Well, I just came back from two weekends of motoring and letting the NAV system tell me where to go. Last weekend I went from Colorado Springs to Santa Fe, to Farmington, NM (with a visit to Chaco Canyon along the way) and back home through Durango, Del Norte and Canon City. This weekend we took four days and drove to Page, AZ, took a loop through Kanab, UT and Jacobs Lake, AZ, Lee's Ferry and back to Page. We then drove from Page to Phoenix, from there to Soccoro, NM. To come back I drove over to Carrizozo, NM (to visit my mom for about an hour) and straight north to Las Vegas, NM and up the interstate to home. I hope to post some about some of the awesome motoring through the trip but this is about the nav system.

It seems to turn out that with your MINI you can ignore the fastest route option most times and stick with the shortest. The fastest route almost always gives you interstate highways and keeps you away from the interesting roads. It appears that trip times are calculated at around 65mph on interstates and under 45mph on state highways. I have found that you can deduct a full third or more from the times on the shortest routes and be just fine. Since you can pretty much ignore the caution signs for curves and simply drive the speed limit (or however much you are comfortable above that), the ETAs are way too low. When the nav system says six hours, you can pretty much count on four, unless you get caught in heavy traffic over mountain passes with no passing opportunities.

One caution about shortest routes, though. The nav system can take you on some pretty wild tracks if you're not careful. From Salida, CO to Colorado Springs it suggested I take a county road. Being that road was through mountains and considering the time of year I decided that when I saw the "Pavement Ends" sign with snow on the ground I would just go ahead and turn back and go the way I knew.

When I got to Canon City she was a bit confused there as well. She thought I should take the four lane all the way back home since I had the system on fastest route after leaving Salida, although that would have added about 50 miles to the trip. When I told her to change to shortest again, she figured it out.

As for those caution signs, it appears that with a MINI and dry, clean roads you can easily double them. If you're in a 65MPH speed zone and the caution sign on the curve ahead says 35MPH, go ahead and stick with the speed you're going, you should have no problems.

Keith Hamburger
(btw ... You're mileage may vary, I am not a lawyer, nor do I play one on TV, Lifeguard not on duty, swim at your own risk)

 

Hey -
Totally agree on the shortest route option - much better/more interesting rides..can you tell me if you nav system looks brighter in the daytime? Mine doesn't seem bright enough and doesn't change from night - day. I think it is because I have running lights on all the time.

 

I haven't had any problem reading my nav system in the day. I don't have daytime running lights so that might be the difference.

Keith

 

I have the day time running lights and can see my display just fine. The display should dim a little bit when you turn on your headlights. Im sure you know this, but the dashlight brightness control adjusts the display as well. But your talking about the daytime without lights on right? Perhaps your display backlight is failing, you might want to take it in for a look.

Frank