2007 honda civic navigation

Hi All,

Although I am relatively new here, I'm no stranger to forums and various bug work arounds. Here is what I would like to present to all of those thinking about purchasing a New Honda (Or any other vehical that uses a Navteq Navigation System;

So, you are in the market for a new car and debating upon wheather or not the $2000 + price tag is really worth it to have a built in Navigation system come equiped with your new car. Well, if the Navigation System is from Navteq, you may want to truely concider many of the various trade offs, vers those other Navigation uinits; Garmin, Tom Tom, and even MS Streets & Trips. Although there is an old saying that goes "You Get What You Pay For", this is one of those exceptions to that rule, at least in my oppinion.

Here is how I came to this conclusion:

About 8 months ago, the wife & I decided that we wanted a New car, mainly because of the high cost of gas these days. After spending months of searching around, we decided to give a Honda Civic a try. Looking over all of the goodies that one could get with this car, we decided upon a 2007 Civic EX with Sunroof, auto this and that, sporty wheels and of course, the Navigational / XM radio combination.

After getting it home and spending a couple of weeks going through it's quite leangthy bathroom reading materials, and educating myself on all of the most recent additions to the modern automotive tecnology, I decided that, since I had a few weeks of vacations that had yet to be taken, the Mrs & I would just venture out and about our local County and seeing for ourselves just what this baby could do to make our future traveling more enjoyable.

By this, I am speaking about the Navigation systems that are being placed & sold in many of Honda cars and SUV’s using Navteq’s software. I am sure that  you are aware of their High price of their so called updated software, but are you aware of their many misinformation.  Over the past 4 months, we have spent countless days & hours giving this a true work out and have found that just in the Catawba county (our area) alone, there are well over 12,000 errors of locations of their POI’s. Many of which, no longer exist and haven’t existed in as much as 15 years or better.
 
So, upon reaching a point of where I could gather as much research, we began digging into hours of local County, City, and state records of various Highway & Business information, ie. when it was established, when was the last time taxes were paid, was it still in business, if not, what business resided in that location as of now, when was the road created, what is it's current status and future plans, etc.
 
What we found out was that many of their “UNVERIFIED AREAS” are areas that they never  could have done an actual hard cover survey on.  By this I mean, they could have never actually traveled those areas. Instead. What we found out was that they had just purchased the rights from local cities to use their current and future maps to compile their information. In driving these areas, I found well over 5,000 of these streets or roads either don’t truly exist, or they truly do not connect as they state on their software. When I contacted them about these issues, their response was to the effect that they only update their information based upon customer feedback. To me, this is very disturbing mainly because as a customer, most customers do not have the extra time on their hands to research the validity of their software, mush less either know or have the time to find out on how to submit these areas of errors.
 
With finding this information out, we have found that not only is this software or this company unworthy of trust, it is definitely not worth the money spent on having it in a car to be used as a driving tool. For if (the average driver) were to attempt to use this as an actual driving map, as most will do and do depend on, not only are their lives at stake, but also others as well. It’s no wonder as to why more & more drivers are developing road rage these days. Nothing is more aggravating that to find out that the information you are given to follow (Driving) is actually wrong information and now you may have missed a very important meeting or engagement.
 

Here is a copy of the letter I sent to them (Navteq) & still waiting to hear from them:
 
 
 Dear Sirs:
 
One would tend to think & expect that a company that charges well over $180 for their navigation software would be diligently willing and able to keep up with the various changes in POI's as well as road & street changes such as yours.  But what we find is just the opposite.
 
After spending 4 months in extensive research on your software in just our local area alone, we have found that not only is your data roughly 15 years behind in its information, but also off in exact locations on an average of 50 to 500 yards off.
 
Just in the Catawba County, NC area alone, there are well over 1,200 POI's that are no longer existing, and by this, I mean, either the buildings are no longer standing, or, the businesses that you show that are there, haven't been there in well over 5 to as much as 15 years.  I can only imagine what I would find if I were able to afford to go on the road & do a National survey. No wonder why more and more Americans are having more & more road rage.
 
There is nothing more aggravating that finding out that the device & its software that you not only pay well over $2,000 for, but is lead to believe that it's the "Most sophisticated GPS system on the market" can't even be trusted.
 
When I did a side by side comparison of your system with; Tom Tom, Garman, & Microsoft’s Street's and Trips, even though I hate Microsoft, their 2006 Street's & Trips was found to be far more reliable than all of the others put together.
 
