I love my BMW. I HATE the NAV!!

Originally Posted by markl53

Again, are you guys entering the city first, then the street name? That is how you are supposed to enter addresses.

Of course. If I didn't enter the city I wouldn't complain about choosing the wrong one.

I just got my issue of Roundel yesterday and I read some of the letters. Not sure if the person complaining was one of us here, but the same problem exists across all cars after BMW switched map providers. My E70 may not have had the best graphics or neither was it quick, or even complete, but it always routed me sanely. I can't say the same thing about the F10.

Ok, this is getting silly. I have had 2 different Garmin navs including one with European maps (I travel there frequently and I drive there a lot) plus my retired 06' 530i nav, my retired 07 Camry Hybrid nav, my current 07' 650i nav, and my retired '11 528i nav, and my current '12 528i nav. It's simple. They are all different, and they all suck and they're all great. It just depends where you are and where you want to go. Later nav systems that receive traffic over the air (my 07' 650i even has this) can take me around traffic without asking, if the Dynamic Routing is turned on. If you're not expecting it this can really screw you up. And yes sometimes they are wrong.
Hey they work most of the time. That is really a miracle.

Ever get a print of google map? They screw up too.

I can attest to the fact that navigation sucks in BMW (my 2010 E60 as an example). Try looking up 993 Johnson's Ferry Road North East (NE) in Atlanta (I searched by both zip code and city name). You'll end up seeing something like Johnson's Ferry R..., and then a bunch of indented entries that make no sense, like:
...Sandy Springs
... Atlanta
...Sandy Springs

Yes, many appear to be duplicates. You have to select one of these 12 or so weird entries and hope that it gets you to the NE address... which they don't. None of them do, in my experience. So in the end, the only way I got to the address in question was to leave the car, google a nearby address (hospital), set the navigation for that nearby hospital, and simply wing it from there. Very unimpressive. Part of the reason that it's so unimpressive is that there's PLENTY of screen real estate the programmers at BMW could have used to make this easy, but they chose instead to use lots of ......, which creates nothing but problems

BMW does a lot of things right. Sadly, navigation isn't one of them.

As the late, great comedian Joe E. Brown famously said in "Some Like It Hot", "well, nobody's perfect." BMW's navigation system hasn't misled me yet and I really do appreciate the fact that it's fully useable while the car is being driven. That said, however, I have to admit to being more than a little bit impressed with the voice-activated navigation system that was equipped in the A8 I tested before I leased my 7 Series.

Originally Posted by markl53

My 535i is my first car with nav, and I am happy with its operation and display. We just leased our 4th Acura, the first with nav. I don't like it, mostly because I think I'm not used to it.

1. The traffic indicators on the Acura are much harder to discern than my BMW. The thin green lines indicating clear traffic are nearly invisible against the blue route line. I prefer the gray triangles (and the white route line) on the BMW display. The yellow and red lines are almost as bad.

4. I haven't used the Acura system enough to determine if the overall guidance is better, but for now, I don't think it's a night and day difference over the BMW.

I respectfully disagree. The city colors on the BMW are atrocious - road colors are orange (a Euro thing) and route numbers are small. Blue/light blue makes much more sense. Street names (which display) - arbitrary. Current street name? Not displayed.

Also you probably didn't notice that the grey triangles have a thin yellow or red border - it's nearly impossible to see with 20/20 vision. Grey traffic flow screen is super bright at night and not helpful.

Again, I said Acura or Nissan/Infiniti. My GT-R navi was outstanding - my 2011 MDX is very good. 2004 TL and 2005 RL were okay.

Originally Posted by nhs156

I can attest to the fact that navigation sucks in BMW (my 2010 E60 as an example). Try looking up 993 Johnson's Ferry Road North East (NE) in Atlanta (I searched by both zip code and city name).

I agree (and live in Atlanta). Sadly I can't blame BMW for this - only Nissan/Infiniti has found a good way around this. Atlanta uses SE, SW, NE, NW, Road, Street, and every other permutation.

Incidentally you can use ZIP code in the BMW.

Unfortunately if you select a street in the wrong city, it will stay in your list of recent searches. And you can run the risk of re-selecting.

I had the same problem. What happened was that although I live in Ohio the gps kept providing options in Chicago. What I discovered was that was here the car was first programmed and serviced by a dealer. I was instructed to clear all of the original chicago addresses out and it has not happened again. All options are local now. To clear you go to last destinations then hit the option button on I drive and it allows you to delete or clear all addresses

If I remember on Monday, and find a spot to pull over, I will snap a photo of the route selection screen for my trip to work when I am 9 miles out, Fastest Route is showing 14 miles, and I change to SHORTEST ROUTE.

After recalculating:

Automatically Selected Route is 12 miles
Alternate 1 is 14 miles
Alternate 2 is 9 miles <<< Real Best Route>>>

Here is a fuzzy picture, notice 10 miles is shortest and is at the bottom.

Originally Posted by nhs156

I can attest to the fact that navigation sucks in BMW (my 2010 E60 as an example). Try looking up 993 Johnson's Ferry Road North East (NE) in Atlanta (I searched by both zip code and city name). You'll end up seeing something like Johnson's Ferry R..., and then a bunch of indented entries that make no sense, like:
...Sandy Springs
... Atlanta
...Sandy Springs

Yes, many appear to be duplicates. You have to select one of these 12 or so weird entries and hope that it gets you to the NE address... which they don't. None of them do, in my experience. So in the end, the only way I got to the address in question was to leave the car, google a nearby address (hospital), set the navigation for that nearby hospital, and simply wing it from there. Very unimpressive. Part of the reason that it's so unimpressive is that there's PLENTY of screen real estate the programmers at BMW could have used to make this easy, but they chose instead to use lots of ......, which creates nothing but problems

Try entering "NE Johnson's Ferry". Unlike my Garmin, the 535i Nav wants to see the NE, etc. as part of the entry. Worked for me.

I no longer have any issues entering destinations.....shame it took an iPhone and an app to work around it. But what a work around it is!