zitsky

I prefer MB navigation and music. It’s great. But my husband likes CarPlay. He just got wireless CarPlay in his 2024 BMW but I find I prefer the BMW systems. And so we are not using CarPlay in either car.

However he hates how the MB navigates on Fastest Route. Take this side street, now another etc. He prefers CarPlay navigation in the W222.

Does anyone have tips for making CarPlay bearable on a long 7 hour drive in the W222? It’s less painful in the BMW with a touch screen.

OldManAndHisCar

My suggestion is not not use it. So many things to hate about it (including the freaking thing will turn my Bluetooth back on after I turn it off on my phone). I have it disabled on my phone and can just stream YouTube Music and run Maps at the same time. I can use the steering wheel control (or knob in the dash, or touch screen) to go song to song to song.

zitsky

The problem is with the freaking MB navigation that takes you off highways then back on again because "it's faster". So I have to know the route and know to not do that. Easy in my home area. Not as easy in a strange location. (Is the car's way better or faster???)

OldManAndHisCar

Mine will change to "Eco Friendly" route...I, for one, could not care less about "Eco". Have used some programming tools to disable "Eco Mode" on my car and I have a schedule....

zitsky

My husband hates when it shows the route in the beginning then changes (based on traffic I guess). I thought only options were Fast and Short?

SW20S

Bearable? Carplay is great lol. Who's driving? They choose. I have stopped using CarPlay mainly in ther W223 because the native system is so good, but in the 222 CarPlay all day long.

I prefer GoogleMaps for navigation but tend to also run Waze on a trip. Music, what streaming service do you use? I use Apple Music. There are lots of other great roadtrip apps.

OldManAndHisCar

Google is better, plus, it is fun to put in Speed Traps and other things on the roads....working as a team to "Fight the man"!

superswiss

I hate to tell you, but Google Maps does this, too. For example, it had me exit a highway just to reenter it from the overpass it took me to for no apparent reason. Couldn't even figure out how this was remotely faster. Google Maps occasionally does some weird routing. Earlier this week I used it to get to an appointment by public transportation. To get to the final destination, it had me walk to a bus stop, take the bus for two blocks, get off and then continue walking to the final destination. Totally ridiculous as the fastest way was to walk straight to the final destination, instead of detouring to a bus stop just to ride the bus for two blocks. Google Maps now also does Eco routes by default, although you can turn that off in the settings.

As for using CarPlay on long trips, not sure what you are looking for. You seem to overcomplicate things a lot. I've used CarPlay/Google Maps for long trips. I picked my car up at the factory in Germany and travelled throughout Europe for 2 months driving almost 7000 miles. Since the Mercedes me services weren't active I used Google Maps to have live traffic. I actually find touchscreens harder to use, because I have to look at them and my hand bounces around while driving, so it's a game of Whac-A-Mole to hit the right UI control. Much more precise using the jog wheel in my car. In case you don't know, the jog wheel doesn't just rotate. You can also push it left/right, up/down to navigate straight across or down in the CarPlay UI. Having said that, once I've entered the destination, I don't really fiddle around with it anymore anyway, and I either use voice commands or just pick up the phone itself to enter a destination.

I don't use CarPlay much in my car, but I use it in rental cars and service loaners. For example I'm currently in an EQE 350+. Yes it has touchscreen and wireless CarPlay, but the latter is mainly nice so I don't end up forgetting my USB cable in the loaner. It drains the battery quickly when using wireless CarPlay, so always have to put the phone on the wireless charger and it gets hot. In many cars that actually caused issues on long drives. The phone overheats and goes into thermal protection and things start to crash or stutter, so I often end up having to plug the phone in to the USB port anyway for charging. Charging by USB is more stable and heats the phone up much less.

zitsky

Well I drive the Mercedes because he tends to put it in neutral. Car no go. You think I get to decide? That’s cute.

I use Apple Music and Sirius XM and he likes Pandora and YouTube.

