Just a random navigation experience

[troutspinner]

My family and I recently vacationed in Virginia Beach. As was the rhythm with the journey there and all week, Google Maps was heavily relied upon. After getting settled into our hotel, I wanted to take a ride to my favorite coffee place, Wawa. As luck would have it, one was right down the road. Google told me to make a right out of the road the hotel was on, drive 5 miles down the main road and then turn left into Wawa's parking lot. Easy as can be.

Because I have experience with my previous gen. 4 truck and Uconnect navigation, after I got my coffee I wanted to see if Uconnect would return me the same way, admittedly, for a laugh because I knew it wouldn't because it is that bad! There was however a part of me that would have been pleasantly surprised had it given the same route as Google. That surprise unfortunately did not happen and it worked as expected, it had me meander through neighborhoods, side roads and then finally put me back on the main road a couple of blocks before the hotel.

I would love to convince myself that Uconnect chose the fastest possible or even shortest distance possible but it's difficult to envision the straight line of travel not being shortest distance and the time of day had no traffic so it's not like it received intelligent traffic data from XM. I even tried to convince myself afterwards that a Uconnect developer happened to live on one of those side developments and as a Easter egg, sent me to see their house. Doubtful.

Just thought I'd mention it. Take it from a current and previous Uconnect user, you are not driving the most efficient way if you rely on Uconnect.

 

[duke2001]

My family and I recently vacationed in Virginia Beach. As was the rhythm with the journey there and all week, Google Maps was heavily relied upon. After getting settled into our hotel, I wanted to take a ride to my favorite coffee place, Wawa. As luck would have it, one was right down the road. Google told me to make a right out of the road the hotel was on, drive 5 miles down the main road and then turn left into Wawa's parking lot. Easy as can be.

Because I have experience with my previous gen. 4 truck and Uconnect navigation, after I got my coffee I wanted to see if Uconnect would return me the same way, admittedly, for a laugh because I knew it wouldn't because it is that bad! There was however a part of me that would have been pleasantly surprised had it given the same route as Google. That surprise unfortunately did not happen and it worked as expected, it had me meander through neighborhoods, side roads and then finally put me back on the main road a couple of blocks before the hotel.

I would love to convince myself that Uconnect chose the fastest possible or even shortest distance possible but it's difficult to envision the straight line of travel not being shortest distance and the time of day had no traffic so it's not like it received intelligent traffic data from XM. I even tried to convince myself afterwards that a Uconnect developer happened to live on one of those side developments and as a Easter egg, sent me to see their house. Doubtful.

Just thought I'd mention it. Take it from a current and previous Uconnect user, you are not driving the most efficient way if you rely on Uconnect.

Just to keep the “banter” going, what, if any options do you have set in your Uconnect that may have caused it to give you “the run around”

 

[Richard320]

I get the runaround a little when the nav thinks I'm not where I am. For instance... I live on a cul-de-sac that has a pedestrian pass-through to a major street. Sometimes it thinks I'm on that street when I'm in my driveway and gives directions accordingly. Other times I'm on the freeway but it thinks I'm on the frontage road and tries to give me directions to get back on the freeway. The nav also doesn't allow for shopping centers to have multiple driveways. It's tried to send me past an address to make a U-turn up the block when I just have to turn on the side street and pull in that driveway.

Completely disagreeing with Google maps the way you describe? No.

 

[timtlu]

It may be outdated speed limits on the old maps from nav. Uconnect had me avoiding the known shortest route (confirmed in waze/google maps on my phone and wife's phone) back home from the beach this weekend. Kept all three on to see when UConnect would latch on to the same route as the other two. It kept finding alternative routes until I finally forced it onto a ~80 mile section it wanted to avoid. It read the speed limit as 65 mph for this stretch whereas Waze and Google had the correct 70 mph. Seems the old Uconnect map had the lower speed limit taking too long.

 

[troutspinner]

Just to keep the “banter” going, what, if any options do you have set in your Uconnect that may have caused it to give you “the run around”

Expressways and Toll Roads are checked. That's it. All of the other guidance options are off. I'd hate to have to take a ferry to get from PA to Ca.

 

[Aberamrod19]

google maps is the best, went to dallas this past weekend and talking with friends about how we ever got around dallas without google maps, just a road atlas or map of city

 

[SD Rebel]

Simply put, nothing is more convenient and easier to use than Google Maps.

I've tried to use Uconnect NAV many times, it usually works well enough, but it sometimes has a hard time finding locations as easily as Google does. On Google Maps, I can just say out loud.... "Walmart at Eastlake" or "Point Loma Boat Launch near 5 Freeway" and it will get it the first time.

However, sometimes I can put the exact correct address into Uconnect and it can't find it. An when it does find it, it takes so much longer to input a destination than Google. Honestly, there is zero reason to use Unconnect NAV unless you want to have a harder time finding something.