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beginning to wonder about 08 nav adress database

Discussion in 'Gen 2 Prius Main Forum' started by sas0611, Sep 2, 2008.

  1. sas0611

    sas0611 Member

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    my wife and I both have 08 prii and both are too frequently finding addresses we enter into nav are coming back as non-existent? I am sure am constructing the search correctly. I put the same exact coordinates into my iPhone and it finds it with no problem.
     
  2. GT in PA

    GT in PA New Member

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    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
     
  3. sorka

    sorka Active Member

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    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.
     
  4. sas0611

    sas0611 Member

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    my search area is set correctly. Address searches here in bucks county pa are hit or miss. I hoped use it for business. Before I got iPhone I was printing out mapquest directions in case prius nav would let me down. This is very disappointing. I need to feel confident that I'm going to get routing while I'm doing business from my car. Btw. Just about never finds an address by phone number search. Anyone else having problems. Is it just the region I'm trying to search in.
     
  5. qbee42

    qbee42 My other car is a boat

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    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
     
  6. sorka

    sorka Active Member

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    NavTech is not used by *every* manufacturer. There are more complete dbs out there but you have to pay more for them.
     
  7. sas0611

    sas0611 Member

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    Thanks Tom
     
  8. Sho-Bud

    Sho-Bud Member

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    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)
     
  9. abcdefgary

    abcdefgary New Member

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    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.
     
  10. qbee42

    qbee42 My other car is a boat

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    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
     
  11. qbee42

    qbee42 My other car is a boat

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    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
     
  12. qbee42

    qbee42 My other car is a boat

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    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
     
  13. GT in PA

    GT in PA New Member

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    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
     
  14. abcdefgary

    abcdefgary New Member

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    It sometimes doesn't help because there are many pages of options if I only just enter 20.
     
  15. 9G-man

    9G-man Senior Member

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    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.
     
  16. qbee42

    qbee42 My other car is a boat

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    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
     
  17. 9G-man

    9G-man Senior Member

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    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.
     
  18. aaf709

    aaf709 Ravenpaw of ThunderClan

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    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.
     
  19. sorka

    sorka Active Member

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    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.
     
  20. GT in PA

    GT in PA New Member

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    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? :rolleyes:

    GT