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I am currently shopping for a new car. Most of the salefolks I came across actually recommended us to stay away from dedicated GPS devices, (built into the car

I am currently shopping for a new car. Most of the salefolks I came across actually recommended us to stay away from dedicated GPS devices, (built into the car or stand alone). They actually recommend for us to use our smart phone and coupled it with Apple CarPlay or Android Auto.

organsnyder 9y ago
Our new car happened to include nav in the trim package we wanted. It is nice having it integrated with the vehicle (it doesn't have CarPlay or Android Auto), and available regardless of cell phone status. However, I'm not going to spend hundreds of dollars per year for map updates.
- rhombocombus 9y ago
  That's insane. It costs a couple hundred dollars a year to update aircraft Instrument flight GPS maps (and EVERYTHING is expensive on an airplane), it's galling that automakers would deign to charge so much for a product that almost all of us have available for free on our phones.
- reaperducer 9y ago
  You're lucky you can pay for map updates. The navigation system for my car has NEVER been updated by the manufacturer. It's simply not an option. Which means it was out of date the day the car was built. Every now and again I'll look at the screen and see my car floating across a barren landscape. That's how I know the road I'm on was built after 2013.
Grazester 9y ago
This. Dedicated units get updates slower, aren't as good as using your Google map with Android auto and will eventually stop receiving updates.
wehadfun 9y ago
Having both is nice. For the most part Android Auto is great but sometimes cord doesn't work, phone dead,... the integrated on is good enough
mikeash 9y ago
Funny, when I was car shopping in 2013 it was the exact opposite. They kept trying to sell us on built-in nav systems even though we repeatedly told them that we don’t care about those systems and plan to use our phones. Maybe they’ve finally caught on.
- raverbashing 9y ago
  If you're not going somewhere where there's no 3G connection then there is no need to worry But on the countryside there is usually no usable signal for great stretches of road
  - mikeash 9y ago
    There are plenty of smartphone navigation apps that work without a connection.
  - ams6110 9y ago
    Google Maps lets you download your route in advance. So with a bit of planning you don't need data. I have no data plan on my phone, yet I navigate with Google Maps all the time in this way. I just download on WiFi beforehand.
    - tgb 9y ago
      On my last trip, it even prompted me in advance to suggest this based off the flight information!
    - snowwolf 9y ago
      This is a great feature and I’ve used it extensively when travelling too. Word of warning though. It does not take into account the Avoid Toll Road setting when route planning without a signal. Which I found out the expensive way.
  - monocasa 9y ago
    I use Google Maps in the Colorado high country all the time.
ams6110 9y ago
The fewer electronics the car has the better IMO. I much prefer climate control and radio with knobs and levers, no screens thank you (hard to get away from now thanks to silly requirement for reverse camera). Fortunately the cars I buy are old enough that they pre-date the introduction of screen-based controls. Navigation much better on phone. Always up to date, no extra costs.
- Slansitartop 9y ago
  > I much prefer climate control and radio with knobs and levers, no screens thank you (hard to get away from now thanks to silly requirement for reverse camera). I do too. The curse of automotive UX are touch-screen soft buttons and menu-driven UIs. On a car, every major function that you might use while driving should be controlled by a dedicated physical control. This includes pretty much every function present in a car before in-dash screens became common and many things that have been introduced since. > Navigation much better on phone. Always up to date, no extra costs. This is true. Carmakers have realized this any many new cars support technology for your smartphone navigation app to display on the center console screen.
  - janoc 9y ago
    Navigation on the phone is great - as long as you have a workable 3G/LTE signal. Try to drive across continent like that. Google maps and similar will not allow you to pre-cache that much data and once you are out of cell phone coverage, you are stuffed. And by Murphy's law it will be in the middle of nowhere where you need the GPS the most. I am driving about 3000km back and forth across Europe every summer - from France to Slovakia and back, i.e. crossing France, Germany and Austria before I arrive in Slovakia. One would say - civilized countries, no problem. Except in many places you don't have even 2G signal on the motorway, even less 3G/LTE. Oh and I am not even mentioning the roaming charges for data. Until recently it was exorbitant - the above mentioned trip would have costed me about 300 euro only in roaming charges if I have used a phone. It is less now after the EU forced the networks to lower the charges but it is still isn't free. My TomTom doesn't have any of these problems. I certainly wouldn't buy a car with a built-in satnav, that's a pure waste of money and a colossal ripoff on map update costs, but a standalone satnav is still pretty useful if you ever drive outside of a large metro area. And often even in cities - I have tried to use Google Maps and had Waze on my phone while driving in Paris, but it was so cluttered with advertising crap on the map (especially Waze!) that I couldn't see the route. Not cool when you are relying on it to know which street to take!
