Unfortunitely, it has been proven time and time again, the JD Power associate "studies" are useless and meaningless. The companies that spend the most money, with JD Power and marketing the reponse forms to be filled out, get the highest "grades". The information is useless. But thanks anyway. We've been thru this with boat manufacturer's many a time.... trust me!

 

Would I purchase the NAV option again, as is?? Not sure, really difficult to answer that. It has lots of nice features integrated into the car. BUT, if you will use it for NAVIGATION, and finding places like restuarants, stores, shops, especially for a work related task (if your in sales...), then FORGET IT, cuase the POI db does not work at all, it's useless.

I'm thinking about installing a Nuvi 650 on the left side of my steering wheel on one of those dash mounts. Pretty silly huh? I have a $2,100 Nav OEM nav system installed, and I have to install a $400 afte3rmarket system so I can actually use it.

I will look up POI's in my Nuvi, then get the address and type it manually into the MINI Nav. Boy will that be a great selling point to future mini owners!

All because MINI hasn't stepped up to the plate, and FIXED the problem they ripped us off with. Pretty sad. So not only would I not pass along a recommendation to order the NAV, I would not recommend purchasing a MINI. If this is the support (or lack of) the company offers, I would not recommend one.

I'm shopping for a car for my wife, we thought about a MINI for her, would be perfect. But not now. We will get a vehicle made with 20th century technology, and a company that backs the product.

 

Yes, but what about the product managers?? The guys that developed and TESTED the product??? Either the guys that developed and tested (or didn't test) the Nav itself, or the QA dept that tests the finished product??

They never sat in a prototype car with Nav, and searched for a POI?

And your welcome. You seem to be one of the few that understands what I'm doing for EVERYBODY. The folks posting against getting it fixed, are obviosuly emloyee's of MINI/BMW, and are hiding behind the Internet. Sad they can't even repond properly. PRobably because they are so embarrassed over this. What they don't understand, is the embarrasment hasn't even begun. Wait until www.MININavSucks.com is up and running.

 

Great work Office!!! Let us know if you find anything new... So the 2nd Gen is reading the dual layer dvd's fast enough?

 

LOL!! Yea, and it's really nice to say "Maps", and have the sweeeeet system respond with "Phone Dialer....what number would you like to dial?" .......

Or I say, "Dial Bob", and the system says "Maps, Perpesctive".

Yea, that works GREAT!!!

And this is not a feature I would EVER complain about. Voice command on just about EVERYTHING doesn't work. It doesn't work on my phone, it doesn't work on my $3000 hig tech PC, it doesn't work on my laptop, it doesn't work in the MINI, it doesn't work in my wifes A8, it does work anywhere. We are still a few years away from being able to reliably use voice commands.

Selling that point to anyone is very smart, don't forget, they will be back when they get it.

 

Yo Birdman, take a pill. NOBODY has posted 'against getting it fixed', only that the probability of 'getting it fixed' is extremely low. If you can get BMW to reconfigure the Nav, kudos and hats off. It's just that many of us have seen things far more 'broken' go unfixed.
Would I like the POI search to be easier? Yes.
Will I hold my breath until it is? No.

I don't understand why you would bring a website live - I thought your contact said we were all getting new discs and firmware.

 

I'm sure you can see this response coming from that quote...

But, if you are having so much trouble with voice control, on not just the Mini but your PC and phone, maybe it's you. The frequency or tone of your voice? Some kind of accent it picks up?

I've used voice control on a PC since the OS/2 days when version 3 came out with it (15+ years now). I don't have any trouble with the Mini's system recognizing my voice. It voice dials the phone book entries with no prior training or setup. I don't even have the phone itself setup to voice dial anything. It's all the Mini's system that is doing it. Voice control to program a destination is great. With just my voice I can set a destination while I'm driving. No Garmin I've used can do that. I'm really impressed with how well the Mini's system handles voice control. Integrated quite well. Everything from the settings of the car that are adjustable on the Nav screen to the navigation, communication, and entertainment, all integrated with voice commands. It's one my favorite features in the Mini.

 

Don't know what to say Birdman. Mine works fine. Maybe you talk like you spell?

 

Thanks! Seems to be in my tests so far.

The 2nd gen nav system doesn't complain at all when I use a dual-layer DVD whereas the 1st gen system grinds away at the disc constantly and troughs unable to read disc errors quite frequently.

This doesn't surprise me though since the nav system in the 2nd gen MINIs is newer it should indeed be able to read dual-layer discs. Also, they had to know at development time that the single-layer disc were near full (there's only 5 MBs of fee space on the current 2nd gen 2007-2 nav disc) and that they would eventually need to move to a dual-layer disc in order to fit all the data on the disc. The 1st gen discs still have about 250 MB of free space and so they've got plenty of room left for future expansion of the data.

 

Any idea what the additional info is on the Gen2 disc? More POIs? More map data? Other?

 

I'm pretty sure it's the traffic info stuff. While the traffic info itself it pulled in "over the air" via the radio, the maps themselves still need to be put into a proper format to be able to use and display the traffic information properly (and that requires space on the disc). I assume that the maps themselves harbor more detailed information as well (such as better roundabout enter/exit direction info, better traffic direction flow info for roads that have fluctuating lanes during peak traffic times, etc., etc.).

