2010 Prius Navigation System is really horrible

Often, when someone drops into the dealership frustrated with the NAV in a 2010 model, I get called over to FIX it.

99% of the time it's in the settings. Most salespeople and dealers do not set your NAV up for you properly. There are detailed settings and back screen that are easily found on that MFD and ... while I cannot say for certain that your problem is this, or the preferences tabs, I can say it's often the case.

Di

 

Dianne,
I think the "Command List" option is not available when the car is in motion :-(
Also, I have found it next to impossible to speak a command such as "Chinese restaurant" or some such variant on that theme, but that may be my Indian accent

 

An accent may make it worse, but I don't have an accent and tried "FAST FOOD" while in the navigation destination screen and it changed to "Satellite 2."
That doesn't even make any logical sense on a flow chart. It should use some kind of context. Radio mode commands should not even been an option at that point.

"Destination."
Destination.
"Point of Interest."
Point of Interest
"Near Here"
Near Here
"Fast food."
Satellite 2

What??!!!

 

Yes, I just tried it.
Had you said SHOW FAST FOOD, she'd have obliged!


.......don't forget to use the word SHOW before you speak the thing you want showing for POI.

 

Good suggestion to check the route preference, which I did. The route preference is selected when you set the destination (Quick, Short, or Alternate). It can also be changed after you select the route preference. I think the default is 'short', but I always select this anyway. If you select 'short', the GPS will take you through city streets, residential areas, and anywhere else it can to shave miles off the trip.

Thanks for the suggestion. Will talk to the dealer on Wednesday.

 

No, what I meant was more specific -- the preferences. Once you have a destination set, you check the actual prefs: The choices are like enable freeway, border crossings, ferry, etc....

 

It tried saying "SHOW" Fast Food and it added fast food icons to the map display.
I finally got it to work by over enunciating FASSSST FOOD after saying "Near Here" and it displayed a few (3) of the closest fast food restaurants. One time I said "Fast Food" and it selected Japanese Food" instead. Not very close. I wish it wouldn't just choose a random option if it isn't clear to it.
Street name recognition usually gives you 2 or 3 choices to select from in case it didn't recognize the street correctly, but this POI category entry does not.

 

Thanks Tideland! I'm one of those annoying people who actually read the manual, so I discovered these settings soon after I bought the car and thought they may fix the problem. I had adjusted the speed settings but there was no real improvement so I returned them to the default settings. I have used the 'Routes to Avoid' feature to force the nav unit to send me down a particular highway instead of routing me through city streets. I always select the 'quick' route when presented with three routing options after I enter the destination, but highways don't seem to get selected often. Strange. I hope the latest DVD fixes this. Thanks again.

 

Stupid question from a new owner. How do I know which version of the DVD I have? If it's ~2 weeks since we bought the car and there's an update, is there any hope of getting the dealer to give us a new DVD? So far, I've been underwhelmed by the NAV. But my wife really wanted it, so...

Bhaskar

 

You can just ask them and see what they say, but chances would have been better if you had negotiated it into the deal before you made the purchase.

 

Very creative BS from Toyota

Although the Nav seems to locate the car very well on the map, it's POI and address finding capabilities truly suck. There is a town near me (Dix Hills, NY) that doesn't even show up. Also, it fails in at least 25% of the cases to find an intersection. One of the more frustrating things is it's poor ability to locate an address - it puts you in the wrong place, can't find it or reports an incorrect address when the screen is touched. I have been reporting this since day one to Toyota, and gotten a dance around the issue. When version 10.1 was released (I have 9.1) I called again, hoping that the newer update would have some improvements. When I complained about the address inaccuracy yet again, I was told that "it is designed that way for security reasons". Huh? I fell so much more secure now that I can't find an address. Toyota still hasn't figured out that its customers actually have at least a rudimentary brain, and treating us like complete idiots is more than annoying. This is my first and last Toyota.

 

The accuracy of urban/rural has nothing to do with the GPS satellites, which by the way are not geo-synced. There are at least 12 of them, with usually 6-10 in view at any given time. Absolute accuracy has to do with the relative angle of the satellites to each other and the receiver, and the number in view. It is a software (including mapping) issue. Toyota's system just basically sucks.

 

I agree. Too late for that now. Any idea how I can tell which version I have?
Thanks,
Bhaskar

 

Re: Very creative BS from Toyota

This sounds like they were referring to Selectve Availability (SA)...this was something that was done years ago to induce a larger error margin in the accuracy of satellite derived positioning...only the military had the ability to receive signal free of SA.....unfortunately their arguemnnt hasn't been valid since May of 2000 when SA was "turned off" by the Feds. Short story: they're full of crap....I suspect that the base mapping is simply incorrectly geo-referenced....even the cheapest GPS receivers should be able to peg you within 10 meters of your true position.

 

Hey Skipper!
Curious that the Prius nav doesn't show Dix Hills! We live there and the nav on my wife's 6yo Sequoia shows it.
Boy am I glad I didn't go for the nav in my Prius. Figured that the ~$2000 difference between the built in and portable Costco purchase would be better spent other place although I DO wish I had gone for the IV rather than the III! Oh well.
BTW, how does the V drive on our roads? I'm contemplating passing on my III to my daughter and have to decide on whether to get a IV or go for a V. Thoughts?
Now, having said all that, I do agree that Toyo can be full of crap but I sort of go with the flow as having people lie to your face is just another element of modern life.

 

It is a horrible stock nav, even the cheapest handhelds and most phone based nav solutions are much better. Still I don't think the $1800 was a rip off because it includes: backup camera, bluetooth cell and audio, sat radio. I prefer the touchscreen over buttons, it looks classy :-D. Additionally the nav functions well as a basic map and a good backup to a quality gps. My Evo mounts perfectly on the lip on the screen and nothing beats Google Navigation on Android, Nothing.

 

In your Navigatio book it tells you how to reset the location to be more acurate. It worked on mine when I readjusted it.

 

The bluetooth phone and sat radio is already standard on any Prius that has factory nav available as an option. So, the $1800 does not include that.
The $1800 gives you the nav system plus backup camera, USB port and bluetooth wireless audio streaming. Then to keep it as up to date as you can get (once a year) you will need to pay about $250-$300 for a DVD map update from a Toyota dealer.
Having the map updated is important to make best use out of the system, because even if there were no major changes to roads, there are usually massive changes to the points of interest as business go out of business and new businesses open every day. After a year, you will have tons of out of date data. Some business that have been open for a year will be missing and it will waste your time sending you to places that have been closed for a year. It would be better if there was a quarterly update instead of yearly.

The better systems are now using hard disks instead of DVDs for faster speed (super fast response with no delay waiting for it to search the DVD to find info) and some car nav systems are even using SD cards. SD cards can wear out with heavy use, but if you are replacing the cards at least yearly to keep your data current, that would never be an issue.

 

I am not impressed with the factory NAV. I would prefer that Toyota contracted Garmin for the equipment. My $240.00 Garmin blows away the Toyota POS NAV. Interestingly, I received a very detailed survey for the Prius NAV from J.D. Powers. I gave them my opinion needless to say!