Another Email about Car GPS Update

At least that's what the manual says. The updates for the car appear to come in whenever the car is parked at the house and can connect to my home WiFi. I'm unaware that I've received any updates. I find the onboard GPS somewhat unfriendly and lacking some of the features I've come to enjoy with the nüvi. So far, there seems to be no way to add Custom POI to it either, so I often switch off the screen and continue to use the 3597 sitting on its beanbag.

My 2013 Jeep has a Garmin based, (but stripped of any good features) Nav Unit as part of the Uconnect system. As I've mentioned in other threads, it's sufficient to get me there. I can add POI's but it's a tedious process.

I guess I getting a bargain for updates at $149 + free shipping, what shipping, it's a download from the web?

The first update I was offered was in mid 2015. I went for it, but the update was horribly confusing and didn't take. Eventually uConnect realized there was a problem and sent corrective software which worked but was a very long update. I haven't bothered since, not worth the money or the time it took. Plus, from what I could tell, the update was at least a year behind the current Garmin updates.

There's another thread about speculating that Garmin is getting out of stand alone GPS, I hope that's not true, because the in dash Nav units are too costly and very bland.

I am almost entertained by the breathless excitement of the mailers from Ford offering me the free shipping.

There have to be people who do bite on these "deals" or they would not be continuing to sell them. But I am not going to be a buyer of an overpriced and under-featured product.

We were forced to buy the in-dash GPS to get other options my wife wanted, but I have no intention of throwing good money after bad. Especially since I have a TomTom unit with free lifetime map updates that does everything I want, and is priced at about what Ford wants for a simple update.

- Tom -

How did you do that? I haven't been able to find a way to load POIs on my 2014 Durango with Uconnect/Nav. Other than that, I don't really have an issue with the built in Nav unit.

Assuming you have a uConnect 430n like I do ....

http://www.poi-factory.com/node/39623

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... keep in mind if you want to add a few more POI's you have to add all of the POIs again, each time you update the poi file it rewrites over the old file, it doesn't just add new ones.

I'll take a look, but I have the Uconnect 8.4AN in mine, so it may not work. And yes, I expected I'd have to load them all every time, just like my stand-alone Garmin.

stand alone GPS with life time maps are slowly disappearing because of no profit after the sale, but built in auto GPS $200 a year updated maps plus shipping (for a download LOL) now there's a life time of profit for them ! like everything else money controls the business !

That's part of it, but like I tell people when they say "Just use Google Maps on your phone..." my built-in unit has a screen that's 3x larger so I can get away without needing my reading glasses most of the time, integrates with the vehicle controls - I can use voice command to select destinations and voice directions come through the radio speakers and turn alerts show up in the instrument cluster.

In 4 1/2 years, I've updated the maps in my Durango once, and really haven't had an issue with missing roads. I have a lifetime deal for my old Garmin (they had a deal one holiday season, and it was about $75-$100) and I updated those maps once in about 5 years before I got the Durango, so free lifetime map updates aren't a huge deal for me.

Honda got me this way when I was a newbie. Won't happen again.

Cars last far longer than a GPS unit in many ways. Maintaining a built-in GPS unit is going to be futile.

Cars may last longer than GPS unit, but it doesn't mean, that built-in GPS will have maintenance longer than car warranty. So about 3-5 years. Even if you got lifetime update for maps, it will be your job to solve problems after warranty period. Or you can go to dealership and pay for it. With unit that is really expensive (comparing to stand-alone GPS) and impossible to switch to other model, you may be sure, that there will be customers for paid repair.

Honda now has 5 years free map updates on new cars I believe

That's correct.

https://hondanavi.navigation.com/pages/en_US/HondaNA/USD/Map...

The following vehicles come with 5 years of complimentary map updates:

2016-2018 Accord
2016-2018 Civic
2016-2018 Pilot
2017-2018 CR-V
2017-2018 Ridgeline
2018 Fit
2018 Odyssey