So In conclusion, Do you think that instead of pocketing all of your high profits, you can put that money to good use & at least hire a group to go out on the road for 1 to two years and Actually do a  Resurvey of the Roads & POI's. Yes, it would cost and enormous amount of money, and yes, it would certainly tap into your profits, at least for the next couple of years. But the out come would by far, pay for itself. It would not only put you back on the upper & highly trusted firm in navigation systems, but I truly believe that it would also boost your profits by at least 110%.
 
How can I suggest this updated resurvey? It's simple. It is quite obvious that neither of your survey teams have actually re-traveled the roads in almost 10 years. If they had, many of the roads you have listed would not be unverified. (Nobody likes to have that feeling of traveling on a road that is unverified). Of which more times than not, roads that you show are connecting to another, actually do not, and never did. They were just listed on various county maps as potential roads & streets. So in order to cut corners, your guys just decided to add them in & just add it to the directory of "Unverified". (A shotty way to do business).
 
I know how this is done because back when Cingular Wireless was just coming into the market, I had the pleasure of working with their Navigational and mapping software in order to assemble their Cell Site Tower Maps & Coverage Areas. Yes it was daunting, Yes it could be very aggravating. But all of us involved in this process, we traveled on every road, every street, as well as every parking lot in all of north & south Carolina in order to do all that we could, to make sure that system would both meet & exceed the customer's expectations.
 
So In conclusion, we would like to know what your future plans are in atepting to make your software a more reliable one.
 
Thanks 
 

This was 2 weeks ago. We have yet to hear from them, not to mention the same that we got from Honda of America. Neither of them has even bothered to address this issue. So, the Mrs & I are thinking about writing an article on the local papers on the issue. Maybe, just maybe, if they see a significant decline in the purchase of this navigation feature, they will be more likely to take it more seriously.
 
What do you all think. I'd be interested in hearing from you & your experiances using this system.
 
Thanks

Please, I hope someone will acknowledge this issue & will have some insight on how to get it resolved.

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If It Ain't Broke, Tear it UP.

That seems to be an interested scenario you have going there. I too would not be too impressed on spending 2 g's on s system that doesn't work that well. I sell aftermarket NAV systems from Pioneer & Eclipse and both are very reliable and in my town of 6500 people the POI are pretty much bang on to the point where there are independent restaurants that are listed in the POI and gas stations as well.... very impressive.

I do not know why NAVTEQ would try to " re-invent " the wheel per say by having to have to travel the actual roads when there is already software with a higher accuracy than their own. Copying the POI and mapping to their own software from another NAV software would be more economical.
I know this is copyright infringement but at the same time it's most likely done this way from those companies.

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Jeff
Velocity Custom Home Theater
Mobile Audio/Video Specialist
Morden, Manitoba CANADA

for a side note all Garmins use Navteq mapping systems so it is truly confusing why the garmins perform better then the Navteq system in your car. I am by no means arguing with your results but I am actually very intrigued by your findings. Let us know what Navteq replies with.

I'm guessing that the software will perform well in major areas - there are probably smaller, less used areas where they don't care about.

I can only imagine how much it would cost to accurately map out every single road and POI of Catawba County, NC.  I would guess it would take the better part of a year to survey and map out an entire county, if accuracy was the focus.

Think about it from their perspective - the USA is HUGE, with millions and millions of roads, POIs, etc.  They arn't going to waste a bunch of money focusing on areas where they don't have a big customer base.  Your best bet would be to stay on them about fixing the errors in your area.  If they arn't getting feedback from customers that their mapping software is off then they won't ever fix it.

You seem to have some time on your hands, maybe you could start a local petition and get a few hundred thoustand people to sign it - that would really get their attention!

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Kevin Pierson

I've contacted Navteq several times, only to be given the brush off, mainly telling me oh I must be wrong in my findings and that I may need to "BUY" their New year's updated DVD Rom for my car. What a crop of crap! How in the world can it be "MY" CAR" when several other 2007 Civics are having the same issues. Heck, I even went back to the dealership & asked them to let me do a test drive on another 2000 Civic with Navi & in mt preliminary findings, they too showed primarily the same exact same thing. ..... POI's that it said was there, are not, roads that are unverified one time, are verified the next, (Depending up on whch set of directions you put in) Roads that are not nor have ever been built or completed, are comming up as existing and completed (Verified or unverified) .

I mean. Come on folks, there has got to be liability somewhere.

