Hi All,

Although I am relatively new here, I'm no stranger to forums and various bug work arounds. Here is what I would like to present to all of those thinking about purchasing a New Honda (Or any other vehical that uses a Navteq Navigation System;

So, you are in the market for a new car and debating upon wheather or not the $2000 + price tag is really worth it to have a built in Navigation system come equiped with your new car. Well, if the Navigation System is from Navteq, you may want to truely concider many of the various trade offs, vers those other Navigation uinits; Garmin, Tom Tom, and even MS Streets & Trips. Although there is an old saying that goes "You Get What You Pay For", this is one of those exceptions to that rule, at least in my oppinion.

Here is how I came to this conclusion:

About 4 months ago, the wife & I decided that we wanted a New car, mainly because of the high cost of gas these days. After spending months of searching around, we decided to give a Honda Civic a try. Looking over all of the goodies that one could get with this car, we decided upon a 2007 Civic EX with Sunroof, auto this and that, sporty wheels and of course, the Navigational / XM radio combination.

After getting it home and spending a couple of weeks going through it's quite leangthy bathroom reading materials, and educating myself on all of the most recent additions to the modern automotive tecnology, I decided that, since I had a few weeks of vacations that had yet to be taken, the Mrs & I would just venture out and about our local County and seeing for ourselves just what this baby could do to make our future traveling more enjoyable.

By this, I am speaking about the Navigation systems that are being placed & sold in many of Honda cars and SUV’s using Navteq’s software. I am sure that you are aware of their High price of their so called updated software, but are you aware of their many misinformation. Over the past 4 months,we have spent countless days & hours giving this a true work out and have found that just in the Catawba county (our area) alone, there are well over 12,000 errors of locations of their POI’s. Many of which, no longer exist and haven’t existed in as much as 15 years or better.

So, upon reaching a point of where I could gather as much research, we began digging into hours of local County, City, and state records of various Highway & Business information, ie. when it was established, when was the last time taxes were paid, was it still in business, if not, what business resided in that location as of now, when was the road created, what is it's current status and future plans, etc.

What we found out wasthat many of their “UNVERIFIED AREAS” are areas that they never could havedone an actual hard cover survey on. By this I mean, they could havenever actually traveled those areas. Instead. What we found out was that they hadjust purchased the rights from local cities to use their current and future maps to compile their information. In driving these areas, I found well over 5,000 of these streets or roads either don’t truly exist, or they truly do not connect as they state on their software. When I contacted them about these issues, their response was to the effect that they only update their information based upon customer feedback. To me, this is very disturbing mainly because as a customer, most customers do not have the extra time on their hands to research the validity of their software, mush less either know or have the time to find out on how to submit these areas of errors.

With finding this information out, we have found that not only is this software or this company unworthy of trust, it is definitely not worth the money spent on having it in a car to be used as a driving tool. For if (the average driver) were to attempt to use this as an actual driving map, as most will do and do depend on, not only are their lives at stake, but also others as well. It’s no wonder as to why more & more drivers are developing road rage these days. Nothing is more aggravating that to find out that the information you are given to follow (Driving) is actually wrong information and now you may have missed a very important meeting or engagement.


Here is a copy of the letter I sent to them (Navteq) & still waiting to hear from them:


Dear Sirs:

One would tend to think & expect that a company that charges well over $180 for their navigation software would be diligently willing and able to keep up with the various changes in POI's as well as road & street changes such as yours. But what we find is just the opposite.

After spending 4 months in extensive research on your software in just our local area alone, we have found that not only is your data roughly 15 years behind in its information, but also off in exact locations on an average of 50 to 500 yards off.

Just in the Catawba County, NC area alone, there are well over 1,200 POI's that are no longer existing, and by this, I mean, either the buildings are no longer standing, or, the businesses that you show that are there, haven't been there in well over 5 to as much as 15 years. I can only imagine what I would find if I were able to afford to go on the road & do a National survey. No wonder why more and more Americans are having more & more road rage.

There is nothing more aggravating that finding out that the device & its software that you not only pay well over $2,000 for, but is lead to believe that it's the "Most sophisticated GPS system on the market" can't even be trusted.

When I did a side by side comparison of your system with; Tom Tom, Garman, & Microsoft’s Street's and Trips, even though I hate Microsoft, their 2006 Street's & Trips was found to be far more reliable than all of the others put together.

So In conclusion, Do you think that instead of pocketing all of your high profits, you can put that money to good use & at least hire a group to go out on the road for 1 to two years and Actually do a Resurvey of the Roads & POI's. Yes, it would cost and enormous amount of money, and yes, it would certainly tap into your profits, at least for the next couple of years. But the out come would by far, pay for itself. It would not only put you back on the upper & highly trusted firm in navigation systems, but I truly believe that it would also boost your profits by at least 110%.

[font=arial][size=2]How can I suggest this updated resurvey? It's simple. It is quite obvious that neither of your survey teams have actually re-traveled the roads in almost 10 years. If they had, many of the roads you have listed would not be unverified. (Nobody likes to have that feeling of traveling on a road that is unverified). Of which more

 

Reasearch the "lemon law" find a way to "USE" it..... this sounds absolutly F'ing rediculous. I might see the softeware company tring to run you around..... BUT HONDA. ****! The lemon law will be easy for you to use, (based on the info you posted) take the unit in to the "stealership" for repairs to the nav unit. Then do it again, and again, and again..... lemon law that hunk a sh*t.

 

ALSO.... send both parties a link to THIS wonderfull site, and remind them of how many members there are.
Take your story to www.the12volt.com as well. Join, and post it!

 

Just Registered and Posted the same as here.


As for doing the Lemon Law Thing, I'm not so sure that it would actually fit this situation. I' think I'll wait a bit to see what a few others are thinking in regards to this

 

Has Anyone else been experiancing the same issues?

 

TOM TOM > *

 

What do you mean by this?

 

^ its a nagvigation system, although no marty, tom tom isnt as good as the comercials say. Im not %100 sure what my navi is that i got from teh factory when it was bnuilt, my 07 civic si came with the namyvie as an option. I agree wtih the Lemon Law technique, keep sending that sh*t in and again until they lemon law it. They will always try and rip you off as much as they can until they actually ahve to do something about it. Its human nature, we are lazy worthless people of society. Im drunk right no so dont mind the grammar

 

You need to stand your ground with force, Get in touch with someone @ Honda of America.

 

I have one and it has never failed me, plus it's up to date with downloads from the net, plus it only cost me like $200 on ebay