It's sort of funny.. When I was doing my research before buying a BMW I came across a comment - and they may have been from here.. :)

<paraphrase>
"Then again, maybe it's not that BMWs break any more often than other cars, but BMW owners seem to be far harder to please than other owners."

So I use the new hard drive-based NAV, and my experience with it so far has been very positive. My only complaints are some user interface nitpicks, but some of it too is that I don't know where everything is just yet. I even stumbled across some neat features while showing it to someone the other day, so I have more to learn.

But..

I have used it on several long trips and it has been flawless. These are routes I'm familiar with, yes, but it happened to pick - from the start - the perfect route, the one I would have chosen that isn't obvious, requiring many highway changes, etc. It might be coincidence, as that route is often the shortest "highway" path. OK, but still - it works great.

On local routes, it is rather stubborn to recognize "I don't want to go that way - stop telling me to take a U-turn and go the way you want me too."

The Lexus did this too, but it was somewhat less stubborn to recalculate the route. To the BMW's credit, the route it chose was fine, I just didn't feel like taking it. It will eventually - maybe a little further down the line than I would like - calculate a new route, one that's also correct.

Certainly, if it takes you more than a third out of your way, that's broken.

Given one of the same routes I speak of above, however, the Lexus wanted to take the route that was 90 miles longer on a ~500 mile trip. I don't know if it was the algorithm or the data, i.e. "road X is an Interstate and road Y is a four-lane Highway, but I really like Interstates.." Or maybe it thought "road Y is a cow path." I dunno.

Oh.. The feature I accidentally discovered is I can construct a route, bit by bit. I haven't had time to play with it, but I rather always wanted that feature. "Bread crumbs" would probably be better, but it's better than "take it or leave it." Stored trips are nice too.

Not to beat on the dead horse anymore, because I'm with you, but..

So far, the TeleAtlas data has only revealed to me a few flaws - very recent actual changes in roads I can forgive - but not at any better or worse rate than the NAVTEQ data on the Lexus.

Just saying. YMMV, of course. And it does. 67 miles at least.

:O

Mine has been so poor that I now use my Garmin on long trips, rather than the built-in BMW Nav.

On paved state highways in Utah, it consistently computed my estimate arrival time and travel time assuming an average speed between 20-25 mph.

Using the find function, find something in Van Horn, TX. Click to route yourself there, and you will find it now has the same street address, but says you are going to Kent, Tx, another town about 37 miles away. So when you are traveling, the question becomes is it really in Van Horn or in Kent?

In Idaho it told me to turn left on a non-existent road on a remote highway location, where there was no road in either direction for miles.

Here's a specific I wrote down. Find a shell station at exit 193 going east on I-40 and tell it to route you to it. It will not tell you to take the appropriate exit, because the map places it under the crossover road between the east and westbound interstate lanes. So you miss your fuel stop.

Over the past year on trips in the West there have been literally dozens of instances like this.

Ah. Good point - I had forgotten on that. Yes - it's ETA times are pure fiction.

It seems to be absolute FANTASY FICTION on local roads.
It's more like SCIENCE FICTION on highway trips (possible but unlikely).

I don't give it any prizes for its POI database - it's terrible. It does have a lot of what I'm looking for, but yes - sometimes it will put it in an.. odd.. town, even though the address is correct (so I get there fine).

I've never used it to GUIDE me to fuel - I just have the icon turned on, and it seems correct, but who really knows, as I get ~500 miles on a tank on the highway. :)

It would be nice if it were like an aircraft.. "Show me airports." "Oh. I mean only airports I can actually LAND at."

I keep hoping there's a software update or something.

I have had only minimal issues with the Nav system and database in the '11 X5.
Regarding newness of data, it is OK but doesn't have the latest part of the Charlotte outer belt, open for 1 year. This causes issues where "end of interstate" became an off ramp but is understandable and a data fault. Plus I like taking the new section home which really confuses it.

I have seen some POIs in the wrong location, a common problem if the address range within a block is wrong, also a data problem. One recent issue was finding a hospital. The name of the hospital has changed 3 times recently but some associated clinics had not. So when I entered Grace Hospital, it routed me to a clinic across the interstate. Once I got to the actual destination which I did know where it was, it new the hospital was there, just under a different name than it should have been. When finding a restaurant for lunch that day, 2 folks argued whether the interstate or across town was faster. The nav picked the interstate but an alternate route was across town and 1 minute longer so it nailed that one.

I have few issues with routes it suggests. If you have issues with a route, you can try shortest, fastest, most efficient, use interstates, avoid interstates, etc. You can also try alternate routes from that screen. This is neat and worked in that restaurant example above.

Note if you have traffic info and dynamic routing turned on, it will route you around traffic and give a confusing route. One complaint I have, is once you are routed around traffic, the traffic info icon is no longer is red. I then have over-looked a re-route and got stuck right in the middle of traffic.

I have found the accuracy of the ETA varies whether you have side roads first or last in your trip. Its usually accurate enough once you are on the road for 10 minutes or so.

One challenge I have seen when entering a destination, is a suburban road that crosses urban, rural, and suburban limits. 90% of the time, you can select the major city and find the road you want but sometimes, you have to select the suburb to get the area you want.

Wow, y'all are a little intense on the nav thing. I think I've used mine maybe one time in 4 months for directions. Do you really have to use it in your own city ? I can see when you are in another big city and don't know how to get around using it but not a place I've lived for years.

Yeah, no- absolutely true. No need for it when you are in places you know.

Still trying to understand your reason for posting that, though....

I guess I'm not caught up in the navigation hate.

I can't speak for others, but I used it a lot last Summer driving 11,000 miles throughout the West during a couple of 5 week camping trips last Summer.

This Summer I'm going to use my Garmin instead.

I'm not defending BMW but technology like navigation, back-up camera does not get a lot of R&D in their business model--it's about performance. Lexus, yes, you will get a better navigation. But that's like asking why a Lexus with a great navigation and Mark Levinson sound system doesn't drive like a BMW.

I really think you've hit on the issue here- but it isn't that BMW has made a conscious decision...it is more that as a company they don't value things like Navigation and cupholders. It is a cultural thing... It isn't valued, it doesn't get attention, bad decisions are fine, they farm out project management, they listen to Teleatlas and say "Ya, should be fine... pass the bratwurst"

When you think how bad their nav/eletroncis was back in 2000, they've really improved. Just blew it with the hard drive based map and teleatlas as the vendor. IMO