ReidZB 9y ago
Sadly, you're locked into Apple Maps if you use CarPlay—at least, if you want the map and directions to appear on the screen (which I often find indispensable).
- yitchelle 9y ago
  Really? Google maps and mapping apps aren't able to be used over CarPlay?
- starsinspace 9y ago
  Even worse, Apple forces you to enable Siri if you want to enable CarPlay. That was such a let down, I was really looking forward to using CarPlay when I bought a new car. But for privacy reasons I don't want to enable Siri, so now I can't use the feature at all.
  - bocklund 9y ago
    I don’t mean this to be rude, but you are ok letting Apple finely track everywhere you go, but not listen to you?
    - starsinspace 9y ago
      Could you point me to how Apple is tracking where I go?
rb808 9y ago
For navigation, what would be nice if they had a standard sized blank spot on the dash where you could attach 3rd party tablets, a bit like car radios. Or even a blank spot where you can put a phone nicely (with usb power source).
- Slansitartop 9y ago
  Or even just a standard-size socket where you could securely clip-in a phone or tablet holder. They sell all kinds of flimsy things that attempt to clip onto the air vents or CD slot, it's about time there was a standard.
  - tbyehl 9y ago
    ProClip is the gold standard for this stuff, they make model-specific mounting bases for most cars that wedge into dashboard / console panel gaps and are extremely secure. I've moved on to magnetic mounts with adhesive bases for any of my cars that have a good surface to stick them. Cheap and quick to install. In my girlfriend's kitchen we made a little electronics charging station out of a couple short-depth Ikea shelves and stuck 5-ish inch wide magnetic mounts to the fronts -- real handy for holding the phones and tablets while charging with the screens visible, along with keychains and various other ferrous junk.
    - sedachv 9y ago
      I recommend RAM Mounts. Their hardware is extremely durable (hundreds of miles of offroad motorcycling with zero issues), the parts are modular and interchangeable (they offer mounts for everything from bicycles to airplanes), and they have a lifetime warranty.
      - photojosh 9y ago
        Thanks for the tips, parent and grandparent. Will have a look at those. I use a Quadlock mount case on my phone so I can attach it to the bike, but the wife likes slightly more fashionable cases :), so I want something dock-ish I can just drop a phone into. I'm keen on a Qi charging dock for the car now that it's on iPhones, and am looking to get something that'll last a few years.
mywacaday 9y ago
I bought a second hand 2009 audi A6 a few years ago, some of the maps were out of date as some new motorways had been built in my area. Queried with my dealer how much to update the maps, they wanted €250 for the DVD and €250 for the install + licence key. Reason for the DVD is that even a main dealer doesn't stock it. Next car will have android auto.
- S_A_P 9y ago
  The irony there is that Audi MMI is android.
chiph 9y ago
If you're not in an area experiencing explosive growth (Seattle, Austin, Raleigh-Durham, etc) then the risk of having stale map info is pretty low. If you lease or only keep your cars < 10 years, the risk of stale maps is low. Will the directions have features like taking typical traffic volume into account? Probably not. But they'll get you there, and you don't have to spend an extra 20 seconds when you get in the car getting your phone out of your pocket and plugged in. (currently in a 14 year old car whose maps will never be newer than 2015, and that's OK with me.)
- photojosh 9y ago
  20 seconds? It's a default action for me and takes less than 5 seconds to plug in and drop into (or practically nothing for shorter journeys since I don't bother to plug in), and I'm going to get a wireless charging dock some time now that my phone supports it. I'm glad our 2009 car doesn't have sat-nav. :)
  - jhall1468 9y ago
    > I'm glad our 2009 car doesn't have sat-nav. :) That's odd to me. We have GPS in our Outback, but we use our phones. I'm pretty happy having the backup that works if we don't have a cell signal, so being glad you don't have it is odd... it's not like it adds significantly to the price.
    - photojosh 9y ago
      Just my experience with it in other cars: because it asks you to accept a disclaimer every time you start the car, which annoys me no end. I have a bit of a minimalist and/or design snobbery bent though: I would often rather have no solution at all than a poor one.
      - chiph 9y ago
        I added a USB interface module and it clicks the lawyer screen's "accept" button for me, but yes that is a waste of time. Something it does that I do agree is annoying is lock out the UI when you drive more than 2 mph. For safety.
jlgaddis 9y ago
I own three such vehicles and I agree with them. I have a Nissan Altima SV with "all the options", including the built-in unit with touch-screen, Bluetooth, GPS navigation, rear-facing camera, etc. It started "acting up" a while back and pretty much doesn't even work anymore. The dealership quoted me ~$1200 USD for a new one. My girlfriend drives the car, not me, and she just uses her phone (Pandora, Maps, etc.,) instead.
wvenable 9y ago
Yeah I had the same experience; the sales guy basically said it wasn't worth paying extra for the built-in GPS so we didn't. This was a few years back.
toyg 9y ago
That’s because the new thing they want to sell is CarPlay / Auto. Car dealers are not your friends.

