Is all Nav units as bad as Leaf's?

Just got another grudge driving last weekend when we had major highway closures in Seattle...
Nav clearly showed highway and exit closures using the gray icon with crossed sign and displayed info on traffic info screen, BUT every time I planned the route it was picking those closed highways and exits... What's the point of having XM traffic alerts and Navigation if it cannot use that information to plan a route and detour?

That is about how they all work afaik. Just use a different exit and the navigation will continue to find the way.
All I want is a single button to cancel the route guidance.

smkettner said:

That is about how they all work afaik. Just use a different exit and the navigation will continue to find the way.
All I want is a single button to cancel the route guidance.

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Unfortunately taking the next exit does not work when major highway (with the bridge) is closed, the detour would be 10 miles or more in my case, instead of few miles if the route would have been calculated from point of origin with closed highway in mind and I would have to go back on the same highway and hit a few miles of terrible detour traffic...
Does it actually use any XM traffic info to calculate fastest route or it just displays it?
I wish I could run a google maps on vehicle Nav unit...

smkettner said:

That is about how they all work afaik. Just use a different exit and the navigation will continue to find the way.
All I want is a single button to cancel the route guidance.

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Hmmm - didn't know that. I'd consider that a major missed integration opportunity. Basically the Traffic & Router planner aren't talking- and they should.

evnow said:

smkettner said:

That is about how they all work afaik. Just use a different exit and the navigation will continue to find the way.
All I want is a single button to cancel the route guidance.

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Hmmm - didn't know that. I'd consider that a major missed integration opportunity. Basically the Traffic & Router planner aren't talking- and they should.

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+1

I just noticed for the first time yesterday that when you have a route set you can click Menu, Route, Traffic Detour and then maybe route around something like this? Not automatic, or even prompted, though.

Electric4Me said:

I just noticed for the first time yesterday that when you have a route set you can click Menu, Route, Traffic Detour and then maybe route around something like this? Not automatic, or even prompted, though.

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Yes, you can do that, but it is too late when you realize that the route is blocked... It is good for unexpected things, but it is silly that Nav knows that the road is closed, but still uses it to plot a route...

Plus that thing is so inconvenient, you have only what 3 or 4 choices where you say that detour some number of miles... am I supposed to guess/calculate how much I should detour?
In my case about 5 miles of the highway was closed, so any detour option proposed by Nav was putting me on the same closed highway...

What is more mind numbing is that there is voice recognition but only for some useless commands and not practical ones. The LEAF NAV is the worst car NAV I have used in a Japanese car in at least seven years. It's a clunky, poor-featured and pasted together system that Nissan should be ashamed to have put in a new car let alone an EV where NAV is very important to reducing travel time and finding things easily and safely. They lock out the controls and provide no direct voice command when driving, a total joke of a NAV and audio system even if it were several years old. At least there is a voice command for international calls I never make but none like "find nearest charging station". Too bad the screen is not wrapped in the seat fabric or the blue eco applique trim, that would make it perfect. :lol:

EVDRIVER said:

What is more mind numbing is that there is voice recognition but only for some useless commands and not practical ones. The LEAF NAV is the worst car NAV I have used in a Japanese car in at least seven years. It's a clunky, poor-featured and pasted together system that Nissan should be ashamed to have put in a new car let alone an EV where NAV is very important to reducing travel time and finding things easily and safely. They lock out the controls and provide no direct voice command when driving, a total joke of a NAV and audio system even if it were several years old. At least there is a voice command for international calls I never make but none like "find nearest charging station". Too bad the screen is not wrapped in the seat fabric or the blue eco applique trim, that would make it perfect. :lol:

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EVDRIVER: I agree with you 100%. For what the NAV cost us, I wish Nissan had given us Leather seats---or at least some quality interior material.

How much NAV do you really need on a local commuter car? For me it is fine. I may not know a specific address but I basically know where I am going. If on a 500+ mile trip then it becomes more important. JMHO.

smkettner said:

How much NAV do you really need on a local commuter car? For me it is fine. I may not know a specific address but I basically know where I am going. If on a 500+ mile trip then it becomes more important. JMHO.

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I personally rarely need Nav for pure navigation, but traffic, I use it every day!
I live on schedule, and I always want to know when I need to leave one place to arrive at another on time and not waste time waiting at destination, and if there's a congestion I want to know what is the best alternative - stick with the current root or take an alternative IF it will be faster. Unfortunately with Leaf Nav I can't get anything that I really need from Nav unit for LOCAL driving. The pitty is that it has all info, but it is not used to provide useable output for the driver...

