How Do I "beat the Nav system"?
 

The damnable Nav system in my ‘08 E70 leaves me in the dark all too often. I need some help! Perhaps this old dog can still learn a few tricks, from the experts here in the good ole US of A.

Assume I’m in an area for a few days, the Nav system has found a few addresses in the town and I want to find a business, like AutoZone or an Air Conditioning Contractor. So assume I’m looking in the right city/state/country.

1. How do I figure out what search criteria I need to search in? IE. Is it a business, a service, a Corporation, WTF? Can I just put in a name?

2. Is searching for “AutoZone” easier by voice entry, and if so, might some kind soul tell me the exact dialog I need to “ask the car”?

3. If I choose to “update” my 2008 system disc with a more recent disc, am I simply buying an updated list of every McDonalds in the USA as well as some updates to the road network? Or am I buying an update on the overall program and the prompts and screens WILL LOOK/OPERATE different. Like an upgrade on a computer application IE Office 2003 becomes Office 2008.

4. It appears NavTeq no longer sells updates for BMW. Am I stuck with only BMW North America as my only supplier?

I really do not want to drag out my trusty Garmin GPS and suction cup this venerable old friend to the dash on this X5.

Is there help for me?

Signed “Whimpering in Public”

Welcome to the club ;) I could not find a way to beat it, and believe me, I spend many hours trying different combinations... Any way you try it, it wants you to know the category before search can start... Stupid, imho, as many businesses incorrectly categorize themselves.

I use my Droid phone with google to find place's address, then I punch it into the car's NAV.

I also have 2010 335 with the new iDrive/Navi as well, and it is much better and allows to search "just by name" without needing to know what category it is in.

I too had the 08 Nav DVD and recently switched to the '10 version not Navteq. It looks the same, and functions the same except for me responds slower. Others seem to have no difference in response either. So you will just benefit from updated roads and location info.

I find the categories search is a bit confusing since stores can fall under several categories so I too just look for the address on the blackberry or smartphone and type in the address.

Unfortunately BMW has taken a step backwards with Teleatlas as the new nav provider. I suspect for business reasons, but we now have to suffer a bit of a 'learning curve' as BMW and TA figure this out.

The attempt to lock the upgrades to dealerships is smart for BMW- but I am confident that this will get cracked/hacked and we will have maps and upgrades available to the public.

I would just hit BMW Search and use Google maps, so far it hasn't let me down...

HATE that category search... whoever came up with it really never actually used it themself.

I too tried to find an autozone once... MASSIVE FAILURE with those categories.

The other part of the NAV I hate is sometimes a town is listed on a website wrong so after you're in the car the NAV will never find the street you're looking for since it only lists the streets in the town you specify so you can't even mark the house number and street you wanted. One time I tried to find an address on Rt.25 here... no street in that town (Commack) listed as Jericho Tpke or Rt 25...so frustrating.