This is basically the same with the Garmin maps. They have a "NT" format for their newer maps that support traffic information (as well as greater map detail) as well as a non-NT (or standard) format that doesn't support traffic info, etc.

 

I've had problems with past voice command bits too- but I started getting better responses with the Mini when I moved the mic over from the right hand side of the car over to the left hand side.

I have the least luck with the dial command too, but my contacts are organized by 'Lastname, First, Middle Initial - Work', so it can be a mouthful. For the few contacts I have no middle initial and one number for, it does fine.

Accents do seem to confuse it more easily- my brother gets a kick out of yelling at it in different accents to see what it will do. It seems to do okay with German and British English though.

 

OR, maybe it's the same problem that everyone else has with voice commands. Try doing a search on voice command, you will find about 100+ threads of people complaining it doesn't work very good.

In any event, I couldn't care less about the voice command, working or not. Like I said, htis is NOT something I would complain about. The technology just isn't there yet, just not usefull enough yet, nothing to do with MINI. It takes upwards around 5 minutes to program in a destination address, even when it works perfect. "Please say State": "New York", "did you say "New York, is that correct" "Yes", "Please say City": "Minivile", "Did you say Miniville" "Yes........

Ah, with a touch screen, I would probably be to Miniville and back twice by the time that "conversation" has concluded, with maybe the correct address.

The only thing voice command is good for is changing screens from one view to another, and that is still easier to use the joystick most of the time.

 

Interesting- does the Nav work for alternating traffic lanes for others here? Mine tried to get me to take the Express lanes the other day, when there was opposing traffic, so I'd just assumed it wasn't able to handle a road that alternates directions.

 

I would doubt it could handle that, how would it know what direction the lanes are open....? I doubt the traffic update info carries that info.

Interesting though, I have been routed off of the express portion of a highway, onto the service lanes to avoid traffic. That seemed to work ok suprisingly.

 

So I should just say nohting, cause you think it won't be fixed? Yea, that would do us all alot of good. Sometimes I really wonder what you folks against complaing are thinking, other than you must work for MINI in some capacity, there is no other explanation.

Have I received an update yet? Or even an official mention of it from anyone at Mini? No, amazingly enough. I will give them some time (few months), if I hear nothing, the site will be up!!

My info came from Germany (BMW side), so it is possible most or even everybody at MINI in the US or even in euro land, might not be aware of the update yet. I will be patient enought to give them time to do the update and release it. If it doesn't occur timely, then all hell will break loose, trust me.

 

I'm sure you have contacted PMN about this, what does he say? (probably doesn't have a 2nd gen unit to test with, huh?)

Another reason MINI should be fixing this!!!!!

 

I'd like to do a few more tests before I bother him with the problem. I.e. I want to make sure it's not just me doing something stupid (as that's been known to happen in the past).

 

It changes directions at about the same time each day, unless there's some sort of problem. I wouldn't expect the traffic broadcast carried it either. OfficeMaven's note just got me curious.

It's worked well doing the same for me too- although I do have to avoid smaller roads that I know will have a long wait in traffic that are too little to be covered by the traffic notification. I also tend to see more Minis when it's got me dodging traffic

 

I'm with ya!! Good luck.

And if you get it working, that would be awesome, lots of free space on a dual layer woul dgive us room to add other new stuff!! (speed camera's....). That would be way cool!!

Maybe you can sell the "fix" to MINI, for ah, say around $2,100!!

 

Another thing along that line would be an option to tell it how many people are in your car. We have a few places in the Bay Area that have different off ramps/on ramps for carpool lanes. I find my Garmin never routes on those, nor does the Mini's system. It's not a big deal since it recalculates as you drive but it's funny to watch it recalc 2-3 times as you cross over different lanes.

 

Most of the Garmin units have a setting listed under "Avoidance Setup" that allows you to avoid carpool lanes. I believe that it is switched on by default. Thus, if you want your Garmin unit to route you onto those carpool lanes, then you should go into settings and uncheck that box. Unfortunately, the MINI nav system doesn't have that particular option (and so I imagine that it always avoids them by default).

Also, as far as the alternate traffic lane stuff goes... Even if our MINI's nav system doesn't take advantage of the information, that doesn't mean that NavTeq doesn't add it to the map data disc (remember that the "Professional" map data disc is used by lots of other cars as well - such as BMW, Rover and Rolls-Royce). I'm not saying it's there for sure, but I do know that NavTeq offers more detailed data like that on their maps. It's up to the manufacturer to decide what info they want to use/implement in their system.

 

Ha! Now THAT would be nice. Heck, I'd settle for a nice job offer instead. It would be cool to be able to help design nav systems for our cars. It does appear that they need to hire someone who has a passion for nav systems (since whomever is working for them now is only doing a half-*** job ).

 

Uhhh, let's see...where do I start? How about, I'm sorry about YOUR limitations. Really seems like it sucks to be you.

 

The voice commands work GREAT for us. We seldom get ANY repeats/confirmations, but we do speak in a clear distinct voice.

Also, our mic is still in the factory default location on the right side. Do not see any reason to move it as of yet.

As far as the nav system, it works well but haven't given the POI section that much of a work out apparently.

It is unfortunate that some have had the misfortune with their systems not recognizing voice commands and not navigating easily. We, thusfar, are pleased, but will welcome any software updates offered by MINI USA.