Nav Chooses Illogical Routes

[CWS]

The 3 routes offered by my IS350 nav system use only main roads. I live 3 miles from work, and there is a normal road/street going almost straight there, but the nav won't offer that route no matter what I do. There is enough info in the system to show and identify the street name, so why would it not use it?

I also own a Garmin hand-held GPSmap76CS, which has no problem with normal streets, and routing. Anyone else notice their Lexus nav having that issue?

[Cherokee_Outlaw]

The 3 routes offered by my IS350 nav system use only main roads. I live 3 miles from work, and there is a normal road/street going almost straight there, but the nav won't offer that route no matter what I do. There is enough info in the system to show and identify the street name, so why would it not use it?

I also own a Garmin hand-held GPSmap76CS, which has no problem with normal streets, and routing. Anyone else notice their Lexus nav having that issue?

Did you try the options to turn on interstates etc??

A few times I've just had to ignore her.. for some reason she was tring to take me from hartford to worcester via Springfield!!!! Even when I was north of Hartford on 84... she kept trying to get me to do a u turn and go back.... Like every girl.. after she realized she would not get her way... she shut up and guided me on north on 84!! :)

I give her 3.5 out of 5 stars.... I love the Nav... BUT still needs some work..

Does the Acura have a build in traffic avoidance?

[CWS]

The 3 routes offered by my IS350 nav system use only main roads. I live 3 miles from work, and there is a normal road/street going almost straight there, but the nav won't offer that route no matter what I do. There is enough info in the system to show and identify the street name, so why would it not use it?

I also own a Garmin hand-held GPSmap76CS, which has no problem with normal streets, and routing. Anyone else notice their Lexus nav having that issue?

Did you try the options to turn on interstates etc??

A few times I've just had to ignore her.. for some reason she was tring to take me from hartford to worcester via Springfield!!!! Even when I was north of Hartford on 84... she kept trying to get me to do a u turn and go back.... Like every girl.. after she realized she would not get her way... she shut up and guided me on north on 84!! :)

I give her 3.5 out of 5 stars.... I love the Nav... BUT still needs some work..

Does the Acura have a build in traffic avoidance?

Yes, I tried Interstates on and off, but it wasn't using any highway at the time, so I didn't see, or expect, a difference.

I tried the forced recalculation of the route while I was using the street in question, but it won't give you the option of 'delete and recalculate' (or I forget what it is called) when you are closer than a couple of miles or so. I used that option later on a highway, with miles yet to go to a different dest, and it worked just fine. When setting the destination while driving on the street, it just says to proceed to the route and nav will start (showing a main road where it will start). I'm pretty sure the Lexus/CD/memory combo should have more space available than the Garmin handheld/Street software, so it must be that Garmin's programming, or mapping, was better than Lexus'.

[SKperformance]

I know the options for route calculations on my Ipaq are

shortest distance

shortest time

major highways

local roads

as well as a "reduced turn" feature for a more straight route

toll roads include/avoid

Are any of those present on your systems?

[CWS]

I know the options for route calculations on my Ipaq are

shortest distance

shortest time

major highways

local roads

as well as a "reduced turn" feature for a more straight route

toll roads include/avoid

Are any of those present on your systems?

Yes, the Lexus has some of those, but doesn't have 'local roads' or 'reduced turn' on it. It has others, like 'toll roads', 'seasonal roads' and a couple of other things. I would be willing to bet a nickle that users in large cities, like Houston, or Dallas, don't see this issue. i.e. I'd guess that Lexus has put more info into the mapping in large cities. I live in a town of about 50k population, which makes "her" favorite expression "...Guidance will not be provided in these areas". B)

[Cherokee_Outlaw]

I know the options for route calculations on my Ipaq are

shortest distance

shortest time

major highways

local roads

as well as a "reduced turn" feature for a more straight route

toll roads include/avoid

Are any of those present on your systems?

