I bought a 335d coupe back in late Jan and whilst the car is great to
drive, I find the sat nav and the associated voice input control/
feedback dreadful. In my previous motors (without satnav) I have used
a TomTom, which I love; I would have thought that TomTom would be used
as a benchmark by just about every other sat nav designer. Clearly not
in the case of BMW.

The problems with the (£2000!!!) BMW system:

1) It doesn't have full post code entry search facility- this failing
is inexcusable and massively inconvenient.

2) It is noisy enough to drive you round the twist, with almost
constant whirring sounds from the disc spinning up to speed and the
the laser track-hunting. What I mean here is not that the noise is
deafening, but it's something you really notice and it really gets on
your nerves. Couldn't the unit have been put in the boot?

3) The voice synthesiser sounds just hideous when it tries to speak
the street and town names back to you for confirmation. A 1970s Speak
and Spell sounded better. Honestly. It really is so bad and mangles
words so severely that I am to embarassed to use it when in company.
People think that it is a joke.

4) It cannot display more than a single category of "points of
interest" at any one time. This is really bad if you want to put on
speed camera info and show the different types of cameras separately
(i.e. I want to know when I am approaching a mobile speed camera site,
with merely a chance of a camera being there versus a fixed position
site where the presence of a camera is a certainty.

Am I just being a grumpy bugger, or does everyone else with experience
of this system think that it is sub-standard and in essence, a rip-
off? I just can't believe how much the option costs for such a
dreadful bit of kit. Why couldn't BMW have just licenced something in
if they couldn't do it themselves?

Regards, Jim

"md1jrw" wrote in message
...
I bought a 335d coupe back in late Jan and whilst the car is great to
drive, I find the sat nav and the associated voice input control/
feedback dreadful. In my previous motors (without satnav) I have used
a TomTom, which I love; I would have thought that TomTom would be used
as a benchmark by just about every other sat nav designer. Clearly not
in the case of BMW.

The problems with the (£2000!!!) BMW system:



....all those problems are outweighed by the fact that the system is
constantly working to give you Automatic Right of Way Everywhere (tm).

In message
,
md1jrw writes
In my previous motors (without satnav) I have used
a TomTom, which I love; I would have thought that TomTom would be used
as a benchmark by just about every other sat nav designer. Clearly not
in the case of BMW.
Nor with the Ford I have on a short term lease at the moment. It's got
some god awful Bosch system that insists on using metres and kilometres
and I can't find out how to change it. I may have to read the manual if
I don't work it out soon.

The problems with the (£2000!!!) BMW system:

1) It doesn't have full post code entry search facility- this failing
is inexcusable and massively inconvenient.

2) It is noisy enough to drive you round the twist, with almost
constant whirring sounds from the disc spinning up to speed and the
the laser track-hunting. What I mean here is not that the noise is
deafening, but it's something you really notice and it really gets on
your nerves. Couldn't the unit have been put in the boot?
The new ones are, the Ford one is SD card based.

Am I just being a grumpy bugger, or does everyone else with experience
of this system think that it is sub-standard and in essence, a rip-
off? I just can't believe how much the option costs for such a
dreadful bit of kit. Why couldn't BMW have just licenced something in
if they couldn't do it themselves?

I suspect you have an old in dash system, probably a Kenwood or some
such, it's a high price but it's not too far removed from what
aftermarket Satnav systems cost when that was current. Besides, it's got
a BMW badge on so it's not going to be cheap.

Regards, Jim

--
Clint Sharp

In message , Mark W
writes

...all those problems are outweighed by the fact that the system is
constantly working to give you Automatic Right of Way Everywhere (tm).
You forgot the telepathic direction projection system where every other
driver automatically knows which way you are going to turn without the
inconvenience of you having to use those silly flashing orange things on
the corners of the car and also the leasehold on the outside lane of any
motorway/dual carriageway.



--
Clint Sharp

md1jrw gurgled happily, sounding much like
they were saying:

Am I just being a grumpy bugger, or does everyone else with experience
of this system think that it is sub-standard and in essence, a rip- off?
I just can't believe how much the option costs for such a dreadful bit
of kit. Why couldn't BMW have just licenced something in if they
couldn't do it themselves?

I dunno.

But why couldn't you have noticed all these glaring faults before
spending two grand on it?

Hi
Typical Bimmer;overpriced,over hyped,over rated and over here :-)

"md1jrw" wrote in message
...
I bought a 335d coupe back in late Jan and whilst the car is great to
drive, I find the sat nav and the associated voice input control/
feedback dreadful. In my previous motors (without satnav) I have used
a TomTom, which I love; I would have thought that TomTom would be used
as a benchmark by just about every other sat nav designer. Clearly not
in the case of BMW.

The problems with the (£2000!!!) BMW system:

1) It doesn't have full post code entry search facility- this failing
is inexcusable and massively inconvenient.

