W204/GPS - Are you satisfied?
 

I just picked up my C350 4matic this week. Quite familiar with my Garmin GPS, I thought I am going to give the Merc GPS a try. . .

1. I deliberately go in opposite direction to the intended route, and it keeps on instructing me to make U turns at every intersection. If it were for the Garmin, it would have recalculated the route and figured out a safer way. Furthermore, there are bare minimum options for cruising preferences, eg, I cannot prevent it from suggesting U turns.

2. Another route I was testing would be much faster taking the highway. The suggested route completely neglect the highway and instead taking me through city streets. It does not have options of choosing the shortest route or the fastest route. By the look of it, the programme dosen't even have the capacity in calculating it.

This is just my experience within the first hour driving around!

Like to hear from you.

Does anyone know if there is an update DVD available for the nav yet? I did notice a few times that it did the same things that you mentioned.:nix:
Maybe it just needs an update.

I encountered the "U turn now" trouble as well and just kept ignoring it. :rolf: As for taking highways versus local streets... There's a route browser feature on the navi that shows you different routes. You can use that to pick the roads that you prefer.

^+1

i understand why you would favor your garmin over the merc navi. i have both and feel the same.

that being said after sometime i get used to merc. with the U-turn problem you will find that if you ignore it enough times it will change to "new route" as your garmin does when it says "re-calculating".

ups and downs with both systems.

i got the MM package that comes with the 'p2' packge for my car.
i havent gotten it yet but i didnt get 'COMMAND'

do i still get navigation, or just the map.

:):):):):)

Oh, but it does. On the bottom of the Navi screen there is a Route option. If you select this, there is an alternate routing option. From here, you can select (I'm pulling this from memory, so it may not be perfectly correct) different routings (fastest, shortest, etc). There is also an option regarding detours. I only found out about this by playing around with it. I hate to RTFM!

I have encountered the u-turn option. However, if you drive past it far enough it does re-calcualte and sends you on your way.

I have found the GPS to be very useful. Even here on Oahu where nothing is more than an hour away.

I notice the same on mine... it is pretty disgusting that it by default calculates the route by the shortest geographic distance rather than by the fastest route, which thereby COMPLETELY ignores highways in many cases!!!

Mercedes, I am very dissapointed that you are so far behind the ball with GPS... these are some of the most basic features that $125 barebones garmins have...

I EXPECT A FREE UPDATE DVD TO ADDRESS THESE ISSUES, NO LESS

The new C is not DVD based. It is hardrive based like the S & CL.

GPS navigation comes with MM package. and MM is seperate package from P2 package. P1 comes with P2 but not MM.

How about missing/wrogn streets?
 

I've encountered a few streets that are either missing off the MB maps, or don't show as through streets. My wife has a magellan, and so far of the four not-showing-through streets, the magellan had 2 correct, 1 just as wrong as the Merc, and one I haven't been in the vicinity yet. As for the wholly missing street, haven't yet been in the vicinity with my wife's Magellan so don't know. But, it ain' a new street by any stretch.

I am satisfied not having one
 

I can put my navi system in any car :D

piece of junk, i prefer my garmin

Shout out to Lititz!!

My sister lives there...we grew up going to Lititz Springs Park!

LOVE that Wilbur Chocolate smell!!

In the A-T-L now.....got back there 2 years ago to buy a hotdog from the cart that is STILL THERE after 22 years (or more)


*sorry for the threadjack :) You may now return to your regularly scheduled thread.

I wish you could get the MM package w/o navigation. I don't know why the other German marques package sound systems w/ navi

IMHO... garmin is better... it kinda difficult to find POI and you have to put the car in complete stop to punch in a new route... I found the Voice COMAND system to be a little dumb when it comes to listening to nav intructions.

I think that its great. But thats just me, I've never had a garmin or anything like that. I've only used the old COMAND (without the knob) and the BMW iDrive. It's a lot better than both of those, but that doesn't say much.

I do agree that the small handhelds are more intuitive to use but in MB's defense the Navi works as designed. It's there to take you to a unknown destination. It doesn't know short cuts.

Most 204 owners don't know about the cool feature in where you can look up a destination via google and have it uploaded to the car via tele aid or just press the info button and talk to a person and have the destination sent to the car.

Keep in mind that it takes about 7 years to design and test a new car before it's released therfore technology is a little behind but the latest technology now allows faster software updates and more compatiblity with newer equipment, I think MB is starting to get on the band wagon.

I have the U turn problem as well. But I don't really mind so much...as long as I am lead to my destination. I haven't run into any instance where it diverted me to a significantly longer route.

I've had several different factory navs...from Acura TL, BMW, and Audi RNS-E.

The Acura TL Nav I had was by far the best (esp with the touch screen) then I'd rate the Merc second best, then Audi, then BMW.

My experience with the Command/Navigation in the W211 was quite different. There I had the option to select shortest or fastest route, or avoid highways, etc. Also, after a while, it will recalculate your route once turning around is no longer the fastest/shortest way.

Are you sure you have tried all the option menus?

Whilst in the Map screen highlight navi and press your controller, you should then see a list of options i.e Fastest, Shortest, Dynamic and so on. Scroll to which one you want then press controller, this should then select the route option you prefer.:y

garmin is atleast 2 yrs ahead of harman kardon in mobile GPS design. using the kardon is like using the old garmin 2600 series.... very crude. not to mention the HD design, almost everyone is on flash memory, faster, less power, longer life and easier update...

i'm not impressed with navi at all especially with POI.
I wish there is option to sort POI by their names, NOT by category, also after choosing the name, sort from closest to farthest.

NAvigation issue
 

Flks, I am not sure how the navi works in the C class but I can tell u that on the 2007 navi disk supplied by Navteq for the other Mercedes models they had a mistake. The navi would avoid highways if there was an HOV. Navteq recognized they had a mistake and replaced my disk with the 2008 now. Since then it works best. Now, in the C-class it's all on the harddrive but the mapping data must be the same. Could be an answer to the u-turn and the avoidance of the highways unless selecting purposely in the menu to avoid highways. More interesting my dealership in Seattle had no clue about the problem with the navigation disk 2007!