Yes, the Lexus has some of those, but doesn't have 'local roads' or 'reduced turn' on it. It has others, like 'toll roads', 'seasonal roads' and a couple of other things. I would be willing to bet a nickle that users in large cities, like Houston, or Dallas, don't see this issue. i.e. I'd guess that Lexus has put more info into the mapping in large cities. I live in a town of about 50k population, which makes "her" favorite expression "...Guidance will not be provided in these areas". B)

awww You might look on Lexus web site... I remember seeing a Detail mapping overlay that shows what sections have the detail mapping....

Guess thats one perk about being up here in the Northeast... seems like every street and even dirt roads are mapped... If I lived back home in Oklahoma/Texas I might be cussing her out some.. ;)

[CWS]

awww You might look on Lexus web site... I remember seeing a Detail mapping overlay that shows what sections have the detail mapping....

Guess thats one perk about being up here in the Northeast... seems like every street and even dirt roads are mapped... If I lived back home in Oklahoma/Texas I might be cussing her out some.. ;)

Yes, you are correct. I remember seeing that, too. So, I found it again. It's in the Nav tutorial, which you get to via the popup screen after clicking on a 'feature' (like the nav system). In the tutorial, under "How to" "change the covered area", it shows you can click 'Menu', 'DVD', 'covered area', and then scroll thru all 11 area maps, which show that Massachusetts is TOTALLY covered, but Texas has only 9 main areas which have detailed info (maybe 10% of the state). That probably means buildings, and phone numbers, etc., because it does have streets in small towns in it. I put my son's address in "my places", and it's in Whitefish, Montana (which needless to say, has no 'details'). It showed the right street, but was off by .3 mile on the location. So, areas like that, and where I live, must just use the main roads for routes. I guess the difference is the couple hundred bucks I paid for the MapSource program, and North American City Select maps for my Garmin. I still like the Lexus system, though, for all the fancy stuff. On short routes where I can see streets on the map that are not "on" the route, I can take them anyway, and on long routes, it won't make much difference. I'm just an anal-retentive programmer type, who has to know!

[Rx330driver]

i think part of it has to do with people using maps only when they dont know where they are going. The map particularly tries to find major roads so that if you do get lost, you can ask someone. It wont bring you to weird quiet streets if it doesnt have to.

[XKronite]

Speaking of odd routes -

I travel from CT to Long Island and back on a regular basis.

The Nav actually shows the Ferry route between Bridgport and Port Jefferson but in the three months I've been using the Nav it has yet to recommend/use that route. Instead it takes I95 along the CT shore down through the Bronx and then out east on 495. And yes, I've made sure that the route preferences INCLUDE Ferries (in fact I've even tried using ONLY ferries), but it still refuses to use the ferry route. How can it definitely know that the ferry route is there, but not suggest using it when doing so provides THE most direct and shortest route?

Am I missing something ??

[SKperformance]

It may take into account the fact that it takes to board and dock with the ferry so it sees a slower route. Thus it bypasses it rather than using it for your destination points.

[350 BY-U]

Speaking of odd routes -

I travel from CT to Long Island and back on a regular basis.

The Nav actually shows the Ferry route between Bridgport and Port Jefferson but in the three months I've been using the Nav it has yet to recommend/use that route. Instead it takes I95 along the CT shore down through the Bronx and then out east on 495. And yes, I've made sure that the route preferences INCLUDE Ferries (in fact I've even tried using ONLY ferries), but it still refuses to use the ferry route. How can it definitely know that the ferry route is there, but not suggest using it when doing so provides THE most direct and shortest route?

Am I missing something ??

I'm not sure if I heard this somewhere before on an earlier report, but have you tried taking the ferry after calculating your route and seeing if the nav sys will recalculate when you detour? Even though its DVD based, can it learn?

[Scott M]

It may take into account the fact that it takes to board and dock with the ferry so it sees a slower route. Thus it bypasses it rather than using it for your destination points.

Not sure if it does that or not, but if it does, that's a pretty smart NAV system.

I've taken those ferries more times than I wish to remember.

The only way to be SURE you have a ride across is to make reservations weeks in advance.

Immediate ride-ons sometimes sit in lines for hours and hours before getting on.

Without a reservation, it's best to avoid the Ferries, since the NAV does't popup and say

"Hey, do you happen to have a reservation for the ferry I'm about to suggest?"

