Until a few weeks ago, traffic delays were showing up on the map screen as a thick red line down the side of the route – this appears to have stopped happening

The maps were last updated in July, and I know it has worked since then, but for instance major (90 minute) delays on the M6 on Friday evening didn’t show up. This morning delays on the M62 didn’t show up even though they were listed on the Traffic ‘on route’ screen.

I find it quite a useful function, does anybody know what’s happened to it ?

No idea. I find the sat nav on the car pretty flaky, so I keep a good old fashioned Garmin sat nav under the seat, which is 10x better than the car's one.

 

It's meant to do it, but doesn't, the amundsen is meant to change the time when I go over to France and Belgium it doesn't, it gets stuck on night mode during the day even though it's set to automatic. Basically it's a pile of 💩

Edited 18 September, 20196 yr by TheWanderer

I find the sat nav a bit annoying - 

1. I've no idea what the 3 optons are when it gives me route options, you can hardly see them on the screen and it doesn't zoom to the level where you can see the difference.

2. It doesn't accept postcodes which is the standard way of giving an address quickly

3. I've no idea how it even gets traffic updates seeing as it has no internet so don't trust it.

 

I much prefer google maps on my phone.

 

However, I am still using it purely because it displays on the dash the next turns which is incredibly useful and it gives me voice over the stereo even when I'm listening to radio.  I would be interested in android auto and using google maps if it displayed on the dash.

1 hour ago, Alex-W said:

 

1. I've no idea what the 3 optons are when it gives me route options, you can hardly see them on the screen and it doesn't zoom to the level where you can see the difference.

2. It doesn't accept postcodes which is the standard way of giving an address quickly

3. I've no idea how it even gets traffic updates seeing as it has no internet so don't trust

 

Can't argue with 1. I also hate the way autozoom zooms in too far, so the junction you are approaching is just above the top of the map

2 - new destination, town and hit the Ptcd button - og course, it expects all postcodes to be European style, so it defaults to numbers and you have to specify letters

3 -like standard dash mounted gps units, 'Most of the more affordable in-car sat navs, such as Navigon and Medion devices, get their live traffic information supplied free via the Traffic Message Channel (TMC). Run by Trafficmaster , the data is sent over the FM radio band and decoded by the sat nav to provide verbal or visual traffic alerts'

 

I've recently done 2000 miles in france in a fortnight, and (outside of rural Brittany ;-) ) the traffic info was timely and accurate - more so than here as far as I can tell

I agree with most of the above. They can be very 'hit & miss'. Google maps is much more dynamic. Once, on my way to Germany, the satnav tried to avoid a delay on the Brussels ring road by trying to send me through the middle of Antwerp. That's a bad choice to begin with before factoring in the fact that the road in the middle of Antwerp had been dug up for repairs. Whichever way I tried to go to avoid this the satnav kept telling me to do a U-turn and go back to the closed road. Total nightmare. 

I have so little faith in it now, I have turned off 'dynamic route' so it has to stick to the original route. That kind of negates the point of having it. Might as well use ViaMichelin and a good road atlas.

Edited 18 September, 20196 yr by Chimble

I use Waze on Apple car play. First class Sat Nav.

 

 

 

** Other sat nav systems are available **

I dont really truat the sat nav except when im not pushed for time etc. A recent trip to the south of france took me through paris which wasnt great and google seems miles better. I even end up checking long routes on an old fashioned road map to make sure the amunsden has picked a decent route so not ideal.

Cheers

17 hours ago, gwm97e said:

 

 I also hate the way autozoom zooms in too far, so the junction you are approaching is just above the top of the map

 

I don't find this - I think auto zoom works from a 'base' magnification that you set - try manually zooming out a bit and then switching back to auto. 

 

Also, adding the split screen function helps with this as it shows a dynamic closeup of the junction you're currently navigating or the next 3 instructions if you're just driving on a straight road. 

 

Generally I have very few issues with it and use it far more often than I find myself reverting to Waze or Google. 

19 hours ago, Alex-W said:

I find the sat nav a bit annoying - 

1. I've no idea what the 3 optons are when it gives me route options, you can hardly see them on the screen and it doesn't zoom to the level where you can see the difference.

 

 

I'm assuming you know the options are Eco, Fastest, Shortest? Very often they're not much different and you can pinch to zoom if you want a bit more clarity on where they have differed. 

20 hours ago, gwm97e said:

 I also hate the way autozoom zooms in too far, so the junction you are approaching is just above the top of the map

 

2 hours ago, Kenai said:

I don't find this - I think auto zoom works from a 'base' magnification that you set - try manually zooming out a bit and then switching back to auto.

 

I hate the way that it defaults to auto zoom, I like the scale to be fixed at the value I choose (like it did on my previous VAG car) - so I find myself having to reset the zoom to manual EVERY time I start the car which gets REALLY annoying.

The other week I tried it for a trip to Derbyshire and Warwickshire and I couldn't stand the way it kept zooming in and out and saying that there were traffic obstructions ahead when there was nothing.

 

Yet it failed quite abysmally to warn me about the traffic jams that got on to "The Magic Roundabout" aka M25 and lost me the best part of 30 mins. Something that I could have avoided by going via Marlow and M4 or A34 and M3.

 

It'll be Google or Garmin in the future.

