Ron_Texas

I have a 2008 RX-350 with navigation, this past weekend I took a little road trip and thought I would use the nav for the fun of it, when I put in the destination as I drove down the road it would not show any streets except for the one I was on, when I went through town it showed no streets, is this the normal way it works? If I turned off the planned route it would show me driving out in space, now the funny thing is it would show rivers but not any streets. It would be nice to know when you pass through a town what streets are in it. The only other nav system I had was in my 2005 Corvette, it would show all the streets (even in 3d if you like), points of interest and so forth. What was nice as you drove along if you saw a side street you could take it to see it and went. I would hate to think that GM has a better nav system than Lexus. Also, if I changed the scale above 0.5 miles it displayed a message it could not show POI, which I thought, okay you are not even showing the streets so what is the big deal about not showing the POI's. The other strange thing is when I got back to Houston it started showing the streets but all these little '+' signs popped on the screen, not just a few but a lot of them, why I don't know and cannot figure out how to make them go away.

Am I doing something wrong?

I used it once before going over to the dealership to pick up my license plates, I plugged in the dealership and it was giving me pretty good directions but failed to tell me when to exit off the freeway, I stayed on the freeway just to see what it would do and had to laugh when it annouced I had arrived as I passed by. I exited and u-turned and then it wanted me to go back 5 miles even though the next intersection was only 0.7 miles away, when I u-turned again to get back to the dealership it said something about losing reference and that was it. The dealership checked the software and said it was the latest edition (6.1 I believe).

I only bought the nav because I thought it would be nice but now I starting to feel like that it was money wasted.

Is this the best that Lexus can do?

mandyfig

Wait up.....it is not that bad.

I am pretty sure we have a ton of information regarding the NAV and there's a good group of experts here. Have you read the manual?

Ron_Texas

Thanks, I have only been driving the RX for 2 weeks, I read some of the manual (it is huge!) on navigation, tonight I will watch the DVD and then try and see if the manual addresses any of the problems I encountered over the weekend.

I am not disappointed in the Lexus but surprised that my 2007 Aura has more features than the RX (like when you unlock the car the exterior lights come on, the radio will adjust volume the faster you go, etc, little things but nice to have), I am guessing that Lexus will update many areas when the new RX comes out. I was playing radio roulette the whole trip, I would turn up the volume of the radio so I could hear it, then the voice from the navigation was to low, so I would adjust that up, then when I slowed down the navigation was too loud, back and forths, back and forths, got real old after awhile, hopefully Lexus will figure out how to make both self adjusting which would be great!

sama

One thing I read in the manual is it covers details for 11 regions and only the big cities/regions have the detailed maps, I believe TX is part of region: US5

Were you very far away from the city?

You can look at that by clicking on the Settings for Nav Menu

Lil4X

Sama's right, be sure you are set to the correct region, otherwise details and POI's may not appear. Details are often hidden when the scale of you map is too large. Try zooming in to about 1/8 or 1/4 mile divisions (second and third smallest). I've used my RX's nav system in small towns and even on one-lane paved roads with great success. So long as you are on a publicly-maintained road that has not just been built in the last couple of years, your nav map database should show it.

Most GPS software maps of my experience are derived from aerial photos, so you may see some errors of interpretation. I explored a side road in Wyoming with a DeLorme laptop navigator and discovered myself at the end of the "road" - yeah, it was some guy's driveway. OK, so it was two miles long . . .

You will soon see that your nav system is supremely logical but has no local knowledge. It will doggedly direct you on a route that is neither the shortest or fastest, and does not (in older versions) account for heavy traffic, slow lights, or other local conditions. It will often confuse the address as being ON the freeway, rather than on a service road paralleling it. You can help avoid this confusion by flagging the destination while in the parking lot - away from the freeway. You can also "scoot" your destination a couple hundred feet off the freeway just to force the software to call your exit.

Ron_Texas

The region selected covers Texas and Louisiana.

The trip I took was from Houston to Matagorda, from there to Palacios and back to Houston. What was strange was that when I was in Palacios I deleted the destination and for a split second the map of the town came up and then disappeared leaving just the main road. This would indicate to me that the maps are there it just will not display them for some reason. When I went through Bay City which is a medium size town the only road displayed was the one I was on, I detoured to get something to eat and it showed me driving in uncharted territory, the main road that I was on was still displayed. I could see where some small towns or even some roads would not be displayed but the towns mentioned above are medium size towns. I wonder if it is because I am naming my destination, case in point when I left Matagorda I typed in Palacios, it gave me a list of possible destinations and I choose 'Chamber of Commerce' which is downtown, the route went straight to that point, may be if it thinks you know where you want to be it does not show anything else, if so that still would be strange. I may drive out of Houston to the west this weekend and see if the same thing happens.

Ron_Texas

I did change the scale, from 1/8 mile upto 5 miles, no difference as far as showing the city streets. It is highly possible the nav system is too smart for me, I am somewhat computer illiterate, I have a functioning knowledge of computers, have no idea what makes them tick .

Hum, the parallel roads might explain the dealership miss, makes sense anyways .