Yes, I have to agree. How long before screens in cars are banned I wonder?
Gra
I have to agree with the general thrust of this thread. I have the Mazda satnav and it is nowhere near as good as my £100 Garmin. I would have been very disappointed if I had paid for it (I got it thrown in with my deal). It works but it is limited … but agree that it might help at resale time and is neater than something stuck to the windscreen.
A lot safer than getting the map out, my sat-nav has never been dangerous yet and I really don’t need more ‘nanny state’ rules telling me what I can and cannot do in a car.
No drinking, no eating, no loud music but it’s okay to have a flaming stick in your hand
I have a new Sport Recaro and came with the infamous TomTom Satnav. It’s useless! Mine must be faulty however, rarely sees more than 5 satellites, and the accuracy is so poor most of the time it thinks I am driving through houses (literally) or fields.
Time to book it in to Mazda. Anyone else had problems?
TomTom Nav in a Sport Recaro?
Yep, I understand it’s powered by TomTom. Or not, in the case of mine.
Yep, he’s right, you can get information about and download the Mazda “Navigation System Owner’s Manual” on the TomTom website, and a lot of other makes too!
I think actually the ND system is based on NNG iGo.
TomTom in some earlier models.
Isn’t that exactly what Android Auto (and Apple CarPlay) does? They are becoming the standard for many car manufacturers.
I know this is an old thread but the issues are still relevant. I have used Tomtom and Garmin satnavs for the last 12 years on cars, trucks, motorcycles and for backpacking. I developed a preference for Garmin, partly due to their desktop software, and currently have one large Garmin with built in dash cam which is now on wife’s car, two recent Euro map units, one BMW badged Garmin on my K1600 motorcycle and a Montana plus older handheld for backpacking. I also have CoPilot on my iPhone plus of course Apple maps and my wife gas a Garmin 660 on her motorcycle. These have been used to travel as far as Romania, Croatia and Bosnia by car and motorcycle. The Mazda unit has been used to travel to Germany, France and Belgium.
Without doubt the built in unit on my ND is the worst performing, most expensive useless junk on the car. When it works it is just about OK to get from A to B if you can cope with the horrible user interface. For anything more involved it is totally useless.
My £120 Garmin covers all of Europe and has 4 map updates per year for ever free of charge. It also has free traffic warnings which from experience work over much of Europe. I can plan routes on my iMac with numerous waypoints and the ability to easily fine tune a route from a map using the free Garmin software and then transfer all the data to my garmin. After a trip I can download detailed trip data and view it on a map on my iMac. I can also add point of interest files to both the satnavs and the iMac such as the great Archies Camping list of 30,000 plus European campsites.
Now for the Mazda satnav. I get two mapping updates per year for three years. I can set a route from A to B to C etc but not refine the route. End of list. Considering the screen and basic software is already on the car whether I order the nav or not the price is ludicrous.
And just to finish the story the Mazda often stops working and reboots while driving and has now failed completely. Just showing “navigation loading”. With all my Garmin units I have had one failure of a on/off switch about two years after the warranty ended and Garmin still swapped it for a new one free of charge.
I should have bought the Sport not the Sport Nav. Plenty of room on the screen for the Garmin. That gets more use than the Mazda satnav.
Certainly not good enough Mazda
After six months struggling with the same counter-intuitive and obstructive MZD Satnav system in the Mazda3, SWMBO has given up on it and pinched my Garmin Nuvi 2599LMT-D from the MX5 for when she really needs to find somewhere new in uncertain traffic conditions.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00KREXNM6/
The Mazda satnav is OK (most of the time) for keeping one inside the speed limit, but that is about all it is good for.
The Mazda system is not as intuitive out of the box as TomTom or Garmin and does require a bit of time spent learning its particular ways of operating, you can create a route though with start and end points then insert multiple way-points using the pointer and the map.
You can’t create and store several multi point routes which my old TomTom supports, this would be useful.
I switched from TomTom to Garmin a couple of years ago and haven’t looked back since. The Garmin is so easy to use and the ability to programme exact routes on my Mac first, cross-checking road suitability and adding an infinite number of waypoints before uploading to the device means it is perfect for planning trips and runs. I recently finished planning my upcoming Route 66 trip which was a piece of cake. Trip split into 14 separate days with hotels, stopping points and attractions all programmed in so my wife and I can enjoy the drive without having to keep looking at maps.
I have a built-in sat nav in my Merc which is good but if I was doing anything more than a basic A to B to C trip I would use the Garmin. It’s got the larger screen which I find to be no problem in the NC and doesn’t interfere with visibility. I position it immediately to the left of the instrument binnacle.