[Intrepid175]

Hi Cameron,

Thanks for the response!

Originally Posted by CameronJr9

Steve,
The update doesn't change any programming of the unit. It is simply the maps. I doubt we'll see any major programming changes for a while (if ever) for this unit.

That's pretty much what I figured. When programming waypoints, I wish it would allow me to pick a more generic location like a city along the way. As it is, I can only pick things like gas stations and restaurants. If it would simply allow me to route through a give city, 90% of my routing issues would go away.

As for your recent trip, the best thing I can recommend is that you sit down with your Navi and the manual and just play around with it. It'll take about half an hour, and it's very rewarding. I have to say, I've dealt with a couple of other OEM Navigation units from Ford, and the Civic's is top-notch. Still, it's not perfect. But, if you can figure out the intricacies, it helps!

I've done this before although I must admit, there's a LOT to keep track of and I'm not as proficient as I should be. I just got through going through the manual again and I'll try to state my observations in my responses below.

I'll also try to help answer your questions, or at least give you some guidance to where you can find your answers.

1. Once you have entered your destination and the navigation plots your course, take a second to review it. It's just like any other map or atlas you would use. You don't want to only look at the next mile, you want to see the whole trip before you go on your journey.

If you disagree with what the system says, you can program it to avoid certain roads throughout the trip.

(Without the unit in front of me, I believe you hit either the MAP button or the MENU button. One of those will lead you into a menu that allows you to avoid certain roads.)

Yup, tried that! The problem is, I delete one road and it routes me in the opposite direction, doing a complete recalculation of the route. When I try to delete a road in "that" direction, it does another complete recalculation and takes me back the same way it did the first time. Here's the scenario.

I ask it to calculate a route from home on the Texas Gulf Coast to a family members house in south central Illinois. It want's to take me east on I-10 across Louisiana to I-55 north through Mississippi. I've taken that route before and don't care for it. So....I delete I-10 and it reroute me north on I-45 to Dallas and east on I-30 which is better but, I much prefer to take US59 out of Houston to Texarkana where I'd pick up I-30. From that point, the nav unit and I are in reasonable agreement. If I delete I-45 north out of Houston, it recalculates and puts me back on I-10 to Lousiana. There doesn't seem to be any way around this. On a trip this long, the darn things going to keep me on Interstate highways to the exclusion of all else. The routing method that minimizes freeways is dimmed down on these trips and not available. So is the minimize toll roads option. I don't see why the length of the trip should illiminate those two options. I did find one sentence in the middle of a paragraph that stated that I can't designate what roads I want to take, only roads or areas that I want to avoid.

2. It's interesting that it still wanted you to make a U-Turn. Like I said, it's not perfect. But, the reason the mileage readout was so different was because it's not showing you the mileage from you to your destination "as the crow flies." Instead, it's showing you the length of travel. So, if it was asking you to make a U-Turn, double-back, and go a different route, it was probably asking you to double your travel length. Once it realized you weren't going to do that, it calculated the distance to your destination a different way and came up with a different mileage.

I understand that but to give you an example. On the return from the trip mentioned above, it had me routed through Dallas as usual. That's I-30 west to I-45 south to Houston. Anyway, it was showing a mileage of close to 450 miles. When you exit south on US59, the first mileage sign you'll see shows 291 miles to Houston. To me that's a significant difference. If the routing methods offered a "shortest" option too, that might take care of this. As it is, the "direct" and "easiest" options tend to pull up the same routeing regardless. At least is has so far for me.

3. When looking for a gas station (or restaurant or just about anything else), you can choose to list it in a couple of different ways. Again, I'm not at the unit, so I don't remember exactly, but I believe you have the following choices (or at least choices that are very similar).

* Sort by distance from vehicle
* Sort by distance from destination
* Sort by keyword
* Seems like there's another one...

I hope this helps. And if not, let me know. I can find some time to sit down with my own manual (and perhaps the Navi unit) and see if I can help.

Good luck!

I found this one. Whether or not I'll remember how to use it next time I try is another thing! Anyway, I know the database is outdated by the time we get it. New businesses are opened and old one's close down but the gas station it routed me to didn't exist at all. Usually there's "some" evidence that something was there before but this took me down a dead end road that had obviously always been a dead end road so the likelyhood of there ever having been a gas station there is next to none and if it had been there, it was 20 years ago. It could have left me in a world of hurt had I been more desperate for fuel. As it turned out, it was just a disappointing inconvenience.

Actually, I did find a way out of all of this. I just break down the trip into multiple trips. To force it onto US59, I'd program a trip to a known intersection at a city on US59. When I got close, I'd cancel what was left of the route do the same thing down the road to another destination. It worked for the most part. If you see something I'm missing, I'd really appreciate you pointing it out. All in all, it's not a bad system. It's got a lot of features that I'm probably not likely to use that often so when I do need them, the skills aren't going to be that sharp. I'll get it eventually! The manual is Ok but not very intuative in some areas. It took me forever to figure out how to delete an entry in my address book!

Thanks for the help,
Drive Safe,
Steve R.