I’ve just taken my first long trip in my MK3. Much as I enjoyed it I encountered two frustrating issues with my sat nav. (It’s the one with the buttons down the left of the screen).
First of all, I found the vocal instructions came far to late to react to. I’d be travelling down an ordinary road at about 50 mph when it would say:
‘Turn left in 30 yards’
By which time I’d passed the junction. I’d expect to be warned at least a quarter of a mile from the junction. Is there any way I can adjust this?
Also, when entering a postcode, I’d type in the first half (2 letters and 2 numbers) and it would then display a list of all roads with that result. Often this made pages and pages to churn through to find the one I wanted. My old Garmin allowed entry of the full postcode, which was much easier. Is there any way I can change this to allow full entry?
If you only have buttons down the left hand side of the screen, then it sounds as if you have an AVN2 which was fitted to the later Mk3.75s. This is a Mazda-customised version of the Alpine INE-W920R. (As an aside, you can load the latest firmware from the Alpine web site onto this unit, which gives some additional functionality).
I believe that it should allow 7-character UK post code entry. Have you tried typing the apace between the two parts of the post code?
I couldn’t fathom mine out, sometimes it was OK but mostly rubbish. The sound quality was dreadful, it gave any one in the car a headache. It’s not just the speakers either, I upgraded mine but it made little difference. So I had a modern easy to use CarPlay unit fitted. Sound quality is magic and the satnav system brilliant.
My dad has a 2017 CX5 and complains that the inbuilt sat nav is rubbish.
He says that it will regularly send him miles off course to get him to his intended destination.
Even complained to Mazda and got nowhere.
I have this sat nav unit. I did the map update recently, using an 8gb micro sd card as suggested. It seemed to work ok but I recall a pop up on the web page advising that the firmware was no longer able to run the system and users should run the system with a 16gb card permanently mounted - or words to that effect.
As I didn’t have a 16gb card to hand I ignored it, but has anyone else come across this and followed the guideline - and to what effect?
Tthe 16Gb card for the maps is a microSD card and fits in the slot behind the removable button panel. It has nothing to do with the USB socket in the centre console where you would put a memory stick containing music.
The info-tainment system is famous for being very very poor in all Mazdas. It’s low resolution, hard to navigate, stricken with flaws, laggy and in general quite dim witted.
I have a 66 ND1 and the sat nav it horrendous. Some of the routes it takes you on are crazy. I was dropping my jag off for an MOT last week, I drive the MX the wife following in jag, I know where i was going but there’s a few turns I am not confident on because we haven’t lived here long and it’s a route we rarely drive, I knew enough to roughly drive there tho and the nav took me miles out of the way. Literally about 5 miles out of the way.
There’s some site that you can download modifications for the info system from. It can’t change the poor resolution of the screen but you can change the way it routes, the way the info system reacts to inputs and stuff. I haven’t done mine, was going to but now can’t be bothered to be honest.
Can you give me an example of a post code that doesn’t allow all 7 characters? I just had a play on mine today, while I was waiting for someone, and it definitely let me enter full 7-character post codes - one example is “SO21 2AA” - as long as I included the space.
(Note: I have installed the Alpine updates and firmware on my head unit, so it may be operating differently to the Mazda software. It’s a fairly simple upgrade).
Just tried again and you’re right, the space does the trick. I tried both 1 digit and 2 digit postcodes and both worked. Not sure what I did wrong last time.