Pleased to have a built in Sat Nav on my Newly acquired LS430, I splashed out and bought the latest disc.

As a test I got it to calculate a route from Bristol to Sidcup, wondering whether it would get me on the M25 after Slough, or take me through Wokingham

To my complete surprise it trys to take you through central London, and none of the 3 routes appears to do the journey the sensible way.

In the past I've used TomTom, a Mitac Mio, and Autoroute and they all suggest the M25 option.

Are there any settings you can alter to try to get it to behave more sensibly?

Andrew

That does sound odd, have you checked the settings to see whether you have "avoid motorways" activated?

Alternatively, does your car have traffic avoidance and was there a jam on the M25 at the time?

Those are the only two potential solutions I can think of at the mo

Thanks for the response.

I think it's no and no.

The system uses the M4 all the way from Bristol to London, and I tried inputing the route on Saturday and again today

Odd isn't it


Andrew

Hi,
My 400 sat nav wants to send me the shortest route. I don't know the area you mention, is it possible that this is the same thing?
Shortest doesn't always mean quickest or easiest though.

That does sound very odd...........what year is your car? I would've thought it's probably the same system as the one in my 2002 IS (fundamentally) so I'm surprised it doesn't offer the motorway as one of the routes (usually the quickest, or at least the alternative)

If all the settings are definitely set to off (avoid motorways, avoid toll roads, etc) then I'm confused as to why it would do that. Have you tried any other destinations to see whether it does the same thing?

Thanks Pathiban for your continued interest, and yes passman it is shorter the way it is suggesting. What seems odd is that it's not suggesting the quicker route as an alternative

The car is a 2004 LS430 with the very latest disc.

I was going to try putting the old disc back, but I understand that it sometimes updates the firmware when a new disk is installed and this may cause further problems.

I did use it (with the old disc) to go to the Lake District from Bristol and it did it perfectly.

I'll try some sample destinations today and report back.


Andrew

Hi, Welcome to the Club....

Not sure about in the LS but in my GS its in the options to state "quickest" or "shortest" - check you have that set up correctly.

Again - Not sure in the LS - In my GS I can set avg speed by road type - this affects the routing - If these speeds are not set at reasonable values then it can take you some strange ways too.....worth checking these out as a possibility.

This is really weird

I've tried it with the default settings, also increased the speed on the motorway section to 80mph, and dropped the urban speed to 5mph and it still insists on taking me through central London

Shows the journey time of 6 hours. I've got Quick 1, Quick 2, and Short.

The only way it will choose the M25 automatically is if it takes me via Salisbury, a journey nobody in their right mind would take.

I've also looked at the alternative route to the Lake District the main route which it did correctly, and this shoots wildly to the east and adds another 80 miles

The 2 ways I've found of forcing it to go the correct way are:

1. Giving it the exit on the M25
2. Setting an area to avoid in central London (not a bad thing )

Not a major problem, just a bit disappointing that you can buy a complete Sat Nav system for less than the cost of the update disc, which appears to have better route calculation algorithms


Andrew

Sounds like a couple of bugs in the new version then....

Mark W, I think you've hit the nail on the head.

I've just put the old disc back in and it calculates the route correctly ie M4 >M25.

I'm going to get in touch with the supplier as I really don't want to check every route and fiddle with the area to avoid to get from A to B

Maybe this should be made a sticky, and the title changed to "Strange Routing with new 08/09 Update Disc" as I think prospective purchasers may want to be made aware of it's shortcomings


Andrew

That is really interesting, I was thinking of upgrading my DVD but I'll have to think about it now - I always thought it was just an upgrade of maps and everything else stays the same.....

Yes, I thought so too.

Anyway I've contacted lexus-mapupdates and Navteq and will report back when I hear something


Andrew

This is part of the reply I received from Navteq

Thank you for contacting NAVTEQ.

NAVTEQ have not influence on the route calculations that are made by your navigation system as this is determined by the navigation system.

I replied asking them that if this is the case why does the original 2004 version route correctly, and also whether the disc included a firmware update.

I await their response, and will report accordingly


Andrew

Not an entirely true response either..

Watching this thread with interest !!

Was just about to click 'add to basket' for a new disc when I read this thread........

Let us know the outcome.


The Ed

Just tried the route to Sidcup on my month old GS. Sure enough, takes me partially round the M25 (coming from the North), but then, as soon as it's directly North of Sidcup, diverts off on to the A roads straight down to Sidcup rather than continuing round the M25 and then turning west. This is with motorways set on, and quickest route choice. Not a very bright system...

Just an update NAVTEQ have gone quiet, since I asked for their clarification, and the supplier Lexus-mapupdates is "still waiting to hear from the person who deals with this"

Reminders sent


Andrew

OK to put this one to bed from my point of view

Navteq never responded to two further emails from myself, so we can assume they are not interested in bugs in their product.

Lexus mapupdates were very good in respect of answering emails but they couldn't do anything until the next update around Oct/Nov 2009.

The have however agreed to refund my money, and have arranged to collect the discs via DHL.

My view is that although it would be nice to have up to date roads, and POI's, it is more important to me to have a system that calculates routes with some degree of intelligence


Andrew

hI i HAVE A 2002 430 AND WHEN THE SAT NAV THROWS UP A STRANGE ROUTE I just add a 'waypoint' on the route i want to take.this normally solves the problem

Not really the point of sat nav though because if you know where you are going you wouldn't need of at all

hi there,
anyways this is abit off the topic but i posted her because its kind of the same thing....well first the arrow which shows where i am always use to be pointing up the way but since i have changed the battery it does not do that anymore and i can not find it in the settings so anyone could help would be nice
thanks

happened to me yesterday so what i done was took the wire to the batterey out and resets everything and after that it was perfectly fine. let me know if this works for you
thanks