We recently bought a 2017 RX350 in excellent condition and have been very disappointed in the performance of the nav system. We have owned nav systems in several makes before, and have one in an ES350 now too, so when I say the RX350 nav is poor I'm not making it up. It can't get us from A to B, regardless how short the trip, without taking us around the world first. I've literally been looking at the first turn of a new trip and when I punch in the new destination the nav system will have me turn the opposite direction and make a large circle rather than make the obvious turn. We now can't trust it at all. Is this a common problem? What should we try to do? I haven't talked to a dealer yet, and a software update is only supposed to provide new maps with no operation updates. Suggestions appreciated.

David

 

Check the settings, the previous owner made some changes. On mine same year when inputting it asks me, scenic or direct route?
Had a MB before this and the RX is light years ahead in comparison, but all car nav systems are behind a couple of years and certainly cannot compete with any smart phone app.

 

Also other threads on this topic you can search. Settings will likely help, toll roads etc.

 

Do a reset of all personalized settings. Take the car back to the original factory settings.

 

Thanks all. I will definitely check out all the settings.

 

I'm a map person so the nav is pretty much wasted on me. However, for a friend thinking of buying a new car, I attempted to demonstrate the nav in my 2018 RX. Before we headed out, when I was still at home I googled the address of the restaurant we were going to. Bottom line of a long story -- Google and Lexus do not agree on the names of some roads and highways, and the nav only works when you enter the Lexus version of the name.

 

I checked the settings for the nav system and couldn't find anything that would effect how it operates. There's nothing for setting different types of routing, i.e. scenic vs direct, or with/without tolls/freeways. I was surprised, but nothing at all. Consulted the nav manual and there's nothing there either about settings that would effect the performance, except maybe for rerouting around traffic congestion.

 

I wonder if there is calibration that can be performed that may help, possibly by the dealer. Think compass, gyroscope or satellite reception. A small calibration error or satellite reception problem could result poor directions. If your '17 has a compass and you point the car at true north, is the compass correct? (The granularity of this compass measurement may not be good enough for a true test, other than pointing out an obvious problem.)

I'm pretty satisfied with my the nav system in my 2020, but it doesn't always provide the optimal path to a destination as known by me or as provided by Google Maps. It's never been grossly wrong or circuitous, though. The nav on the 2020 says something like "getting the latest information from the cloud" after entering a destination. Even then, the directions don't always seem optimized. Perhaps the Lexus engineers coded different priority decisions in their algorithm, or they skipped graph theory in college.

This is a way-out-on-the-limb suggestion, but maybe fully resetting the nav system or even the ECU might help. I'm a bit of an RX newb, but others on the forum might be able to provide instruction and advice.

 

Two thoughts on this issue:

1, The (unused) nav manual for my 2018 is 366 pages. If navigation was important to me, which it is not, I guess it would be incumbent on me to read all of those pages and make sure my system had all user settings appropriate for my home location and purposes.

2. Every experience I have had with a nav system, both here in the USA and also in Europe, indicates that they are strongly biased to send you to the nearest freeway/autobahn, and use that to get you as close as possible to your destination -- even if surface roads would be more direct. So I would be suspicious of a suggestion that the first thing I need to do is go get on a freeway.

 

Same here, Nav is not important to me, but it is convenient.
There is a setting that one can change to make the system avoid Hwys and tolls.

 

Use you phone and Google Maps. I keep the Nav. set on 700 ft and so I only see map around the present location. Forget Lexus Nav., you can now order a new Lexus with no Nav., they know they have a problem!.

Bill

 

Forget Lexus Nav., you can now order a new Lexus with no Nav., they know they have a problem!

But what would that do to the resale value of the car? Who would buy a Lexus without Nav?

 

Some people have problems, most do not! It is still better than a map. One could buy a no Nav Lexus even in 2016.
As you rightly said, it will kill your resale value by thousands $$

 

My only problem with the nav is when I am searching for a point of interest (using voice recognition), most of the time it is not what I wanted.

The most flagrant is when I asked for Casino, it listed me all the nearby Quiznos...

But if I ask for a specific address, it gets me there just fine.

 

I had the same problem when asking for shopping centres, could not get any answer till I asked for Shopping Malls. The system is US biased in terms of language and Nav in as much as that one has to add the province after the city name and if not the system will take you to that city or another city in the US.