My NAV is awful

[shaners]

I just took a 100 mile trip and over and over my NAV kept think I had driven off the edge of the interstate and was driving through the woods or something.  It kept recalculating and telling me how to get back on the highway!  The worst thing was when I was really close to my destination and really needed it, it thought I was off the road and needed to reroute!  Luckily I had remember the directions that the person had given me...

[Laurel]

What is the build date of your C-Max?  If it was in the summer, it might not have the recent updates on it.  It seems some people who have recently got their cars, have summer build dates.  My car was built Nov.8th and seems okay so far --knocking on wood <g>.

[shaners]

Not sure of the build date...  We have had it about 3-4 weeks and we bought it as soon as it hit the lot.  Maybe the SD-NAV card is older.  The mapping and the GPS location of the car were not SYNCed.  My old Garmin and my old 2006 map in my BMW are dead on!  I will have to go to the dealer.

Edited December 9, 2012 by shaners

[Laurel]

Use your VIN and get your window sticker (that will contain the build date).  http://researchmaniacs.com/VIN-Number-Lookup/WindowSticker/Ford.html 

I know the demo cars at our dealer that we test drove were built in August and September and likely did not have the upgrades.

Edited December 9, 2012 by Laurel

[Laurel]

Duplicate posted deleted.

Edited December 9, 2012 by Laurel

[markg64]

My build date is 6/12, and the Nav initial position acquisition is the worst I've seen in a car. I have worked in the GPS industry since 1986, and am well aware of the commercial GPS chipsets and receivers. There is a logic issue where the autonomous inputs (car speed and direction) actually conspire with the awful initial GPS solution to make the system NOT want to find the proper location. After 5-10 minutes of driving, the conflict seems to resolve and performance stays decent. However, if you program a destination before setting off on your trip (normally a good idea - but not in this case) the Nav will fight you the entire route, unless it happens to resolve the initial position conflict en route.

Edited December 26, 2012 by markg64

[darrelld]

My build date is 6/12, and the Nav initial position acquisition is the worst I've seen in a car. I have worked in the GPS industry since 1986, and am well aware of the commercial GPS chipsets and receivers. There is a logic issue where the autonomous inputs (car speed and direction) actually conspire with the awful initial GPS solution to make the system NOT want to find the proper location. After 5-10 minutes of driving, the conflict seems to resolve and performance stays decent. However, if you program a destination before setting off on your trip (normally a good idea - but not in this case) the Nav will fight you the entire route, unless it happens to resolve the initial position conflict en route.

 

You have never seen the Nav in a 2006 Lexus IS, the position in mine was a full block off my current position. If I was traveling east my position on the Lexus Nav would show my east travel but placed me on the adjacent east/west block moving east.

 

Lexus finally issued a firmware update to fix it.

Edited December 27, 2012 by darrelld

[dnokes]

I also have a problem with the Nav taking 15-20 minutes on average to lock a GPS signal after parking in a parking garage (once it took 35 min).  This is a huge issue for me because I park in one both at home and work.  My daily commute through through the city is now almost completely without a working Nav system to help me choose the best routes around traffic. This is my fourth car with a Nav system--I've owned them since 2005 and have had several handhelds too---and I've never had this issue or any other problems for that matter. I thought GPS with moving map was fairly mature technology.  I can't  believe Ford screwed this up---What gives?  I love the C-Max generally, but a reliably working Nav is very important to me and I'm quite disappointed that I didn't get what I paid for.  This plus all the other minor glitches with SYNC and MFT are making me really regret my purchase.

 

Does anyone know if Ford is aware of this particular GPS issue, and if so, is there a fix in the works?  Thanks very much.

[Laurel]

We park in underground parking on occasion, and the nav connects very quickly when we get out of the parkade.  It is connects immediately after we exit the underground. You probably have lots of high rise buildings in your area that makes it tough to get a signal.  My husband has always commented that his portable Garmin has been much better than any built in nav systems he has had (in his Lexus SUV, he has the portable Garmin out on the dash and uses it instead of the built in as it is much better than the Lexus system).  So I think many built in systems are not good technology.

Edited December 27, 2012 by Laurel

[dnokes]

We park in underground parking on occasion, and the nav connects very quickly when we get out of the parkade.  It is connects immediately after we exit the underground. You probably have lots of high rise buildings in your area that makes it tough to get a signal.  My husband has always commented that his portable Garmin has been much better than any built in nav systems he has had (in his Lexus SUV, he has the portable Garmin out on the dash and uses it instead of the built in as it is much better than the Lexus system).  So I think many built in systems are not good technology.

Thanks for the response.  It could be that the tall buildings make it more difficult, but even out in the open I have this problem.  I've had three Toyotas and a BMW with Nav driving the same route and parking in the same parking garages and I've never had this problem--all of those vehicles resolved the GPS signal immediately after leaving parking garages. From my Internet searches, others are having this problem too. I think this is a quality issue Ford needs to address.  It appears that it affects other Ford models with MFT/SYNC.  

 

http://boards.synccommunity.com/n/pfx/forum.aspx?tsn=1&nav=messages&webtag=fordsyncmb&tid=5793

[From Speed6ing 2 C-Maxing]

I often see a red X over the GPS box toward the middle left of the screen (next to the zoom buttons), yet the car's location during that time is still spot on. I wonder if it is able to use the gps in my phone to help out in determining location?

[Catmobile]

My Nav doesn't understand anything I'm trying to say.  I just use the Google Maps nav on my smartphone instead.

[Laurel]

We have a cheat sheet of commands that we put together.  I think it basically came from Myford Touch.  It really helps to use the right phrasing.  Hubby is just putting together a little reference flash cards to have in the car until we get the commands down pat.  Each nav. system is so different with the phrasing they use.