organsnyder 9y ago

Our new car happened to include nav in the trim package we wanted. It is nice having it integrated with the vehicle (it doesn't have CarPlay or Android Auto), and available regardless of cell phone status. However, I'm not going to spend hundreds of dollars per year for map updates.

rhombocombus 9y ago
That's insane. It costs a couple hundred dollars a year to update aircraft Instrument flight GPS maps (and EVERYTHING is expensive on an airplane), it's galling that automakers would deign to charge so much for a product that almost all of us have available for free on our phones.
reaperducer 9y ago
You're lucky you can pay for map updates. The navigation system for my car has NEVER been updated by the manufacturer. It's simply not an option. Which means it was out of date the day the car was built. Every now and again I'll look at the screen and see my car floating across a barren landscape. That's how I know the road I'm on was built after 2013.

Grazester 9y ago

This. Dedicated units get updates slower, aren't as good as using your Google map with Android auto and will eventually stop receiving updates.

wehadfun 9y ago

Having both is nice. For the most part Android Auto is great but sometimes cord doesn't work, phone dead,... the integrated on is good enough

mikeash 9y ago

Funny, when I was car shopping in 2013 it was the exact opposite. They kept trying to sell us on built-in nav systems even though we repeatedly told them that we don’t care about those systems and plan to use our phones. Maybe they’ve finally caught on.

raverbashing 9y ago
If you're not going somewhere where there's no 3G connection then there is no need to worry But on the countryside there is usually no usable signal for great stretches of road
- mikeash 9y ago
  There are plenty of smartphone navigation apps that work without a connection.
- ams6110 9y ago
  Google Maps lets you download your route in advance. So with a bit of planning you don't need data. I have no data plan on my phone, yet I navigate with Google Maps all the time in this way. I just download on WiFi beforehand.
  - tgb 9y ago
    On my last trip, it even prompted me in advance to suggest this based off the flight information!
  - snowwolf 9y ago
    This is a great feature and I’ve used it extensively when travelling too. Word of warning though. It does not take into account the Avoid Toll Road setting when route planning without a signal. Which I found out the expensive way.
- monocasa 9y ago
  I use Google Maps in the Colorado high country all the time.

ams6110 9y ago

The fewer electronics the car has the better IMO. I much prefer climate control and radio with knobs and levers, no screens thank you (hard to get away from now thanks to silly requirement for reverse camera). Fortunately the cars I buy are old enough that they pre-date the introduction of screen-based controls. Navigation much better on phone. Always up to date, no extra costs.

Slansitartop 9y ago
> I much prefer climate control and radio with knobs and levers, no screens thank you (hard to get away from now thanks to silly requirement for reverse camera). I do too. The curse of automotive UX are touch-screen soft buttons and menu-driven UIs. On a car, every major function that you might use while driving should be controlled by a dedicated physical control. This includes pretty much every function present in a car before in-dash screens became common and many things that have been introduced since. > Navigation much better on phone. Always up to date, no extra costs. This is true. Carmakers have realized this any many new cars support technology for your smartphone navigation app to display on the center console screen.
- janoc 9y ago
  Navigation on the phone is great - as long as you have a workable 3G/LTE signal. Try to drive across continent like that. Google maps and similar will not allow you to pre-cache that much data and once you are out of cell phone coverage, you are stuffed. And by Murphy's law it will be in the middle of nowhere where you need the GPS the most. I am driving about 3000km back and forth across Europe every summer - from France to Slovakia and back, i.e. crossing France, Germany and Austria before I arrive in Slovakia. One would say - civilized countries, no problem. Except in many places you don't have even 2G signal on the motorway, even less 3G/LTE. Oh and I am not even mentioning the roaming charges for data. Until recently it was exorbitant - the above mentioned trip would have costed me about 300 euro only in roaming charges if I have used a phone. It is less now after the EU forced the networks to lower the charges but it is still isn't free. My TomTom doesn't have any of these problems. I certainly wouldn't buy a car with a built-in satnav, that's a pure waste of money and a colossal ripoff on map update costs, but a standalone satnav is still pretty useful if you ever drive outside of a large metro area. And often even in cities - I have tried to use Google Maps and had Waze on my phone while driving in Paris, but it was so cluttered with advertising crap on the map (especially Waze!) that I couldn't see the route. Not cool when you are relying on it to know which street to take!

