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Navigation Question


Trent River

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I have a 2011 GS. I'm trying to learn the navigation system. I haven't used GPS before, ever.

I've set "home," and I've entered "destination" info for my car dealer. I'll select this when I travel there (to the dealer, about 130 miles) tomorrow, Feb 22.

I've made this trip before, without "nav", and I'm thinking the thing may be more confusing than helpful for me. If that's what I discover, I've looked for a command to "abort" the trip on the navigation system. It seems like that should be doable.

But it doesn't seem to be, not without deleting the (destination) setting for the dealer location. That would mean I'd need to re-enter the address every time I drive there. Seems sort of clunky and inelegant to me.

I'd be grateful for any suggestions.

Added later: Anyway, thanks for the "views". :) I can always just turn off the voice thing and ignore the map.

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The forum wasn't very helpful. That's OK! Anyway, I thought some of the "viewers" might like an update on my big adventure with my new navigation system.

My problem wasn't knowing the route, in general - although I rarely take it. I knew that. My problem was finding and negotiating the roads bypassing business districts in several little cities between my home and Raleigh NC. And my big problem was hitting the right exits on the confusing (to "foreigners") freeway ring-roads in the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill complex.

At the beginning, after entering Home and Destination, I started "Guidance." Things went wrong almost immediately. The "guidance lady" wanted me to take some road headed north. I wanted to go west. Checking the numbers in the readout, I saw that a trip was envisioned that was about 50 miles farther, and 90 minutes longer, than the 150 minutes trip I knew the drive to be.

Thinking about it a little later, I concluded that Guidance likes Big Roads. If you aren't on a Big Road, it is programmed to get you to one ASAP. Well, that's the wrong approach for a region like rural East Carolina. We have few Big Roads, and hardly any of these go east and west (or anywhere must people want to go).

The Guidance Lady seemed annoyed at my intransigence. She said nothing for quite awhile. Meanwhile, my wife and I got what info we could from the map. Occasionally it helped, like giving the distance to a turn or exit. Once we arrived near the Raleigh metro area, we hoped things would improve, nav-wise. Mostly, they didn't; they might have got worse. There was so much extraneous rubbish (as it seemed to me) on the screen that it left little space for the map with roads and exits. There's probably a way to remove unwanted info from the display. But I couldn't figure it out on-the-fly, as it were.

My preliminary conclusions are, (1) Don't use the navigation system unless you really don't know, and don't care, how to travel to your destination. And (2) if you have questions about navigation, don't come to this forum looking for answers. Ask your teen son or daughter, or your "wired" next-door neighbor who's up to speed on all things tech (especially if he's a fisherman B) ).

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Sorry to hear about your experience on your "Maiden Voyage", and very unusual that you didn't get a response to your query in the time frame that you needed it. First, we all are not able to sit around all day and wait for the very next question to come in, and sometimes there simply isn't anyone who knows the answer. However, someone could have at least responded and said they didn't know and I'm sorry I was one of those who did not. Funny, but I've done that in the past and then the person got mad because I didn't know the answer. Go figure!

One of your issues with your nav unit picking what seems to be an unlikely route, may be your settings. Do you have the unit set to chose the "Fastest" route, or the "Shortest" route. Although they may appear to be one in the same, trust me they are not. We've had some interesting trips using both the Lexus nav and our Garmin nav based on those choices.

You have a one year free subscription to the Lexus version of "On Star". I would encourage you to take advantage of that as your traveling and ask questions when things comes up. They want you to be satisfied.

We carry the manual even though were pretty comfortable with the system by now. The other day it led me to an office on a street that wasn't even on the map! I was impressed.

Paul

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First, we all are not able to sit around all day and wait for the very next question to come in, and

I'm aware of that. I made a point of not getting "testy" -- at least I tried not to. I'm aware of the limitations of forums.

One of your issues with your nav unit picking what seems to be an unlikely route, may be your settings. Do you have the unit set to chose the "Fastest" route, or the "Shortest" route. Although they may appear to be one in the same, trust me they are not.

That's quite possible. I knew about those two, then there's an "alternate" option. Not sure what that is: more research required. I just don't yet see how to figure where each of these three will take me. If I know ("local knowledge") I want to take US Hwy 70 to Raleigh, I don't want a route that takes me another way, regardless of how "fast" or "short" the computer "thinks" it is. I must do more research in the manual.

We carry the manual even though were pretty comfortable with the system by now. The other day it led me to an office on a street that wasn't even on the map! I was impressed.

Paul

That's good advise. Thanks.

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