New Prius With A Defect

i had it way back in 04. so when i bought my 08, i skipped the$5,000. gps package and bought a nuvi for $200. i just wish i could build it into the dashboard!

 

Check your Navi settings...more often than not, improper Navi guidance is due to people not reading the Navi manual.

 

+1

Usually nav systems you can elect to not use highways, toll roads, or go on roads with speed limits over X.

On the Lexus nav, you can select 1 of 3 possible routes before the guidance begins. Do look at the map and choose the one you want. There are valid reasons for all of them usually.

 

Mine is working fine on California roads, highways, and freeways. Perhaps yours is set to shortest route or freeways are set to avoid.

 

The OP says he has the Toyota generation 6 navigation unit in his car, so its not him!!! Anyway please go into you Route Options and make sure that Toll highway and freeway are selected. Toyota uses a mixture of Navteq and TeleAtlas maps which is so stupid it's retarded since TeleAtlas is a european company. At any rate, check those first, as Toyota technicians are quite ignorant when it comes to navigation systems, Trust Me I Know! I was told to my face by three Toyota dealers in Ontario that the first gem Prius is not meant to have navigation, even when the dash has MAP and DEST and INFO on it!! I am more than happy to help further as I have studied Toyota's nav's most thoroughly and hav installed many, especially my own Prius!

As for route selection, always be careful because my wife's Chrysler Navigation system will select a route from Toronto to Ocean City, Maryland that let's us arrive 2 hours sooner than the Toyota Nav in my Prius, even though I upgraded to a unit found on the newer Prius, and the latest 10.1 disc. It's more Toyota's fault than the unit because in addition to somewhat poor map design, the speeds for each road are selected as follows 25 km/h small roads, 60 km/h intermediate multiple lane roads and 90 km/h for freeway and interstate. Chrysler is superior in that each road has the exact speed limit for each road assigned, and that is precisely why our Toyota units are so infuriating sometimes.

Anyway, hope this helps you to understand. It's a good system, but when compared to other units out there, even a 11 year old Chrysler unit, the shortcomings are quite apparent.

 

Agreed. I also don't know why TeleAtlas data started to be included w/the newer rev map discs as their maps are known to be inferior for North America.

That said, even though Navteq is/was an "American" company, they got bought by Nokia (NAVTEQ Corporate - About Us), a Finnish company...

To the OP, w/o compromising your privacy, would you be willing to indicate the start and end points (or something reasonably close to them) which repros the problem? Also, describe what's wrong w/the route (e.g. it goes through city a, city b, on this highway, etc. when it shouldn't).

Perhaps others w/Gen 3 Priuses and the same or newer map revision can see if it's repro for them. That could help figure out whether it's bad map data, bad mapping algortihm, user error or a settings problem. I could try on my Gen 2 Prius, but it a previous gen nav system and the original map DVD (has no TeleAtlas data) that had have been completed in late 05, at the latest, So, it's not likely to be too helpful.

 

Welcome to the world of one of the worst GPS systems available. The dealer was right (for a change). Plug in a Garmin.

 

Ours work fine in Europe, no problem after setting the right route options. As an example, we do not have tollroads but we have to pay a fee per year to get a stick to be able to drive on the highways. But the Navi intreprets this also as tollroad and we had to set this accordingly. Otherwise it would have added 2 hours to our last 3 hrs trip.

What's bad is the voice volume difference in between the guidance and road/city names. In the US you may not notice this much but when I drive to Italy the names will be spoken in clear italian but will lower volume and different voice. This sounds really strange.

But having the pictograms and distance to the furthcomming turn in the HUD is absolutely great!

 

In the unit on our 2010 Prius you are able to change those three speeds in the settings. I had to do this as the first trip we've done was calculated 1hr less than usual. The speeds were set to the max possible on our roads what is impossible with the many road works and stop lights. Now its calculation is good and accurate.

 

HUD isn't even an option in the US.

 

2010 Prius NAVI has Navteq...at least, that is what written on DVD. I have a Garmin 775. For longer distances or new destinations, i use Garmin. For normal stuff, i use the car's NAVI...works fine for me.

 

I have a Tomtom Go Live 1000 - I cannot but advice it hands-down. It has "saved my life" several times in town/city traffic (HD Traffic works also in cities by detecting traffic jams in most roads, and it is almost meter-precise). I had to "outsmart" it a couple of times, otherwise the Live HD Traffic is simply wonderful. It costed 300€, but considering the saving of a 2-3000€ Navi I cannot update/change and that I am stuck with, I am really happy I did not get it.

Regarding the comment on HUD...cwerdna, don't take it personal, but you pay the Prius cheap, fuel is cheap (even if you drive more is still *cheap*), motor oil is cheap, and I am almost sure you pay no road tax, right? no highway tolls - should I go on??
so no HUD is really not something to complain about.... at least we have that as a consolation each time we fuel at 8-9$/gal and pay 4L 0w-20 motor oil 130$ at Toyota (or 91$ via internet...when you find it).

 

Not to worry my friend...our politicians are working very hard so that we may catch up with you!!!

 

Just to chime in, while I've not travelled the same route of the OP, I've done more than enough extensive travel using the nav system in guidance mode to support it.

I find it very helpful and love the link via Nav traffic updates that allows it to alter the route based upon traffic congestion.

It also has, and I have used, the emergency options for quick present locations and phone numbers and routing to hospitals etc.

Yes I had a Tom Tom portable gps previously and learned on those that I'd like to have built in navand the added benefits to having a larger screen and better integration for multi-media and access to vehicle sensors to help in mountains, tunnels etc for correct gps functioning when temporarily out of sight of satellites.

So yeah, I like it, but sounds like an issue could exist in parts of the country, but do check the options out, and as has been said, look at the route options presented before engaging one that you don't like.

Roland.

 

I live in Tulsa too. Anyone in Tulsa knows you can't get anywhere without toll roads. The navigation system defaulted to avoid toll roads. I was about to write the whole thing off as worthless until I enabled that option.

It now works pretty good. I went on an out of town trip recently and it took me to the right destination whereas google maps on my phone was off by about 6 miles.

 

we europeans are special and we use better nav system that is in Lexus in usa... we also pay a lot more for ours

 

You sure it doesn't also have a Tele Atlas copyright in addition to the Navteq one?

See http://priuschat.com/forums/gen-iii...tion-10-1-gen-6-update-dvd-2.html#post1244872. In Rick's earlier post at http://priuschat.com/forums/gen-iii...tion-10-1-gen-6-update-dvd-2.html#post1244525, he said "Being one of the first 2010s, I was endowed with version 8.1 from the start..." I can tell you for sure he got a very early 2010 Gen 3.

 

I, too have experienced problems with the Nav on the 2010 Prius. Since I also own a 2004, as well as a garmin 785, I know that it is not cocpit trouble. After entering a destination, the voice says "proceed to the highlighted route". Often, there is nothing that directs you to the location where the guidance will begin. This can cause you to go out of your way before getting on track. It is an improvement over the 2004 which would end the guidance before arriving at your location. I also like being able to enter the destination by voice, thereby eliminating the need for the override of the 2004. But, I still keep my garmin in the armrest and have to pull it out on many occasions.