Speaking of Traffic....was anyone's missing this morning? I had the Traffic button, so I knew it wasn't off my XM trial account again, but the lines didn't show up for like 20 minutes after I started driving, when typically they're there after just a few seconds/1 minute. This would have been around 9:30am Pacific.

smkettner said:

That is about how they all work afaik. Just use a different exit and the navigation will continue to find the way.
All I want is a single button to cancel the route guidance.

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+1 on the single button. I'm going down the freeway @ 65mph, and want to stop guidance, with the Leaf, I have to: take my eyes off the road, PUSH MENU, PUSH ROUTE, PUSH CANCEL. On my 6yr old Prius, without taking my eyes off the road, I push the "talk" button on the steering wheel, and say: "suspend guidance".
Of course, with mostly local driving with the Leaf, I don't anticipate using the Navigation all that much. But, it's easy for me to get lost here in Southern California, with all the dead-end streets, or streets that start--then stop--then resume on the other side of a canyon somewhere. :roll:

UkrainianKozak said:

smkettner said:

I personally rarely need Nav for pure navigation, but traffic, I use it every day!

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I agree - I am disappointed with the traffic function - I use google maps on my phone - guess they weren't looking at that when they designed it.

The entire nav and entertainment system feels like it was designed ten years ago... It's amazing how good the current Pioneer and Alpine units are compared to the Leaf's Clarion...

rpmdk said:

I agree - I am disappointed with the traffic function - I use google maps on my phone - guess they weren't looking at that when they designed it.

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mogur said:

The entire nav and entertainment system feels like it was designed ten years ago... It's amazing how good the current Pioneer and Alpine units are compared to the Leaf's Clarion...

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nav is average and definitely not the worst one, the worst one I've seen was in latest Mitsubishi and the best one that I owned was in Acura

Yeah, the Acura is Alpine...

IBELEAF said:

mogur said:

The entire nav and entertainment system feels like it was designed ten years ago... It's amazing how good the current Pioneer and Alpine units are compared to the Leaf's Clarion...

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nav is average and definitely not the worst one, the worst one I've seen was in latest Mitsubishi and the best one that I owned was in Acura

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The LEAF nav system worked fine to guide me out of NYC when I rented the Hertz LEAF yesterday. I set it for "Jersey City, NJ", but when I got past there, it wouldn't let me cancel route guidance until I was stopped in traffic; until then, it kept telling me various options for making a "legal U-turn" to get back to Jersey City.

By the time I got back to my neck of the woods on the north side of Philly, the maps were really sparse. Most of my local driving last night was "in the fields" according to the map display. My house is in the Borough of Ivyland on one of the original streets which has been here since the 1870's, but the LEAF's nav doesn't know it exists. Maybe they haven't put any emphasis on completing the maps in this part of the country since the LEAF isn't officially released here, yet. Looks as if they've got a ways to go...

Then they shouldn't have put a nav in it at all. It costs little more to make a decent high quality nav as compared to the relic that is in the Leaf... Actually, with an electric car and limited range, good routings are even more important than in an ICE...

smkettner said:

How much NAV do you really need on a local commuter car? For me it is fine. I may not know a specific address but I basically know where I am going. If on a 500+ mile trip then it becomes more important. JMHO.

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mogur said:

Then they shouldn't have put a nav in it at all. It costs little more to make a decent high quality nav as compared to the relic that is in the Leaf... Actually, with an electric car and limited range, good routings are even more important than in an ICE...

smkettner said:

How much NAV do you really need on a local commuter car? For me it is fine. I may not know a specific address but I basically know where I am going. If on a 500+ mile trip then it becomes more important. JMHO.

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My point exactly. I find most of the technology in the LEAF to be extremely dated and disappointing like a manual charge cover release next to the hood release, smart and easy to use :roll: The NAV and entire interface is terrible and cobbled together, Nissan should really be ashamed for releasing such a poor system with such poor software in what is supposed to be an advanced EV. I really hope they fix this but it's unlikely there will ever be an update to the NAV software only the maps. I find it outright stupid that they lock the controls while driving and yet have voice recognition in the system but there are only a few useless commands. To your point, what good is it if you need to find something in a limited range car and you need to exit the freeway to enter the info but you can use voice commands to prompt for an international call? Are all Nissan NAV units this antiquated and frustrating to use? Nissan please update this horrible system software to be more functional and practical. I'll try not to rant on this too much more until I get a Nissan auto survey but those that even have a eight year old Acura know what I mean.

I now need to go reboot my LEAF as it is having the AC error again since it was in the sun a few days.