My GPS sucks!

M

miatafied

Member
Contributor
:
Mazda5/kidhauler - Miata/fun car
Well, after trying 5 times unsuccessfully to put in a specific address as a destination - it's official - this GPS sucks!! I was on my way to the shore last week and had to pull over and call a friend to pull the directions up on mapquest. Normally I would glance over directions before leaving, but I thought - why? I have NAV

Sure, it tells me where I am at all moments and if I scroll across the map to where I want to go - I can set a destination point then and it can direct me there, but......as far as putting in an address and it just leading you there? ha!

At first I thought that I was just putting the addresses in funny or something - like using "st." instead of "street" but no matter how I put in those addresses - it just couldn't find them. BUT, if I scrolled over the map to the desired point - tada! the address would show up! (hand)

Now I just leave the screen closed. If you're considering the NAV system - save your $$ and get a great aftermarket one for 1/4 the price.
 
I wouldn't say it sucks. But it is confusing as hell (argh)

Are you in the right region? I tried and tried to set my "Home" in there but it could never find my address. Turns out the country is broken into about 6 regions and the default is a chunk of the east coast. I'm at work so I can't tell you how to get to the correct menu to choose the region. But if you are screwing around with the menus, there's one with a picture of NA on the left 1/3 of the monitor. That's where you choose your region. After you do that you *should* be able to type in addresses a little easier.

On a side note, my home address is not my actual home address. Looks like whenever my housing area was annexed the addresses got changed around. But that must have been years ago so I don't know why the old address is in there, I guess the map programmers suck....thanks guys(321fu)

In retrospect I think I might have passed on the NAV too...saved the 2 grand and picked up a mini mac and done a carputer. But then again this is my first new car ever and I'm afraid of the warranty. Although the convenience of having the NAV screen pop out of the dash is nice. I'll probably gut the factory NAV and do a carputer in a few years once people figure out how to hack the factory system.
 
Thanks, saint - I'll have to try that out - I was wondering as much, but couldn't find a place to change the region. I'll post again when I figure it out.
 
Saint - they told me $275 for the unit although they show only video interface not computer hookup.

Also (from the website)
"Please be advised that installing any kind of aftermarket equipment such as the NaviPlus adapter may void manufacturer warranty."
 
miatafied said:
Saint - they told me $275 for the unit although they show only video interface not computer hookup.

Also (from the website)
"Please be advised that installing any kind of aftermarket equipment such as the NaviPlus adapter may void manufacturer warranty."
Click to expand...

I did a little googling last night and I wasn't impressed with the Naviplus people. Granted what I found was one incedent, but overall it didn't look good. It took place on a Chrysler 300 board. I guess with the 300 NAV you have to take the unit apart...well this naviplus place sells "hacked" Chrysler 300 NAV units with the naviplus piece inside. A customer from the board bought one ($1500=unit + mod) annd when he got it the unit looks pretty abused. It was sold under the pretense of "New" but the unit obviously wasn't new. It was scratched in multiple places (according to other 300 owners it looked like it was stolen) and it smelled like cigarette smoke.
The customer was not happy. He posted on the 300 forum (on which Naviplus is a sponsor) and when the naviplus people responded to the thread he was very very unprofessional. He tried blaming it on UPS and wouldn't offer a real solution. It took a while before the Naviplus person came up with a semi reasonable offer. Overall it looked awefully sketchy to me, the way Naviplus handled the business.

I have found a couple other possibillities to add video to our NAV screen, but I'm too chicken to be the ginea pig for this. (nervous)
I'll put links to the other places in a bit...I gotta find them again.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Links
G-Net This one only shows for the RX8, but it looks like it would be their "universal" model so it would probably work for the 5
AVElectronics This unit seems to have been around for a few years...if you google it you should be able to find a few different forums (Acura, BMW, Lincoln, etc.) talking about the avelectronics unit.

It appears that these units use FM modulators for the audio feed, I'm not too keen on that. I'd prefer a unit with regular old RCA line-outs. Anybody out there experienced in this stuff know of any alternatives?
 
Last edited:
rodslinger said:
I had thought about this a while back and figured the NAV screen probably only uses a standard composite input. If I ever get around to looking at the service manual diagram I can find out but it may not be any more difficult that splitting the input. One from the GPS system, the other to use for video input from a game system or DVD player.

http://www.msprotege.com/forum/showpost.php?p=1366356&postcount=23
Click to expand...

Have you contacted papabear about this?
I (hear ya) he has service manual connections.
 
the_saint said:
miatafied, did you ever get your NAV figured out?
Click to expand...
Yup - thanks for pointing me in the right direction. (bad pun, I know)

Now I can find addresses previously unknown!! Hooray!!
 
miatafied said:
Yup - thanks for pointing me in the right direction. (bad pun, I know)

Now I can find addresses previously unknown!! Hooray!!
Click to expand...
Glad I could steer you straight.




*Pun intended (enguard) hehe
 
up, up, down, down - gets you into the diagnosis menu - fun to look around at - but it seems like I have to reboot to get out of that screen.
 
lol
UP UP DOWN DOWN R2 L2 CIRCLE CIRCLE X L1.
I just got infinite lives woo hoo lol
I'll have to check out these secret screens after work.
 
the_saint said:
lol
UP UP DOWN DOWN R2 L2 CIRCLE CIRCLE X L1.
I just got infinite lives woo hoo lol
I'll have to check out these secret screens after work.
Click to expand...
(lol2) Yeah, my thoughts exactly!
 
I just checked it out too. I only got the up up down down to work.
According to the link you posted you can up up up down down down up up and get a different menu, but I couldn't get it to work. I'd like to get there, according to the 3 guys you can track where the vehicle has gone, find the fastest it has traveled, and some other stuff.
 
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