I've basically given up on Nav in this car

This is the first car I've ever had with built-in Nav. I always thought it was overpriced. What I didn't realize, though, is how worthless it is. Not only is in-car nav expensive, but in the case of the Leaf it's actually not usable.

Here are the problems with this car's nav:

1) The Bad: The hand-holding is ridiculous. I cannot go direct to an XM station while driving, but I can navigate (requiring more steps) via catalog. Also, a passenger cannot put in a destination while driving. This is infuriating at times and in the same vein as the oft-hated "ok" button at start-up.

2) The Ugly: Search is woefully, shockingly, heart-breakingly, and breathtakingly terrible. I've complained on this before, but I have found that about HALF/50% of the locations I want to go to I cannot find. It just cannot find common street names. I don't know if it's because of its ineptitude with cities/townships that are right next to each other, or it has in the computer a street such as "E avenue" and I put in "East Avenue", but it can't find anything.

Although I have this navigation system on a four month old car the nav I actually use when I need it, because it finds 100% of everything on the planet 100% of the time, and quickly, is my iPhone's google maps with a $11 phone holder hanging from the windshield. So am I too stupid to use the car's nav? Maybe! However, Google maps at least doesn't remind me of my stupidity and finds what I want.

The only thing good I can say about nav in this car is that if it does manage to find a location it works well, with a nice crisp direction to it and easy to follow.

I can't wait for car manufacturers to build real capabilities into their dash computers/displays and give us apps like google maps.

The lock out while driving is pretty much par for the course. All Navs seem to do it. As far as the search, I haven't had much problem searching for streets, but the location database (businesses, etc...) is poor. Nowhere near as well populated as the one in my last two gens of Prius.

Once you set up a route in Google Maps, you can send it to the LEAF's navigation for the turn-by-turn directions. Seems to work pretty well. Not sure if you can do it from a cellphone, but from maps.google.com, it works.

http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=3370" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Sorry about your bad experiences. I had some difficulty using it initially..but as time goes by and I started to fill up the address book, the Nav is pretty perfect nowadays.

EatsShootsandLeafs said:

but I have found that about HALF/50% of the locations I want to go to I cannot find. It just cannot find common street names...
I can't wait for car manufacturers to build real capabilities into their dash computers/displays and give us apps like google maps.

Click to expand...

Tesla is already using Google maps.

You can always use the "MAP" feature (instead of an address) to physically move the pointer to the destination to the place on the map that you want to go.

There are several ways to disable the "can't set destination address while moving" safety feature. I've detailed how I did it in the forum. At it's simplest, you can literally put an ON/OFF switch in one wire to the Navigation unit. Quick and easy.

If you wish to find/enter E (or East) Grady Dr (or Drive), you should
ONLY enter "Grady", and NOT the E or East or Dr or Drive, and it will
prompt you for the variations of Grady, if needed, later.

That should make the street searching work well.

http://kemp.it/keith/leaf-nav-override.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=186651#p186651" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I never use the nav for entering information. The leaf link app works so much better and the passenger can send the data to the car while its moving. I highly recommend this app.

Nubo said:

Once you set up a route in Google Maps, you can send it to the LEAF's navigation for the turn-by-turn directions. Seems to work pretty well. Not sure if you can do it from a cellphone, but from maps.google.com, it works.

http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=3370" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Click to expand...

You can't do it from a cellphone apparently, at least not iOS, last I checked a month or two ago

It's really absurd that the search is so bad that it's common practice of people to find the location in google maps and transmit to the car.

You can always use the "MAP" feature (instead of an address)

Click to expand...

I've never used that. I will give that a shot!

If you wish to find/enter E (or East) Grady Dr (or Drive), you should
ONLY enter "Grady", and NOT the E or East or Dr or Drive, and it will
prompt you for the variations of Grady, if needed, later.

Click to expand...

Thanks, will try this, too.

The leaf link app works so much better and the passenger can send the data to the car while its moving. I highly recommend this app.

Click to expand...

I have this app; it's better than the Nissan one...Except I've never used it for mapping. I will try this, too.

Three great ideas, thanks, everyone!

EatsShootsandLeafs said:

Nubo said:

Once you set up a route in Google Maps, you can send it to the LEAF's navigation for the turn-by-turn directions. Seems to work pretty well. Not sure if you can do it from a cellphone, but from maps.google.com, it works.

http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=3370" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Click to expand...

You can't do it from a cellphone apparently, at least not iOS, last I checked a month or two ago

It's really absurd that the search is so bad that it's common practice of people to find the location in google maps and transmit to the car.

Click to expand...

I agree the LEAF's nav is balky to use. But even if it were more user-friendly I just find it a lot easier to plan a trip on a large screen with Google Maps. I'm used to the interface and it's just a lot easier to examine the area, look at alternatives, local amenities, and various other examinations I like to do before a longish trip to an unfamiliar destination. I'll sometimes plan a route online with CarWings, and then switch to Google Maps to round out the process.

