Problems with Navigation and with USB audio

I'm posting this here in the hopes that it will make its way to someone in Toyota that is high enough up to actually get the software developers to fix the bugs in the audio and navigation in my 2017 Prius Prime. I spent over 6 months in 2017 working with U.S. customer service, a Toyota field tech, and the dealer's service departments to demonstrate the problems and get them recorded and reported to the programmers so they could work on a fix. Now its 16 months later and the bugs still aren't fixed and the best customer service will do is tell me to go back to the dealer and demonstrate the problems again. Nobody at customer service will work to push the prioritization of fixing the BUGS and shortcomings. Frankly, this reflects badly on Toyota's vaunted quality reputation and THIS IS NOT THE WAY TO TREAT CUSTOMERS.

The navigation bugs and shortcomings are especially grating because I was forced to pay for the navigation system in order to get the one advanced safety feature (rear cross traffic alert) that pushed me to trade in my 2008 Prius instead of continuing to drive it for a few more years. And its a real shame because the heads-up display from the navigation is a really great if only I could rely on it in NY traffic instead of running Waze on my phone which is what I'm doing now because of the vast improvement over the JBL/Toyota crap.

Case # 1706021000? USB shuffle (things seem to happen often in first 10-15 minutes after turning car on). Demonstrated to service tech at Westchester Toyota in June 2017 and he reported the bug to Toyota corporate.

• Sometimes delays (several seconds) between songs
• Sometimes stops playing at the end of each song
• Sometimes automatically turns off shuffle and starts playing songs alphabetically
• Sometimes when I first turn the car on and its near the end of a song, it replays that song and if I then press track next it tells me the it can't do it because the music list is still initializing

Incident: 170915-000203 Navigation not obeying avoid areas set on

• GW Bridge
• I-95 going from Bronx towards GW bridge

This is a bug in the navigation that was also there in my 2008 Prius. This needs to be forwarded to JBL and I expect a software update from them to fix it.


Incident: 170915-000205: Navigation with traffic quickest route sometimes picking one much slower. Sept 13 I ran it in parallel with Google maps for rush hour trip to long island. Cars initial estimate was 20 minutes longer than Google. 3 times during the trip Google and the car disagreed about which turn I should take. Each time I followed Google, the car reduced it's ETA so that by the third time it matched Google ETA. Ultimately, Google's initial ETA was spot on for the 90 minutes trip. The algorithms in the Toyota/JBL navigation when choosing "quickest" route sometimes picks routes that are actually not even close to the quickest. On an earlier issue I actually sent in screen shots where it estimated LONGER time for the route it labeled as "quickest" than it did for the route it labeled as "alternative." So the software actually knows which is the quickest route BUT it isn't actually using that for quickest. The problem seems to be the worst during rush hour on longer trips. And in this case it was all major highways in the Bronx. If I followed the Toyota navigation's "quickest" route it would have taken me 20 minutes longer than it actually took me (because I instead followed Google's quickest route). That's a big problem with built-in navigation on a premium vehicle and you need to fix it. In this day and age with Google maps available as an alternative, there's no excuse for the built-in navigation being this poor.
On another occasion, also in the Bronx, it told me to turn the wrong way onto a one way street.

Navigation - quick route sometimes shows the LONGEST estimated time. [Incident: 170627-000062, case # 1707030042 ] photo attached to incident. You can see this by pressing the 3 routes button and seeing that the alternate route (bottom of the 3) actually shows a shorter time than the shortest route shows!

Navigation - problems with bad route on June 28, 2017 [Incident: 170628-000324, National # 1707030042]: Today the navigation took me on a local detour through the Bronx to avoid [link removed] told me to drive down a street past where it ended (I think it was 141st St.). The detour ended up adding an extra 20 minutes to my trip beyond the estimate at the start of the detour. The car is barely a month old. THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE. Between the bad map database and the lack of feedback on alternate routes, the JBL built-in navigation is CRAP and reflects poorly on the Toyota name. Google maps navigation is FAR SUPERIOR. And the JBL voice recognition is HORRIBLE. Please escalate to executive level. I want a resolution - either drastically improve the JBL navigation for me or give me Google Maps navigation (it could come via bluetooth from my Android phone) on the built-in display and HUD, replacing the JBL crap.

Additional notes not covered in above cases

June 20, 2018: Since I wasn't in a rush to get home I followed the car nav directions (which were 15 minutes shorter than Waze despite knowing that the vast majority of the time Waze's estimates are much more accurate). Car nav underestimated route by 25 minutes and took 10 minutes longer than Waze estimate. Left Melville, NY at 4:08pm. Car estimated arrival in Ossining, NY at 5:30pm (vs. Waze estimate of 5:45). Actually arrived at 5:55pm. Most of the delay was a 3 mile backup for a stopped car on Hutchinson river parkway (one of the route segments the car picked that was different than Waze). The rest of the delay was a long line of cars waiting to make the left turn off the exit the car chose (vs. a later exit that Waze chose). Incidentally, while in the 3 mile backup, Waze accurately told me the number of minutes I would sit in traffic and it also told me about the stopped car (though only half a mile before I reached it). Also interestingly, on the Sprain parkway the car told me about an accident .3 miles ahead that wasn't even there.

In some places where a turn is required to stay on the same road, the navigation doesn't speak or show the upcoming turn. Sometimes you can tell by looking at the overall route on the map, but other times you only find out when you overshoot the turn and get re-routed. Have observed this on Crow Hill rd in Yorktown/Mt Kisco and on angle turns like Ossining South route 134 to route 133 to route 9A. This could be a major problem in areas that the driver isn't familiar with.


Improvements desired through software updates

USB audio - would like much more than 9,999 songs - at least 50,000 (my mp3 library is already close to 40,000 songs)

When I was shopping for the car a salesman at Curry Toyota told me that I would get map updates for free via satellite. I never got such update for the new Tappan Zee bridge (now called the Mario Cuomo Bridge). When I asked Curry Toyota about it they told me that I have to pay for each map update. Given how regularly Google updates maps and software FOR FREE, I expect the same for the maps/software built into my vehicle.

 

Usually after I first turn the car on, when the currently playing song finishes (if it doesn't replay it because it was near the end) it will then play the next song in alphabetical order (with a few seconds delay before starting). After that it will resume random shuffle (if the random shuffle indicator wasn't turned off) but for the 1st 15 minutes or so will stop at the end of each song. It won't automatically start playing another song until I press the right arrow on the steering wheel to move to the next song or until a few minutes of silence has passed.