I really want to buy the Z130BT and was planning to next week until I came across these two reviews on Crutchfield. Are these two reviews accurate or are they exaggerating just a bit? Maybe they got two lemons? I really would like to purchase it but if this in fact true (freeze up / screen goes blank) for most, I may wait to see if there is a fix and stick with my old N3 for the moment.

Thanks.

FROM CRUTCHFIELD REVIEWERS:

1 out of 5

Oh Pioneer...why......whyyyyy!

Written By SadPioneerUser, Boston, MA` on Saturday, April 23, 2011

I had high hopes for this grande receiver to be everything that I wanted. I even pre-ordered this unit!

The best part of this product was INSTALLING IT.

The GPS is choppy as heck. I feel like it regressed to the 1st edition BT700 I had previously before all the updates. It does not show the names of the cross- streets unless it is a major one. It does not show the maximum speed limit. If you want to search for, say Starbucks, you have to click through a million buttons to find the one you want to go.

With that said...I am really considering returning this thing ...

Pros:

- great looking unit

- sound is pretty good, but not as crisp as I thought it would be

- images are nice

- ipod controls are much better

- Pandora is real nice

- traffic feature works

Cons:

- SLOW AS A SNAIL GPS system

- No max speed limit

- no display of cross-street names

- screen not as sensitive as it could be

- freezes up quite a lot

- system takes a mile before becoming totally functional

- screen goes blank A LOT

- can't get the preset stations to show the names or channel. Just says "Preset 1, 2 ,3, etc"

- ok, i am gonna stop typing now...and begin the return process...

1 out of 5

Massively Flawed

Written By ChrisW, Los Angeles on Friday, April 15, 2011

I bought the brand new z-130bt based on the many favorable reviews of its predecessor the z-120bt. Four days after successful installation, I find the 130 to be rife with flaws. Voice command prompts are painfully slow. Voice recognition is almost non-existent...the GPS literally told me that Burbank California 'does not exist' while I stared at the word 'Burbank' as a destination option on the screen. After repeated attempts to no avail I've given-up. By comparison, the iPhone has excellent voice recognition for phone contacts and the Android has excellent voice recognition GPS...If that exists in mobile phones why can't Pioneer get it right for their top-of-the-line Navigation system?

Musically the 130 makes everything sound very big but at the expense of taking sharpness out of the equation. Everything sounds muddy. I played with all the EQ settings but this sound is apparently baked into all of the EQ's software. My car's factory Shaker 500 head unit had much cleaner sound. Sending it back and going with Kenwood.

I have the Z130bt for 3 weeks now and I believe the previous reviewer is overly harsh. On the Con side, I only agree with him on the preset station. I have no problem with the rest of the issues he pointed out (I have experience no freeze, no blank screen, quick bootup time,sensitive screen). On the GPS side, I admit that my handheld garmin is a better GPS but that is common for most car GPS. Maybe Kenwood with Garmin is a better GPS but users have other complaints on those units including slowness and freeze-up.

I wish I hadn't bought mine now. I've had it for 2 weeks and hate it.

1. The GPS is the worst one I've ever had the displeasure of using. You have to be zoomed in to .25 mile range to see any streets of interest, does not show the rated speed of the road you are on, doesn't even show your current MPH anywhere. Try changing your route preferences enroute.. I took a trip to Michigan and initially said to avoid toll roads. Imagine my surprise when I found you cannot turn it off or even make a change without coming to a complete stop and redoing the entire trip. Really? They will let you play with the EQ and sound display to your hearts content, but you cannot edit the trip. Stupid.

2. I added a Sirius module because I hate commercials, and the designers of the interface must hate Sirius. No labels on the preset channels, no graphics for the channels (that are free to download if they cared to). What a serious waste of screen real estate. I had to laugh when I notice that it scrolled the title of the song in the tiny area they reserved for this. A single line in small print? Really? And the entire song title fit without scrolling, but they scrolled it anyway. Never mind that the space is twice as wide as the area they display in, they still scroll and chop it to half the space.

3. Whoever mentioned the sound is muddy above hit the nail on the head. I have tried to use the meager EQ to make it sound good but cannot. This is a digital system, why not 31 bands or more?