[FoutsNC]

We have the same thing from a previous car that I take out of the glove box from time to time.  If you get the phrasing down properly, it usually works well.  I have had a couple of cases where it was very difficult to speak the address, but those are rare.  I have been using the MFT now for over 2 years with different vehicles and I has Sync with voice for 2 years prior to that.  They don't always work the way you might think, but mine usually works.  For example, saying "go home" won't work for me.  If I say "Navigation Destination Home", it will bring it right up.

 

http://support.ford.com/sync-technology/navigation-by-voice-sync-myford-touch

[Laurel]

Here is a site where we got lots of commands  http://support.ford.com/sync-technology/voice-command-categories-sync-myford-touch

[Adair]

I've only had occasion to use the NAV once in the month I've owned my C-Max. A co-worker and I were delivering Christmas goodies to a family our company sponsored for the holidays and the address was in a neighboring town, in an area I wasn't familiar with. I loaded up the address before we left the office and things proceeded smoothly we thought, until we were brought to the completely wrong address!!! And then I couldn't get the GPS to accept the correct address to get us out of a rather unsavory neighborhood. Luckily my friend pulled up the map on her phone and routed us correctly. I haven't needed to use it again, but I suppose I should, even in areas I know, just to see if it works. OTOH, when it's just running in the background, it always knows where I am and shows me on the correct street, turn by turn.

[darrelld]

I've only had occasion to use the NAV once in the month I've owned my C-Max. A co-worker and I were delivering Christmas goodies to a family our company sponsored for the holidays and the address was in a neighboring town, in an area I wasn't familiar with. I loaded up the address before we left the office and things proceeded smoothly we thought, until we were brought to the completely wrong address!!! And then I couldn't get the GPS to accept the correct address to get us out of a rather unsavory neighborhood. Luckily my friend pulled up the map on her phone and routed us correctly. I haven't needed to use it again, but I suppose I should, even in areas I know, just to see if it works. OTOH, when it's just running in the background, it always knows where I am and shows me on the correct street, turn by turn.

I have had this problem with other in car Nav systems, Subaru and Lexus, hasn't happened yet on my VW. I usually double check destinations entered into my Subaru with the TomTom app on my iPhone 5 for accuracy.

[jmckinley]

Most Original Equipment GPS's suck, in my opinion.

DW hates GPS units sitting on dash so I gave in went for the Ford Nav.  So far works OK, but not as easy or accurate as my Garmin.  The Garmin, by the way cost $120 and offers lifetime map updates and traffic.  And it offers a lot more info than the Ford System.  In particular, I miss the Estimated Time of Arrival.  Ford only offers time to arrival which requires in-head math to determine ETA which makes my head hurt.

[PWBarrett]

Yeah, I figured that the price of one map update from Ford would pay for a really good GPS, or I could just use my phone for nav.

The more I read about people's experiences with it, the more I'm glad I skipped that option.

[joe]

We got our C-max last Friday.  NAV has had us off road several times.  Something that rarely would happen with my TomTom.  And when its off road, it has no instructions, so if this happens when approaching a critical turn in the route, I'll probably miss turning.  When it does work, I like having the option of instructions on the right side of the speedometer.

[C-MaxJaxon]

For the first couple months, my nav had a number of random missing major roads. I had thought the maps were just poor quality and was planning to complain eventually and hopefully get an update.

 

Then I took the car in for the free oil change, and as I was driving away from the dealership afterward, the screen was flashing an alert that it couldn't read the map SD card and turn-by-turn nav wasn't available. So I tried ejecting and re-inserting the SD card and it made it happy.  But after that, the maps were now complete.

 

I had thought maybe the dealership did some kind of map data or firmware along with the oil change, but they denied it. The dealership couldn't give me a good explanation for why this happened.

[MikeB]

In particular, I miss the Estimated Time of Arrival.  Ford only offers time to arrival which requires in-head math to determine ETA which makes my head hurt.

I liked my previous Garmin better as well, but don't knock Ford for not giving you an ETA. Touch the box on the screen that lists distance and time remaining, and it displays a popup with your ETA on it. No math needed.

 

Now, if I could just get the darn nav system to think I'm on the highway, rather than 200 feet into the woods to the side, and to not show a 'next turn' indication when I'm supposed to stay on the current road, I'd have fewer complaints. And if they rendered more detail on the map, showing more roads and towns when you zoom out to the 5+ mile level, I'd be much happier.  After that, all I might ask for is a digital speed and altitude display.

[darrelld]

There will be new mapping software in the next few months as part of the Sync 3.5.1 upgrade.

[jmckinley]

Thanks for the tip on the ETA function.  I wondered if it was in there somewhere, but haven't had time to search for it.

 

I agree about the detail.  With that big screen, there is no excuse for not showing more detail.  On most any zoom level. all you get is one road.  My 5" Garmin shows a heck of a lot more than the Ford and is still readable.

 

Digital speed and altitude would also be welcome.  I've had OE systems before and they also did not show digital speed.  No doubt because the manufacturer doesn't want to be harassed by owners asking why their speedometer and the GPS don't agree.

 

I guess I'm blessed, my car does at least think it's on the road most of the time.  Your best bet would be complain to the dealer until they give you an updated map SD card.  It might not help, but at least you'd get a later level map card.  Seems like cars from all the OEMs are shipped with old maps so they can hit you up sooner for an update.

[shaners]

My car is in the shop right now, and one of the things on the list was to make sure the car was 100% up to date on NAV and MFT/SYNC.  I currently have a 2005 BMW and have in the past owned a 2006 Chrysler both of which had factory NAV and they both were every bit as accurate as my Garmin.  Some ppl have said that a microsoft based system will never be very good.