'10 Navigation Issues

[TheNeuf]

First off, hello! We picked up our 2010 x35d about two weeks ago for my wife because of our recent move to CO. I've driven everything from Fords (Explorer, Expedition) to Nissans (Altima) to Toyotas (Sienna) to Mercedes (GL450, S63), to Audis (Q7, S5) to Jaguar (XF Supercharged), and this X5 is one of the most fun cars I've ever driven. BMW has acquired a fan for sure, and I will definitely consider another when I'm ready to give up my S5 in a few years.

The question I had was if anyone has run into strange navigation calculation and timing issues. I've had nav units of all kinds for the better part of a decade. I'm used to the quirks and issues you run into, such as them taking you a little out of the way at times. However, the navigation in our X5 offers a whole new level of craziness. I've tried messing with the settings (efficient vs. fast vs. short), and nothing seems to help.

First, it takes you on wild good chases in terms of directions. We live in a suburb of Denver, and the roads are not that crazy here. It consistently takes us on routes that are easily 50% longer then necessary, and refuses to "give in" when we try to go our own way until the very last minute.

Second, the calculation for arrival time is completely off. What will take us 20 minutes, the car thinks will take an hour. Sometimes this is due to it trying to take us in roundabout routes, but other times, even when following the directions to a T, it's still completely off. Again, I understand if there's some traffic up ahead it thinks we'll run into, but this is every single time. For example, last night we were heading home, and had 4.9 miles to go. We followed the directions exactly (as there was no other way to go), and it thought these five miles would take us 24 minutes. Of course, it took closer to eight minutes or so.

Our clock is set correctly. I mentioned that I've tried changing the nav and route preferences. Is this normal? Is there some place to update the speeds that it thinks we'll be traveling (maybe it thinks we have to go 25mph on all non-freeway roads?)? I may ask the dealer about it next time we have to take it in, but it's such a weird problem I thought I'd ask if anyone has heard of anything similar before.

Thanks, and also thanks for all the previous threads and posts. They've been a wealth of info!