Ignoring the NAV's annoying safety festures:

1. Touch to accept/reject
2. Limited interaction when moving

The NAV system actually works very well, except for these major shortcomings:

1. The map/street/road data coverage is incomplete, covering
population centers more than more rural areas. Frustrating if you
live in a non/poorly covered area, or travel into one... just when
you actually need the Nav the most. Many stand-alone Nav
units contain "all" the roads in the lower 48 states, and...
both roads in Alaska. :lol:

2. The Points-of-Interest database is very limited, often missing many
entries that can be found in some under $150 GPS NAV units.
Some have 12 million POI, instead of something like one million.

3. Very limited voice entry, almost as if it was an afterthought.

I find that if I enter the city information first when typing in the destination address, the search is much faster because the address has been localized to a city. Otherwise, it seems like it's trying to look for that address through multiple possible cities that has that street name and it takes a lot longer to find.

After having used both Garmin and TomToms I would rate this system far superior and intuitive and almost perfect to use and extemely accurate in its directions. I may be easy to please, but I love this gadget.

Seems like I always have trouble with it routing me to highways when I specifically indicate to avoid highways. And if you go off and decide to avoid those highways anyway, getting the darn thing to reroute your route is like pulling teeth. Seems like it needs me to get about 10 mile away from the first route before it'll reroute for me. Before that, it's constantly telling me to make U-turns to go back to the original route. Pain in the neck.

I love the Leaf navi, but I agree the search feature is poor. I rarely need to use it while in the car. I typically search using Google Maps at home since I almost always know my destinations before I leave so I send it to car. You can download them while driving and as the OP mentioned, once they are entered as destinations the navigation directions are excellent. I find them better than my Nuvi and having the screen down low in the console is so much better than having them up on top of the dash where the brightness of the sunlit street makes the Nuvi map almost useless. I have had terrible luck finding intersections with the Leaf, and I posted about it before, but generally if I have a street address it can find it, and if I've been there before via the navi, I can always pull it up from previous destinations. Different people have different needs but for most a little training and experimenting will solve most problems.

I would have to agree with the OP on everything. Nissan can learn a thing or two from my 6 year old TomTom One and 4 year old Garmin Nuvi 885T with voice recognition. Both of these devices excel in nearly every way except screen real estate, and both devices are completely obsolete. The LEAFs GPS is a nice feature, but very poorly implemented. The same can be said of the heated steering wheel- ahh warmth.... ::minute later:: ICE COLD (and it's still "on"). It seems as though the cars best features were implemented in a way so as to intentionally sabotage the car. It's definitely a first generation vehicle. LOTS of room for improvement, particularly in the infotainment system.

el4 said:

After having used both Garmin and TomToms I would rate this system far superior and intuitive and almost perfect to use and extemely accurate in its directions. I may be easy to please, but I love this gadget.

Click to expand...

+1.

I usually send the address from Carwings.

evnow said:

el4 said:

After having used both Garmin and TomToms I would rate this system far superior and intuitive and almost perfect to use and extemely accurate in its directions. I may be easy to please, but I love this gadget.

Click to expand...

+1.

I usually send the address from Carwings.

Click to expand...

+2

I used to, but now I usually send the address from Leaf Link (app).

having used several car based NAV versions along with google on the phone/computer, I can honestly say, THEY ALL HAVE ISSUES.

google is better only because they put the most energy into updating the database which means any car based system is going to lose. Tesla using google (with updates i assume) is good but i have had issues finding the right address with google on the computer as well. I always find what I need but its far from automatic and I see people struggle with it daily

so...

I think the LEAF NAV has its good points and its bad points but is more than functional. there is a method to the search and best advice; keep it simple.

start with the city first to narrow down the list especially for common street names. leave out every but the actual street name. let the system provide you a list to pick from (also saves tapping and time)

and if the destination is not recently built or new, use the POI's. it seems to be somewhat faster but again, they also have glaring omissions

kubel said:

The same can be said of the heated steering wheel- ahh warmth.... ::minute later:: ICE COLD (and it's still "on").

Click to expand...

I noticed the same of course, very weird behavior.

I tried searching for a location on the Leaf Link app and I'm fairly sure it is like a "pedantic" version of google maps; I mean it cannot find places that google maps can, or has less of a fuzzy search feature or something. I need to look into the pre-leave desktop search idea, too.

Just ran across this article:

http://www.foxnews.com/leisure/2013/01/22/vehicle-owners-becoming-less-satisfied-with-in-car-navigation-systems/?intcmp=features" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

A new report from J.D. Power and Associates says that car owners are becoming less satisfied with their in-car navigation systems and more of them are choosing to use smartphone apps, instead.

Click to expand...

Mirrors basically my complaints: the nav works well once it's going but getting to that point is frustrating.

and 46 percent said they would definitely not order a factory-installed system if their mobile apps could be displayed on their vehicle’s multimedia screen.

Click to expand...

Yee haw,yes!