gnat

I do believe that everyone should know how to drive a MT, but that is for the much more practical reason of being able to drive any car you get in. MTs have their place, but at my point in life that's not in the vehicle I drive most

I suppose the silver lining of that particular soap box is that at least I don't have to worry about someone stealing the 911 or BMW

zorba1331

I believe it is almost a life skill to know how to drive one, and it can be fun. However at my age I find there is nothing more awful(exaggeration for effect) than being a passenger in a MT vehicle in city traffic. Horrific.

philg3

As new features are introduced, my first take is that they are expensive, and unnecessary -- until I have them; then I'm sold. That's what happened when I purchased a 2004CT ten years ago. First vehicle I've had with Park Assist and navigation -- both standard on the CT. I wouldn't buy a vehicle w/o those options. Same holds true with LCA -- on my 2013CD -- didn't know how good it was until I had it. All of these features work flawlessly on my current and previous C.

If yours doesn't work, get it fixed.

dryadsdad

Navigation is an item I do not get. I suppose if you are a delivery guy who works alone it makes sense but we've never had the use for it. Our last rental had it but we never used it even though we were in areas we'd never been to before. If we wanted nav info, we used our iPhones which worked much better than any nav I've seen.

Cole

Phones work fine for navigation until you are trying to use it as a phone at the same time.

gnat

And the PCM works great for navigation until you actually want it to take you some where

The only two times I've actually used it to get me somewhere I didn't already know it took me on the most circuitous route possible (because the 3 preview options for 70+ mile trips are useless to see what it is trying to do) and then got me to an intersection where it told me I missed the turn and needed to turn around as I was making the turn it told me to make... In both those cases the closest it got me was about 2 miles from where I was actually trying to go.

On the few other times I've played with it (routing somewhere I already know how to get to) it would try to route me miles out of my way and do it's damnedest to route me on surface streets rather than use highways (which would roughly triple the travel time). It actually still has the old location of the dealer I bought the car from. They've been in the new location for about 5 years... (to be fair at the time Apple Maps still showed them at their location before that which was 7 or 8 years out of date. Google and Bing knew where to find them though.)

My son likes watching the map move as we drive. That's about the only good that thing is in my opinion...

If I need directions there is either someone else in the car that can use a phone or I'll print them out ahead of time.

kosmo

the Navi on our cars is $hit. P should just abondon it and use google maps or something.

Cole

None of the navigation systems are "perfect". The Cayenne shares the same information database as moat gps units. Including much of the same data Google and Apple have.

I lived off my motorcycle for 6 months last year. Covering about 18k miles. I had a top of the line Garmin 650t, top of the line Android phone and top of the line ipad with me. ALL OF THEM have disastrous flaws in the navigation systems!!

But, for that matter so do paper maps. Travel and explore enough and you would be amazed at how flawed all of them are.

For basic around town addresses the nav in the Cayenne has been as good as any if them.

Not going to waste time and paper printing something out or bringing a passenger along just to find an address quicker.

bzliteyear

that's why i love the telenav company - they developed the sync interface on many cars including for Ford, so ANY of the new phones can be "sync'd" via a bluetooth to the large screens on the dash. after all, our phones get updated/changed much faster than the (often) 10 yr old designs of prior factory navi systems.

btw, this is also why i just shake my head when i see auto companies charge $2k+ for rear entertainment systems that are obsolete already - everyone i know uses an iPad (just get $15 headrest bracket). not only is it probably a much larger schreen, but you can swap it out anytime, including taking it out of the car when you get to your destination.
Patrick
03 C4S

Cole

Love my ipad.....but it's not quite that simple.

Fist off you can't pick up a quicky DVD (redbox for example) on the fly and return it in the next town.

Ever tried to download a full length movie on your data plan while traveling?

There are still some advantages to an old fashioned DVD entertainment system in the car when traveling.

The $2k, 3-4 screen entertainment system starts to seem cheap compared to 3-4 iPads so everyone has their own screen.

Just sayin.....it's not that simple for everyone's needs.


Btw, I don't have an entertainment system, but have been debating one for my van and have experienced the problems with trying to use an iPad for this use.

dryadsdad

A bit of thread drift here which I'll add to....

I rip DVD's or BD's and copy to my iPad for viewing anytime anywhere w/o data fees. As a rule of thumb, one hour of streaming DVD or BD quality video is 1 gig so as Cole suggests, one can rack up amazing charges traveling while streaming but it's 'free' if you rip and copy.

gnat

Certainly they all have their flaws (as I pointed out with Apple's app), but with the PCM I'm not just talking about newish roads not existing or POIs being out of date. I'm talking about a screwed up routing algorithm that you can't override/adjust.

At least with the web based options you can view the entire route in zoomed detail and manually adjust it as needed.

And god forbid the PCM really gets a stick up it's *** about how it thinks you should go. When I took it to the AutoX event not only did it not want me to use the toll road or beltway, it really didn't want me to. So every exit it wanted me to get off which meant I got 1 4 mile stretch of peace from the damn thing as it wouldn't even bother to realize that I was serious and recalculate on it's own. At one point I could see that it wanted to take me off the beltway, run me north (I'm heading west) for a few miles, then bring me back south of the beltway, and finally get back on the same beltway I was currently on about 2 miles from where I currently was. That it also thought a baseball stadium was located in the middle of an intersection also didn't please me much...

Additionally I programmed it the night before and it was appearing to take the route I looked at on Google (north on the beltway). When I got in the following morning, that wasn't even one of the options it allowed me to pick. All 3 were surface streets through DC (and while it is shorter and possibly faster at that hour on the weekend, I happened to know of road closures for events that negated that idea).

mudman2

Macbook on Power Inverter and wifi router, AirPlay Video App and Server

gnat

On the face of it, this is true. I would, however, argue that you get many more benefits (each kid can watch a different thing, they can play games/read/etc.., it has the ability for internet access (either directly or with a separate mobile hotspot device), and has plenty of uses outside the car). You can also pick up used older models that will play videos just fine.

If you were talking about buying them just to be in the car and do nothing else, I would agree that the premium price of an iPad isn't worth it. I think, however, it's fair to drastically cut the cost comparison if the iPad's primary function is not for car entertainment.

As others have said, pre-load the data before leaving. Even with data charges aside you still have the issue of dead spots that would interrupt streaming. Even assuming that a (cheap used) iPad wouldn't hold enough variation for a cross country trip, it should still hold enough for a day of travel and then you can refresh it from a laptop when you stop for the night.

endless_corners

Yup was gonna say as much. Airvideo server on the laptop and the app version on the device.

The nav on my cayenne is so wretched I can't stand looking at it.