430 Owners. Are You Happy With The Navigation System?

[Jefflex]

Ok. I'm new to the 430's. This means I'm open to all things new learning about my new car. I can read a manual ... and follow it.

When it takes a book of well over 100 pages to tell you how the satnav works you might forgive me for getting just a little bit bored ...

finally after about 30 odd minutes I did manage to understand how to set the unit to home... well done I thought .. now I just have the rest to learn .. .. .. ZZzzzZZZZzzz

I'm with Tom Tom and have been for years. True, Tom and I have fallen out at times and almost come to blows on occasions. He has LED me up the garden path, down an ally that was just wide enough for a bicycle, once into oncoming traffic and another time around in hopeless circles. I can forgive Tom all those transgressions because the manual is just 2 pages thick. This is because the rest is pretty much self explanatory .. ..

I find the system in my car to be the most caffangled system I ever did see. Its a millennium behind the cheapest modern systems from Tom, Garmin and Navman. Now the previous owner has updated the maps in my car so its not old mapping I have. I do feel that the base software such as it is, is very old. I have several countries on the system too. Hey, guess what? I got the Vatican City! Yay! And San Morino. Luck me.

What I dont have is a command for France or Belgium but the system seems to know Im in these places and tells me that I am crossing a border but trying to set an address and the system gets haplessly lost and seem to just want to understand English spellings to French addresses as the possible input letters are somehow computed in English and the letter options just arent there and so the system just freezes. Its laughable .. .. .. so long as you dont have to rely on it that is.

From the get go Ive failed to trust this system and I was happy I had Tom with me to sort out my navigation needs.

The bottom line as far as my opinion goes is that the system in the 430s is really antiquated junk. Hopelessly out of date in every way and as Lexus want £160 for up-dated mapping, remember, this does not up-date the operating system which you would need to do to bring some modern relevance to the system. This is one customer that would prefer to buy a whole new modern unit of any manufacture than buy new stuff for a tacky old system.

Its a shame that the screen cant be replaced with a Tom unit but there are so many other features that are controlled through this screen.

Id be glad to hear what the rest of you think.

http://www.lexus-mapupdates.eu

Snaps

[autobahn]

I'm warming to the nav system in the LS430. It is extraordinarily difficult to master and quite cumbersome to use but, given the hardware limitations on an older car like the LS430, it does a fairly good job. I think very few automotive satnav systems can rival Tom Tom. I haven't tried the LS430's system abroad so I'm only judging it for UK navigation and just a couple of weeks of using it. So far I have had a 100% success rate for, I would guess, 30-40 different addresses.

I really like the feature which shows you, quite clearly, the current road you are travelling on. On previous nav systems it wasn't that clear on the map display. However, this is an option you have to enable in the setup. The automatic re-routing works very well, as does the TMC function. Inputting destination addresses is quite simple.

The downsides are related to the hardware for me. The nav display resolution and colour depth is very antiquated. The user interface reminds me of home computer software from 80s!

Overall, in my opinion, it has been acceptable for me so far.

[mikesands]

Yeah until last week I was very annoyed at having paid £150 for the update expecting at least that I could use postcodes for input and hopefully a more modern appearance to the map. But no .... what's worse is that my particular version prefers to show the names of tiny villages in great big letters and regards the major towns as unimportant (doesn't display them at all).

But last week I set the system to take me from the north east to Treforrest in Glamorgan, and set the same journey in TomTom on my phone. They both obviously discussed matters and came to a consensus all the way down to the M50 when the Lexus system told me to go via Bristol and the TomTom got really annoyed because I thought I would give that a try. All the way down to the M4 TomTom wanted me to turn round and go back up to the M50 junction. Finally in a real bad temper it asked me if I really wanted to use a toll bridge. I said I did, but it still wanted to take me down on to the beach somewhere, and never got the predicted mileage or time right after my disobedience at the M50. The Lexus system was spot on, and probably right about it being quicker via Bristol ... being lexus it probably thought the £5.50 to cross the suspension bridge was kicking round in the little coin tray.

But on the whole I think the Lexus system is horrible (It is from 2001 though)

Mike

[ChrisHampshire]

agree....even a basic sub £100 TomTom knocks the spots off it.

Whenever I know I am going to need Nav, I take the TomTom. I have used the in-car system to Nav unexpectedly and it generally gets me where I want to go but it's no fun to use!

[Parthiban]

I know I have an IS but the nav systems are very similar (if not identical) and I'm amazed at the unanimous decision that TomToms are better! Yes they're easier to program and generally have more features (like post code search and stuff) but in terms of actually navigating the Lexus nav is far far superior. It really is a very good navigation system (even by today's standards) and I really don't get what all the fuss is about.

[passman53]

I've never used a Tom Tom but when I have used the one in the car it has never failed to get me there.

Pete

[lancashire man]

i have only just bought my 430,i used it to get me home from chatham to manchester area,it did this without fault and i think it was much much better than other in built sat nav systems i have used.i especially liked the split screen when it shows the road you are on,then it gives a close up of the junction or turning you have got to take to continue your journey.plus it gives it's directions well before so it does not come as a surprise,unlike the one in my rover 75 which was utterly useless.

[Mark W]

It might not be comparable to some of the tom-tom or other devices on the Market in terms of features etc but what I do like is, it's just there - no cables, power issues, loss of GPS signal or suction pad holder marks on your windscreen.

Mine never failed me and always got me there. That's what a sat nav should do :-)