You stated that Garmin uses some of the same software? you may want to truely give it a real work out. Take it and go out and truely pay attention as to your actual physical location and while you are moving. Look and see how it positions you in coalition to POI's on other intersecting roads as you are traveling. You just may find that many or several Roads or POI's show themselves off by so much as 1000 feet or more, and whats worse, POI's may show that they are on the opposite side of the road. When it comes to POI's check to make sure they are acurate. By that I mean, if it says it is a shell gas station, make absolutely sure that it is. If it says there is an eating joint, click on the Icon & make absolutley sure that it is is saying there is a McDonnalds, KFC, or what have you, that it is truely just that.

It has been my experiance that many of the times, the poi's shown are eithier not what they say they are (Shell being Exon, or BP, McDees being Joe's slop house etc) and or sometimes both, on the oposite side of the road and being labled worng. Oh, and here is yet another disturbing find. The Mr's & I took a trip to Atlanta using I85 from NC, and along the way, when we were needing gas, we had followed the what the GPS was telling us, and yup, Got off the exit, turned right, wents .25 miles & NOPE! NO EXXON, NO SHELL, NO BP! Nothing, Nada!

But It's got to be there, because the GPS is saying that there is right? NOPE, We get back on the interstate & continued to the next exit, (Carefully watching the GPS Screen) & what do we find? We find the Exxon, Shell, BP, along with a MCdees, Bojangles, & a Flying J. The GPS shows there isn't a thing there. Go Figure.

So In my Plea to all of you that have the Navteq units, Please give them a harden testing & Please post your results here. Only if we can show that there is truely an issue will we be able to get Navteq to honor up & either fix these damn things or at least give some of our $2,000 back.

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If It Ain't Broke, Tear it UP.

well maybe here in Canada it is different but I have sold hundreds if not thousands of Garmin units and I have never had a complaint about any of them(except for some people complaining about the price and then buying the cheaper Tom tom only to return it saying that the maps are "off" - but i digress)

And to the best of my knowledge Garmin does not use "some" of the same software but it uses only the Navteq maps so in theory it should be the same as the Navteq branded units. Google and Mapquest(and the military) also use the Navteq system so even though it may not be perfect, overall they are a great mapping company because if they were off on everything I am sure that the huge corporations would not use them.

Like it says above in some smaller areas the maps may be off by a bit but unfortunately these smaller areas are not Navteqs main cashcow. It is the major cities which Navteq will always update first because there are more people using them in/around major cities. Also paying for updates is an expected cost now a days since things area always changing and if they simply gave out updates for free then they would eventually go under.

But that being said the only thing is to keep on contacting Navteq and you may get some answer some day.   (but the guy you spoke to could be right and the update may fix your issues) Good luck.

KPierson wrote:

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I'm guessing that the software will perform well in major areas - there are probably smaller, less used areas where they don't care about.

I can only imagine how much it would cost to accurately map out every single road and POI of Catawba County, NC.  I would guess it would take the better part of a year to survey and map out an entire county, if accuracy was the focus.

Think about it from their perspective - the USA is HUGE, with millions and millions of roads, POIs, etc.  They arn't going to waste a bunch of money focusing on areas where they don't have a big customer base.  Your best bet would be to stay on them about fixing the errors in your area.  If they arn't getting feedback from customers that their mapping software is off then they won't ever fix it.

You seem to have some time on your hands, maybe you could start a local petition and get a few hundred thoustand people to sign it - that would really get their attention!

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Actually, with 2 teams (Vehicles with gear) it would take no more that about 1 week to do all of the roads here in this county alone, 45 days to do the entire state. I say this based upon experiance. When I worked for sprint, as they were comming out with their cell phone for the first time, we had to do around the entire state, mapping out each and aver road, hwy, & street, as well as large parking lots, to make absolutely sure their towers were pointed correctly.  We had a total of 20 guys. 3 teams per shift & we did this for 45 days straight. When we were done & all of the data was compiled, they ended up with Huge maps of every county showing every possible road, stop light etc. they knew how long it would take to go from one point to another and knew where we were at within 5 feet and any given time.

As far as customers based on Honda, our county is the 3rd largest new car sales area for the state. As far as size, well, all I can say is it is a pretty huge county.

It is funney that you would suggest that it should be more accurate in a larger city. Well normally, I would tend to agree with you. But after going to Atlanta and finding places like Peachtree mall, Atlanta Intl Airport, and even their post office was either totally in the wrong place (Opposite side of the road) or much further down the street than shown. Several POI's were definately wrong (Wrong gas company, wrong conveniant store, wrong school, a taco bell rather than a McDees, etc. So I don't think that it is just an isolated area thing. I am beginning to think that it may very well be a programming issue.