ReidZB 9y ago

Sadly, you're locked into Apple Maps if you use CarPlay—at least, if you want the map and directions to appear on the screen (which I often find indispensable).

yitchelle 9y ago
Really? Google maps and mapping apps aren't able to be used over CarPlay?
starsinspace 9y ago
Even worse, Apple forces you to enable Siri if you want to enable CarPlay. That was such a let down, I was really looking forward to using CarPlay when I bought a new car. But for privacy reasons I don't want to enable Siri, so now I can't use the feature at all.
- bocklund 9y ago
  I don’t mean this to be rude, but you are ok letting Apple finely track everywhere you go, but not listen to you?
  - starsinspace 9y ago
    Could you point me to how Apple is tracking where I go?

rb808 9y ago

For navigation, what would be nice if they had a standard sized blank spot on the dash where you could attach 3rd party tablets, a bit like car radios. Or even a blank spot where you can put a phone nicely (with usb power source).

Slansitartop 9y ago
Or even just a standard-size socket where you could securely clip-in a phone or tablet holder. They sell all kinds of flimsy things that attempt to clip onto the air vents or CD slot, it's about time there was a standard.
- tbyehl 9y ago
  ProClip is the gold standard for this stuff, they make model-specific mounting bases for most cars that wedge into dashboard / console panel gaps and are extremely secure. I've moved on to magnetic mounts with adhesive bases for any of my cars that have a good surface to stick them. Cheap and quick to install. In my girlfriend's kitchen we made a little electronics charging station out of a couple short-depth Ikea shelves and stuck 5-ish inch wide magnetic mounts to the fronts -- real handy for holding the phones and tablets while charging with the screens visible, along with keychains and various other ferrous junk.
  - sedachv 9y ago
    I recommend RAM Mounts. Their hardware is extremely durable (hundreds of miles of offroad motorcycling with zero issues), the parts are modular and interchangeable (they offer mounts for everything from bicycles to airplanes), and they have a lifetime warranty.
    - photojosh 9y ago
      Thanks for the tips, parent and grandparent. Will have a look at those. I use a Quadlock mount case on my phone so I can attach it to the bike, but the wife likes slightly more fashionable cases :), so I want something dock-ish I can just drop a phone into. I'm keen on a Qi charging dock for the car now that it's on iPhones, and am looking to get something that'll last a few years.

mywacaday 9y ago

I bought a second hand 2009 audi A6 a few years ago, some of the maps were out of date as some new motorways had been built in my area. Queried with my dealer how much to update the maps, they wanted €250 for the DVD and €250 for the install + licence key. Reason for the DVD is that even a main dealer doesn't stock it. Next car will have android auto.

S_A_P 9y ago
The irony there is that Audi MMI is android.

chiph 9y ago

If you're not in an area experiencing explosive growth (Seattle, Austin, Raleigh-Durham, etc) then the risk of having stale map info is pretty low. If you lease or only keep your cars < 10 years, the risk of stale maps is low. Will the directions have features like taking typical traffic volume into account? Probably not. But they'll get you there, and you don't have to spend an extra 20 seconds when you get in the car getting your phone out of your pocket and plugged in. (currently in a 14 year old car whose maps will never be newer than 2015, and that's OK with me.)

photojosh 9y ago
20 seconds? It's a default action for me and takes less than 5 seconds to plug in and drop into (or practically nothing for shorter journeys since I don't bother to plug in), and I'm going to get a wireless charging dock some time now that my phone supports it. I'm glad our 2009 car doesn't have sat-nav. :)
- jhall1468 9y ago
  > I'm glad our 2009 car doesn't have sat-nav. :) That's odd to me. We have GPS in our Outback, but we use our phones. I'm pretty happy having the backup that works if we don't have a cell signal, so being glad you don't have it is odd... it's not like it adds significantly to the price.
  - photojosh 9y ago
    Just my experience with it in other cars: because it asks you to accept a disclaimer every time you start the car, which annoys me no end. I have a bit of a minimalist and/or design snobbery bent though: I would often rather have no solution at all than a poor one.
    - chiph 9y ago
      I added a USB interface module and it clicks the lawyer screen's "accept" button for me, but yes that is a waste of time. Something it does that I do agree is annoying is lock out the UI when you drive more than 2 mph. For safety.

jlgaddis 9y ago

I own three such vehicles and I agree with them. I have a Nissan Altima SV with "all the options", including the built-in unit with touch-screen, Bluetooth, GPS navigation, rear-facing camera, etc. It started "acting up" a while back and pretty much doesn't even work anymore. The dealership quoted me ~$1200 USD for a new one. My girlfriend drives the car, not me, and she just uses her phone (Pandora, Maps, etc.,) instead.

wvenable 9y ago

Yeah I had the same experience; the sales guy basically said it wasn't worth paying extra for the built-in GPS so we didn't. This was a few years back.

toyg 9y ago

That’s because the new thing they want to sell is CarPlay / Auto. Car dealers are not your friends.