beginning to wonder about 08 nav adress database

Is there a chance that you have the wrong district/area selected in which you are trying to search? I often change mine when traveling to a different district and then find that I have forgotten to change it back.

GT

 

Your navigation database is provided by NavTech which has the least complete database in the US. Even 10 years after my house was built, they still haven't added our address, street, or neighborhood. In fact, in 2004, when we bought our FX45, I was dismayed to find out our NavTech based system was missing the address. We reported it to NavTech directly and they promised it would be in the next release. We spent $300 on the update on the next release only to find out they'd lied and not added it. Worse, they wouldn't let use return the DVD for a refund as it was useless to use. We complained to Infiniti and they just shrugged stating there was nothing they could do. As a result, I ended up actually selling the FX45 a few months later.

Back then, Toyota and Honda were both using other databases and our house was in both of them, just not Nissan/Infiniti which was using NavTech. It appears now that Toyota is using NavTech as well on at least some models. I can only guess it's to save money.

 

As previously stated, the Nav database is from Navteq. Navteq provides the map data for most automobile GPS systems, so it's not like Toyota picked an unknown company or bit player in this area. All of the map databases have their strengths and weaknesses.

It is possible that you are searching in a poorly mapped area, but it's more likely that the problem is with your search technique. Keep in mind that searching is done by the Nav software, not by the database, so it will vary from one manufacturer to another, even if they use the same database.

With the Toyota system, it's very important to enter data from general to specific. Don't give the system any extra or superfulous data - it's just like the old Dragnet line: "Just the facts, ma'am."

Try this approach to entering an address:

1) Make sure you are in the proper region. Obviously it won't find a New York address if you are searching on the West Coast.

2) Enter the city.

3) Enter the street. Don't use any North, South, N, S, or other prefixes. Don't enter Street, St., Ave., Blvd, or any other suffexes. The system will give you a list of matches, from which you can select the proper variation. This avoids the problem on not matching when you enter N and the system has it as North.

4) Enter the street number.

This approach will work almost every time. Note that this is the order of entry on the Garmin Nuvi system. Garmin chose to ask for data in this order to facilitate the search. For some reason Toyota decided to ask for the data in standard address form, which is backward from an incremental search standpoint.

Tom

 

NavTech is not used by *every* manufacturer. There are more complete dbs out there but you have to pay more for them.

 

Now that's strange, since Mapquest uses Navteq maps as well.
If the street is in Mapquest, it should also be on the maps thet the Prius uses (depending on the date of your maps)

 

Um, I don't know if this helps, but I've found that street numbers tend to need a "th" behind it.

For example, whenever I enter "20 St", it will tell me that it cannot locate the address. But when I enter "20th St" then it finds it.

 

This gets into that fuzzy area where a name can be expressed in several ways. If we use your example of 20th St., I would enter it like this:

1) 20

Generally this will bring up a list that would show 20th St. as one of the options. If that didn't work, then I might suspect it was spelled out, so I'd use this:

2) twentieth, or maybe just twent

...and see if anything came up. Finally I'd go with:

3) 20th

At no time would I enter the street suffix. Nothing but confusion will come from that. Let the system show you a list and select from there. It's much easier that way.

Tom

 

Mapquest has a more robust search function. It's much like looking for a term in the dictionary verses Google. Google will say "Did you mean..." and give you the corrected spelling, even when you badly mangle it. Other software systems would be well served to take a page from Google's book.

Tom

 

As far as I know, no manufacturer uses NavTech. I assume you mean Navteq. They are used by the majority of Nav systems. As for which one is the best, I couldn't say, but I suspect it would depend on which one had the best data for where you drive.

Tom

 

NavTech is now NavTeq which is a Nokia company if I remember correctly. I think they are the largest database company (for GPS maps) followed by Tele Atlas.

GT

 

It sometimes doesn't help because there are many pages of options if I only just enter 20.

 

If you enter state and city first, there will only be a few result options when you then input the "20" street name only. That is what gbee42 is trying to communicate. You gotta input addresses 'backward' from how we think about them to get the most out of this system.

Are you inputting an address or a Lat/Long coordinate? They are different. An address must be inputted As i stated above to ensure the possibilities are narrowed down.
I have run into an issue where the "city" was different in the database than what the area is "commonly" referred by those who lived there.

 

I've hit that one too. For example, the post office address might be Kalamazoo, but the street address is Portage. Township addresses can also be hard to figure out: is it a city address, or a township? Sometimes you have to work the other way around to figure it out.

Tom

 

Why would it be important that your own address be in the database?
Your "home" location could be established via a "present position" waypoint sitting in your driveway, or via Lat/Long coordinates.
I don't see where that absence warrants spending money on an update disk nor selling the car.

 

It happened once that I had the wrong region and it couldn't find a street that had been there for decades. When I got there (via Google Maps) I hit the map button and it clearly showed the street and number. That proved it was in the database.

 

Because it was just an example as many other addresses are missing too. Also, people who've never been to my house before are often annoyed when they can't nav to my 10 year old address when they're running NavTeq based systems.

 

http://mapreporter/navteq.com

This site might help take care of your address problem. I submitted to this site after we combined 3 offices and built a new office last year and it showed up this year for the first time (although I suspect that businesses get special treatment).

Sorka, it's really hard to believe that your whole neighborhood isn't in their database after 10 years. Where did you get your information that NayTeq is the "least complete database in the US" by the way?

GT