;)

[LEXIRX330]

Speaking of odd routes -

I travel from CT to Long Island and back on a regular basis.

The Nav actually shows the Ferry route between Bridgport and Port Jefferson but in the three months I've been using the Nav it has yet to recommend/use that route. Instead it takes I95 along the CT shore down through the Bronx and then out east on 495. And yes, I've made sure that the route preferences INCLUDE Ferries (in fact I've even tried using ONLY ferries), but it still refuses to use the ferry route. How can it definitely know that the ferry route is there, but not suggest using it when doing so provides THE most direct and shortest route?

Am I missing something ??

I'm not sure if I heard this somewhere before on an earlier report, but have you tried taking the ferry after calculating your route and seeing if the nav sys will recalculate when you detour? Even though its DVD based, can it learn?

I have 2 small ferries on my way to work...just like the previous post my NAV will never pick it to take me to work...but if I enter the destination as work and start to go towards the ferry it will pick it up and direct me to take it and even tell me that I am entering the Ferry. WEIRD!

[350 BY-U]

Speaking of odd routes -

I travel from CT to Long Island and back on a regular basis.

The Nav actually shows the Ferry route between Bridgport and Port Jefferson but in the three months I've been using the Nav it has yet to recommend/use that route. Instead it takes I95 along the CT shore down through the Bronx and then out east on 495. And yes, I've made sure that the route preferences INCLUDE Ferries (in fact I've even tried using ONLY ferries), but it still refuses to use the ferry route. How can it definitely know that the ferry route is there, but not suggest using it when doing so provides THE most direct and shortest route?

Am I missing something ??

I'm not sure if I heard this somewhere before on an earlier report, but have you tried taking the ferry after calculating your route and seeing if the nav sys will recalculate when you detour? Even though its DVD based, can it learn?

I have 2 small ferries on my way to work...just like the previous post my NAV will never pick it to take me to work...but if I enter the destination as work and start to go towards the ferry it will pick it up and direct me to take it and even tell me that I am entering the Ferry. WEIRD!

I was going thru my nav menus tonight. It has a "record route" option. Take your route via the ferry and record your travels.

That might work out.

[lexuus]

Speaking of odd routes -

I travel from CT to Long Island and back on a regular basis.

The Nav actually shows the Ferry route between Bridgport and Port Jefferson but in the three months I've been using the Nav it has yet to recommend/use that route. Instead it takes I95 along the CT shore down through the Bronx and then out east on 495. And yes, I've made sure that the route preferences INCLUDE Ferries (in fact I've even tried using ONLY ferries), but it still refuses to use the ferry route. How can it definitely know that the ferry route is there, but not suggest using it when doing so provides THE most direct and shortest route?

Am I missing something ??

I'm not sure if I heard this somewhere before on an earlier report, but have you tried taking the ferry after calculating your route and seeing if the nav sys will recalculate when you detour? Even though its DVD based, can it learn?

I have 2 small ferries on my way to work...just like the previous post my NAV will never pick it to take me to work...but if I enter the destination as work and start to go towards the ferry it will pick it up and direct me to take it and even tell me that I am entering the Ferry. WEIRD!

I was going thru my nav menus tonight. It has a "record route" option. Take your route via the ferry and record your travels.

That might work out.

just wondering why you would want to record a nav route for your daily commute. and how can you guys test your nav while going to work? doesnt it get annoying sometimes especially when it doesnt take the route you want?

[bartkat]

Heck yeah, you'd think those guys would know the way to work by now.

[rokeven]

the best mistake my nav makes is when crossing over an freeway near my house it will always tell me to get on the freeway, go down to the next exit, get back on the freeway the opposite direction, exit onto the street i was just on and keep going. it apparently thinks the street does not go over the freeway.

[lexuus]

luckily i havent caught anything stupid that my IS nav has told me to do. in my 03 gs on my way home once it told me to turn into a street and go down half a mile then turn out of the street and get back on the main road. little did the nav now your supposed to just stay on the main road all the way! "suspend guidance" is my most used voice command. but dont get me wrong i love nav systems and in every new car i get i make sure i get one.