Edited 19 September, 20196 yr by TheWanderer

My personal experience of google maps on my phone is good for dynamic routing but very bad for actual navigation - I think that's an issue with the phone itself as it's pretty poor with other apps for navigation

 

I think maybe I've just spent years using google maps and am used to it, find it accurate, effective, quick, easy to change etc.

The car nav is just a step down, with the exception of the directions on the dash.

 

3 hours ago, Kenai said:

 

I'm assuming you know the options are Eco, Fastest, Shortest? Very often they're not much different and you can pinch to zoom if you want a bit more clarity on where they have differed. 

 

 

I assumed it would be something like that but i don't know which is which mind.  Trying to see the detail is a bit of a pain as it's all a little laggy/clunky I find, but that's just because we're all used to super fast and clear phones now.

Columbus user here - extremely happy with it.

I always choose the red route, no matter what - it tends to stick to major roads, when I have had an issue it's because I've selected Orange instead and decided a route through a town is worth doing.

1 hour ago, Stoofa said:

Columbus user here - extremely happy with it.

I always choose the red route, no matter what - it tends to stick to major roads, when I have had an issue it's because I've selected Orange instead and decided a route through a town is worth doing.

 

Me too, I used it last week on holiday where I didn't have mobile data available for Google maps.

I was quite impressed and stuck to the Red as that's what the Skoda guy told me to do at vehicle handover (he did explain the others but I couldn't remember it all).

 

I do like the arrow on the DIS with green-fill countdown, wish Android Auto could provide that.

6 hours ago, Alex-W said:

 

I assumed it would be something like that but i don't know which is which mind.  Trying to see the detail is a bit of a pain as it's all a little laggy/clunky I find, but that's just because we're all used to super fast and clear phones now.

Please don't take this the wrong way but the difference (and which is which) is explained very clearly in the user manual.

 

It feels unfair to criticise the sat nav system for you not knowing things that are explained in the manual.

 

There's about 20 pages in the manual dedicated to the functionality of the sat nav (not the Infotainment as a whole, literally just the nav has 20 pages or so)

Red route line and the closed sign on my Columbus saved me big time yesterday with the M6 closure near Preston. Had I not spotted it I'd have been forced to go north instead of south and added an extra 50 mile round trip to my journey. I have no complaints with the system, it works well enough for a non RTTI based system.

Edited 19 September, 20196 yr by ahenners

I use google maps through Android Auto from my phone. So much easier than the built in Amundsen. I found the built in quite counter intuitive in use, so have stuck with the phone, which does everything well and having it full size on the display is ideal.

18 hours ago, Kenai said:

Please don't take this the wrong way but the difference (and which is which) is explained very clearly in the user manual.

 

It feels unfair to criticise the sat nav system for you not knowing things that are explained in the manual.

 

There's about 20 pages in the manual dedicated to the functionality of the sat nav (not the Infotainment as a whole, literally just the nav has 20 pages or so)

 

While I agree that I'm sure you're correct and it's detailed in the user manual, which I've not read, really when designing an HMI of any type it should really be intuitive and self explanatory, esp it's marketed at the masses and even more so if it's to be used while operating a vehicle.

 

We now live in a world where touch screens are everywhere and most don't have manuals, yet we expect to be able to use them with no tuition.  In most cases they succeed.  Phones, tablets, cash machines, etc.  Hell, I don't think I've read a manual for a TV for well over a decade, they just work as you expect.  

 

Ive driven likely hundreds of cars over the last 19 years.  My cars, friends cars, company cars, rental cars etc etc.  I can't say I've ever reached for the manual, nor would I expect to.  If it's not intuitive, it's poor design in my opinion.  

I mean, nobody explained Google maps to me, I just used it and it works with no explanation.

On 19/09/2019 at 10:28, PetrolDave said:

 

 

I hate the way that it defaults to auto zoom, I like the scale to be fixed at the value I choose (like it did on my previous VAG car) - so I find myself having to reset the zoom to manual EVERY time I start the car which gets REALLY annoying.

You can turn autozoom off in the setup from the Nav button under advanced settings I think

 

5 hours ago, gwm97e said:

You can turn autozoom off in the setup from the Nav button under advanced settings I think

 

Tried that, it turns back on next time you turn the ignition on - it's not a permanent setting.

8 minutes ago, PetrolDave said:

Tried that, it turns back on next time you turn the ignition on - it's not a permanent setting.

Tried this on mine today, once it was off, it has stayed off. I shall report back if it turns back on but it hasn't yet. 

 

I turned it off from the map though by toggling the little magnifying glass.

 

 

On 18/09/2019 at 11:14, gwm97e said:

Until a few weeks ago, traffic delays were showing up on the map screen as a thick red line down the side of the route – this appears to have stopped happening

The maps were last updated in July, and I know it has worked since then, but for instance major (90 minute) delays on the M6 on Friday evening didn’t show up. This morning delays on the M62 didn’t show up even though they were listed on the Traffic ‘on route’ screen.

I find it quite a useful function, does anybody know what’s happened to it ?

My traffic updates seem to have stopped as well, just no reports at all. 

2 hours ago, Kenai said:

Tried this on mine today, once it was off, it has stayed off. I shall report back if it turns back on but it hasn't yet. 

 

I turned it off from the map though by toggling the little magnifying glass.

Amundsen or Columbus?

44 minutes ago, PetrolDave said:

Amundsen or Columbus?

Amundsen, in a facelift car