometimes rush things.

And don't get me wrong..I realize that it ISN'T Acura that is at fault, but rather the lack of concern of the DVD manufacturer who prepares the database. My only arguement is how it is presented..The front is GREAT. Easy to use, nice display, etc. What I detest is the features that the programmers put in, that 99% of us will NEVER use, there by wasting their own time and precious disk space, that could other wise be used for streets and coordinates. What is there IS accurate. EXTREMELY accurate to about 5-10 feet, which will be nice in new areas. I would also like to see the feature added to allow us (users) to program the system to be smarter, that is, to at least allow us to map our home point by coordinates, not necessarily by street (since mine for example isn't listed).

In comparing the version I have (2.03) with my buddy at work (he has ver 1.03), we find very minor changes that don't affect 'outer lying areas'.

But hey, if ya ever want to visit us in the rich historic Amish country, drop me a line and I will email you directions..lol.. you can't find it on your map...

(hmm I wonder what the population of Gettysburg is...last time I checked I think it was about 2/3's of our fair little city)

Signed....
Waiting for an updated DVD....




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Aegean Pearl Blue
Type S w/ Navi

kensteele

Yeah, you'll have to wait for the updated CD. I'm waiting for it too because it would be nice when I venture out of the metro KC area (which is well covered) into rural Kansas or Missouri...which is sparsely covered.

Anyway, you and I know what coordinates are but most people don't. The Acura Navi is suppose to be consumer friendly and not scare away the lay person with all that hi-tech stuff. When I want to get down and dirty, I pull out my Garmin GPS III+. That never let's me down.

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* 2001 Acura CL Type S * Blk/Blk * Navigator * Spoiler * Moonroof Visor * V1 *
* Since 3/31/2000 *
* Road Warrior *

nottabrat

Well, it was unexpected but welcome. I got a personal call from someone at NAVI and an email. It is at work on that PC or I would be posting it.

They did tell me what I suspected (but hoped I was wrong) in that they have to drive EVERY street that is mapped. SO when people go on road trips for NAVI, they are mapping every 2 feet or so of the roadway. I am amazed though that the new exits just installed this past year in Lancaster are mapped to the foot (or so) and so accurate. On the good news side..they are planning a major upgrade, though they can't say what areas will be NAVI'd, however, they are considering attaching a 'mapping software' package that is much higher detail, although it will not interface with the NAVI. In other words, no coordinates, but it is better than haveing NO map at all..lol

Guess we'll just have to wait and see. But when the DVD is really close to being finished (like that can ever happen right), it will be the sweetest system around, now htat I am finding all the EXTRA features that aren't really described in the manual...

Steve



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Aegean Pearl Blue
Type S w/ Navi

360

You should know that this is definitely the easiest and one of, if not the best Stock Nav I have used and in the industry.

I have used the M-B's 400S (The worst) , BMW 740il, and Lexus ls400, LX470 (These are my Parents' cars)and this is the best. Each of these have some areas that the others don't but over all acura's is the best(in big city acura and Lexus,for smaller areas BMW was the best,but you can't map cross country) . Try one of these and you'll appreciate yours much more trust me I do.

My parents like my nav much better than their's especial since in the Lexus you have to be at a complete stop to do any thing.

I am waiting for the new DVD too.



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Black Type-S

DR

When will the new DVD be available? And how much will it cost?

Driven

I would say the rate at which they update their mapping area is fairly decent. I remember when I went on a test drive a little over a year ago, my house couldn't be plotted on the Navi. I wasn't too disappointed because it was in a new development out in the boonies. Now, in 2001, I'm happy to say that the system displays streets in my neighborhood that I didn't even know existed. I personally find the Navi most useful for "everyday" driving when I'm needing to find places I'm not familiar with in the Metro areas. It's the road trip that I may take once or twice a year that I'm not as concerned with.

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Anthony

'01 CL-S black/parchment
spoiler and NAV.