2) It is noisy enough to drive you round the twist, with almost
constant whirring sounds from the disc spinning up to speed and the
the laser track-hunting. What I mean here is not that the noise is
deafening, but it's something you really notice and it really gets on
your nerves. Couldn't the unit have been put in the boot?

3) The voice synthesiser sounds just hideous when it tries to speak
the street and town names back to you for confirmation. A 1970s Speak
and Spell sounded better. Honestly. It really is so bad and mangles
words so severely that I am to embarassed to use it when in company.
People think that it is a joke.

4) It cannot display more than a single category of "points of
interest" at any one time. This is really bad if you want to put on
speed camera info and show the different types of cameras separately
(i.e. I want to know when I am approaching a mobile speed camera site,
with merely a chance of a camera being there versus a fixed position
site where the presence of a camera is a certainty.

Am I just being a grumpy bugger, or does everyone else with experience
of this system think that it is sub-standard and in essence, a rip-
off? I just can't believe how much the option costs for such a
dreadful bit of kit. Why couldn't BMW have just licenced something in
if they couldn't do it themselves?

Regards, Jim

On 4 Aug, 18:15, Adrian wrote:
md1jrw gurgled happily, sounding much like
they were saying:

Am I just being a grumpy bugger, or does everyone else with experience
of this system think that it is sub-standard and in essence, a rip- off?
I just can't believe how much the option costs for such a dreadful bit
of kit. Why couldn't BMW have just licenced something in if they
couldn't do it themselves?

I dunno.

But why couldn't you have noticed all these glaring faults before
spending two grand on it?

I was aware of most of the faults beforehand and even now, with a more
complete knowledge of them, I would still specify the SatNav. The
convenience of having a built in system is something I would not pass
over. What I hated about the TomTom was having to pack it away and
carry it after parking because as sure as eggs are eggs, if you don't
remove it, some thieving scuffer will break into your car and relieve
you of it. Aside from that, TomTom is great and IME by far the best.

The point of my original post was my total amazement that BMW would
have such a totally crap system in a brand new £45K car. The car
itself is great and enormous fun to drive, which simply serves to
highlight how out of place the satnav system is.

Regards, Jim.

md1jrw gurgled happily, sounding much like
they were saying:

Am I just being a grumpy bugger, or does everyone else with
experience of this system think that it is sub-standard and in
essence, a rip- off? I just can't believe how much the option costs
for such a dreadful bit of kit. Why couldn't BMW have just licenced
something in if they couldn't do it themselves?

I dunno.

But why couldn't you have noticed all these glaring faults before
spending two grand on it?

I was aware of most of the faults beforehand and even now, with a more
complete knowledge of them, I would still specify the SatNav.

Ah. So it can't be THAT much of a "rip-off", then.

The point of my original post was my total amazement that BMW would have
such a totally crap system in a brand new £45K car.

It's so totally crap, yet you'd spend the £2k to tick that box again?
baffled

shrug Whatever. Anyway, we ain't BMW customer services - perhaps you'd
do better directing your whinge at them? Unless, of course, you really
wanted to boast about having blown £45k on a 3-series...?

On Tue, 5 Aug 2008 15:01:59 +0100, md1jrw wrote
(in article
):

What I hated about the TomTom was having to pack it away and carry it after
parking because as sure as eggs are eggs, if you don't remove it, some
thieving scuffer will break into your car and relieve you of it.

My Garmin sits on the dashboard in a friction mount. When I park I
just put it somewhere out of sight.

Aside from that, TomTom is great and IME by far the best.

What makes Tomtom the best? What other makes have you tried?

--
Mike Lane (UK North Yorkshire)
To contact me replace invalid with mike underscore lane

"md1jrw" wrote in message
...
On 4 Aug, 18:15, Adrian wrote:
md1jrw gurgled happily, sounding much like
they were saying:

Am I just being a grumpy bugger, or does everyone else with experience
of this system think that it is sub-standard and in essence, a rip- off?
I just can't believe how much the option costs for such a dreadful bit
of kit. Why couldn't BMW have just licenced something in if they
couldn't do it themselves?

I dunno.

But why couldn't you have noticed all these glaring faults before
spending two grand on it?

I was aware of most of the faults beforehand and even now, with a more
complete knowledge of them, I would still specify the SatNav. The
convenience of having a built in system is something I would not pass
over. What I hated about the TomTom was having to pack it away and
carry it after parking because as sure as eggs are eggs, if you don't
remove it, some thieving scuffer will break into your car and relieve
you of it. Aside from that, TomTom is great and IME by far the best.

The point of my original post was my total amazement that BMW would
have such a totally crap system in a brand new £45K car. The car
itself is great and enormous fun to drive, which simply serves to
highlight how out of place the satnav system is.


****

And unfortunately you have missed the point. Really, if you were aware of
the issues and still spent so much money on you, I'm going to point and
laugh.

--
The DervMan
www.dervman.com