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If It Ain't Broke, Tear it UP.

Well, Now that I have finally gotten Honda America to listen, as expected, they are attempting to blow it off. Oh, yeah, Go by the dealership, get up with the Service manager, let's go for not one, not two but three test drives to "JUST SEE" if we can duplicate the issues.

What vehicles and what did we find?

We first went on a 45 minute ride between the dealership and 2 cities, about a total of 30 miles. What was I able to show & prove to the service Mgr? POI's not being what they said they were suppose to be, much less, 95% actual locations were off by as much as 2,000 feet. That's almost 1 mile.

We also saw that 98% of the time, the car was either just past the street or road that was being shown on the map as just then comming up on, 4% of the time, street names were off, government buildings (Ie. Post office, Police Stations, Medical facilities) were being shown as either not even there, or, was on a different street, 1 to 3 blocks away, even though these buildings were never ever in those locations.

On more than 1 occasion, the directions given was stating, and in a couple of cases, kept on insisting that we take a road or a street, that was never ever there in the first place. (These were either actually someones driveway to their house, an open field) When we got back we went to the county offices, looked up thos location, and found that those streets, or Roads NEVER EVER ACTUALLY EXISTED. 3 of which, were only a Suggested road or street that was still on countly planning files, and get this, it was dated 1962 - 1972. And it was the only time it was perposed, and never was shown on any other countly planning records since then..

We then decided to go and give the interstate a try. Thank God for Common Sence by the Driver. When we got to the interstate, this dang thing wanted us to enter the interstate using the freeking off ramp. I mean, Helloooooo. Can we say Excelent Chance of a Head On.  At another interstate exit, the map was shopwing that it didn't have an off ramp, on our side, but it had an on ramp. Whell look at that, it actully does have an off ramp. A Plain and simple & typical set of on & off ramps. Hmmmmm    Could someone have been SMOKING POT?

Ok, so we go back to the dealer ship. So, by the Suggestion of American Honda, We took a test run in a 2007 Acura with navi. Traveled the same exact routes. Discovered the Same exact issues EVERY THING!. We go back to the Dealership, Got in a 2007 Civic with navi, Same routes, Same Issues. Got back to the Dealership and was going to take out a 2008 Odyssey, and we find out that American Honda Stated that they DID NOT WANT US TO USE THIS VEHICAL FOR COMPARISON TESTING - End Quote-

wth? What are they trying to hide here. Even the Service Mgr was puzzled. Anyway, AH stated that they will take our findings under concideration and should they feel it is something that needs addressing, they will contact us. AGAIN, wth!!! Even the SM was wized at their bold an totally out ragious blow off and negligince. He stated that he would do what he could to push this issue up the chain, as he was going to stop trying to push these cars with this system into unsuspecting customers. It's a major road wreck waiting to happen.

So now we just sit back, wait & see.

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If It Ain't Broke, Tear it UP.

That sounds worse then my GPS experiances (between my '04 Infiniti and my DeLorme laptop software).

I disagree with your statement about a major road wreck waiting to happen.  GPS is intended to used as a REFERENCE.  It is still up to the driver to verify all roads exist and that they are safe and legal for motor vehicle use.

I've had my GPS take me to some places I wouldn't have gone on my own (mountain roads, trails, bad neighborhoods, etc.) but I have always taken it with a grain of salt because I know that GPS is for reference only and that I should have mapped the route "I" wanted to go instead of relying on the GPS to get me there.

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Kevin Pierson

This is also true, but both you & I know that there are those out there that definately will, out of lack of common sence, that will, out of total ignorance, will dive on roads & streets and swear up & down they were in the right, otherwise the company that provided the equipment would have been alowed to put it out there for use by the general public. And because of such ingnorance, someone could and will definately get seriously hurt.

Now I do agree that we as individuals need to be willing to take on a sence of responcibility when using such equipment, but at the same time, I also believe that the MFG of such equipment has due responcibilty to do all that they can to ensure that their software and equipment is as up to date and as accurate as possible. Nothing wizes off a driver more that uses these things than to find out that the location or POI's that is stated on the System never even existed, and now they have either driven miles out of the way to get gas that is already on E, or, they will have to turn around to make course corrections and now they will be late for an imprtant meeting. Heance, unneeded Road Rage.

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If It Ain't Broke, Tear it UP.