I like MB because I can still access my entire Apple Music library from COMAND over Bluetooth.

The problem is MB NAV on fast route telling you to make frequent changes. Take this road now that one! But it gets us there.

Since my partner has been using the BMW without CarPlay maybe this time he’ll be ok without it in the MB. We may use both MB Nav or CarPlay at different times.

There is one place we are going to that specifically says “use Google Maps”.

SW20S

Sounds like you need to adjust the settings in the MB nav

zitsky

How long has eco route been an option?

Update of East USA by SD card only took 10 minutes.

superswiss

LOL! The column stalk gear selector is so much better. Sounds like somebody doesn't like to learn new things. Latest BMWs now have a switch to select Drive etc., but still placed in the center console for no real benefit.

https://www.torquenews.com/3903/merc...ers-are-awsome

Not sure what's going on there, but I have the same system in my C63 and I don't have these issues. I'm not familiar with the roads in Raleigh, but the MB nav keeps me on major roads such as highways and only routes me off for the last mile or if there's congestion or an accident up ahead. It actually even announces traffic events and congestions on the current route. Google Maps and Waze do much more rerouting even through often unsuitable residential streets with speed bumps and stop sign after stop sign. I end up having to go slow through those detours and I often doubt it was faster in the first place due to the road design. These apps don't take speed bumps, how narrow the street is etc. into consideration when rerouting through surface streets. The apps just think it's faster because there's no traffic on a residential road.

SW20S

I’d have to see your settings to know what you need to change, but it’s obviously prioritizing some sort of type of route that you don’t want to take.

zitsky

It seems to keep routing me towards trailer parks. Maybe a nostalgia setting in the COMAND system?

No seriously it sometimes has weird routing.

I’ve heard it announce accidents but I don’t recall anything about congestion.

Edit: I’ll probably use a mix of MB and CarPlay depending on the situation. There are good things about each.

To that one poster, This isn’t being unable to decide. It’s about taking advantage of the wisdom of other owners.

My 2004 S550 didn’t have this issue of crazy routing. Maybe I don’t need to replace my car. Maybe I need to replace my husband?

95Sinned420

I've never had issues with CarPlay, navigating with Apple Maps. YOU choose the route before you start, and IF and when it finds a faster route (you can also change in your maps settings preferred type of route, fastest vs "easiest" less turns, etc.) it will ask you whether or not you want to change your route to save 5 mins, etc. If you ignore it, it won't re-route you.
I sometimes run Waze in the background while using Apple Maps as my main screen, because I prefer the look of Apple Maps, and waze while in the background will continue to warn me of "object on the road" or "police ahead". As for music, I switch between XM Radio or my iPhone's Apple Music library. The RoadTop unit I installed allows me to have audio from either the CarPlay or MB system, so I can have CarPlay with MB sound system (XM Radio) or MB nav with CarPlay audio, etc. I don't know what the issues are, sounds just like preference on certain systems. I mean, it comes down to just a MAP on the screen and whatever music audio you're playing. With CarPlay, it's easy to switch Apple Music songs, or pandora, etc with just a flick of the knob or button.
There is a setting you can set on your WiFi to the CarPlay's wifi on the iPhone to not automatic join the network. So if you disable that, it will not automatically connect your bluetooth...but again that is preference. I much rather have the CarPlay connect automatically when I get into the car.

NbyNW

I use CarPlay exclusively in our cross country trips. I generally know the route and Apple Maps works great. It updates based on traffic which is fine. Rolling into Morgantown WV, it said to save 40 min take the next exit… ok, so had my wife quickly pull up Google Maps to confirm and sure enough there was a huge traffic jam ahead. We could tell the folks following those same instructions as we jumped off on the next exit. Others blindly joined the traffic jam. We enjoyed a trip through Morgantown and kept moving.

And I have a few playlists and other music options on CarPlay. Works great.

The most annoying thing is the MB spin wheel or steering wheel interface. Just dumb. I’ve learned to live with it.

Enjoy your trip!