4. I hate the way they try to protect me from me, Like in #1, as soon as you start moving, the GPS functions are pretty much disabled but everything else is a playground. Here's a good one; on the way home from Michigan, it got dark for the last two hours of the trip. The backlit display is annoying when it is not doing anything so I reached over to turn it off. You guessed it, the Screen Off was disabled because I was moving! Not to be outsmarted, I pressed the button on the front to access the SD card so the monitor point at the roof and left it there for the rest of the trip.

I could go on and on....

?Anyone want to buy a 2 week old Z130BT? Make me an offer.

I wish I hadn't bought mine now. I've had it for 2 weeks and hate it.

 

... Try changing your route preferences enroute.. I took a trip to Michigan and initially said to avoid toll roads. Imagine my surprise when I found you cannot turn it off or even make a change without coming to a complete stop and redoing the entire trip. Really? They will let you play with the EQ and sound display to your hearts content, but you cannot edit the trip. Stupid.

 

Doesn't sound like you've used other built-in NAVs (including factory). AFAIK, they all lock you out from making changes unless you are stopped. At least with this unit, there is a well known and documented bypass. Sounds like you didn't do any research b4 buying.

I personally have no problems with the sound quality/equalizer or NAV. It isn't the most functional NAVout there, but is issn't the worst wither. My wife thinks it is much better that the factory one in her Mazda (which has no known bypass hack).

I wish I was in the market for another one at this time. I'd buy yours - although from your description - it does sound F'd up. Might be defective.

Doesn't sound like you've used other built-in NAVs (including factory). AFAIK, they all lock you out from making changes unless you are stopped. At least with this unit, there is a well known and documented bypass. Sounds like you didn't do any research b4 buying.

 

I personally have no problems with the sound quality/equalizer or NAV. It isn't the most functional NAVout there, but is issn't the worst wither. My wife thinks it is much better that the factory one in her Mazda (which has no known bypass hack).

 

I wish I was in the market for another one at this time. I'd buy yours - although from your description - it does sound F'd up. Might be defective.

There is nothing wrong with the unit and was professionally installed by the factory authorized seller. All Z130BT's do this.

As for the GPS features, every Garmin I've ever owned allow you to change all settings while moving. Not owning a Mazda, I cannot compare it to that.

And no, I made the mistake of taking the words of other before buying. I will not make the same mistake again.

And if warranty is a concern, I will work with seller to make sure the full warranty stays in effect.

John

You need to do the bypass to be able to change route during drive. It is a common safety feature among all car radio/navigation system. You can check with your installer that JVC, Kenwood, Alpine and others all have the same restriction. I did the bypass listed on this site and have no problem changing route or other options during drive. The handheld GPS units for obvious reason do not have that restriction because they are not connected to your car's speed sensor or parking brake.

Ok, have had the unit for a week and a half now on my Porsche 911. My responses to the Crutchfield review bold and underline after his comments:

Pros:

- great looking unit - Agreed

- sound is pretty good, but not as crisp as I thought it would be - I added an Amplifier and have fantastic sound

- images are nice - Agreed

- ipod controls are much better - Agreed

- Pandora is real nice - Pandora is clearly the best feature of the unit. Very well done and nicely integrated.

- traffic feature works - Agreed

Cons:

- SLOW AS A SNAIL GPS system - It's one of the worst GPS systems I've seen in a long time but I haven't seen any lag at all yet

- No max speed limit - Haven't tested this feature

- no display of cross-street names - Biggest annoyance of the GPS. So few street names are identified that it's impossible to know where you are

- screen not as sensitive as it could be - The screen is not terrible but clearly not as good as current touchscreen phone technology

- freezes up quite a lot - Thankfully haven't seen any freezes yet

- system takes a mile before becoming totally functional - It's a bit slow to start but all current high end systems are the same. It's about 25-30 seconds to boot up.

- screen goes blank A LOT - This is very annoying

- can't get the preset stations to show the names or channel. Just says "Preset 1, 2 ,3, etc" - I posted about this already. It's inexcusable and truly ruins the system.

- ok, i am gonna stop typing now...and begin the return process... - I'm not there because the Kenwood has it's own share of problems. Truth is, there are no great units on the market which is a shame for this price

You need to do the bypass to be able to change route during drive. It is a common safety feature among all car radio/navigation system. You can check with your installer that JVC, Kenwood, Alpine and others all have the same restriction. I did the bypass listed on this site and have no problem changing route or other options during drive. The handheld GPS units for obvious reason do not have that restriction because they are not connected to your car's speed sensor or parking brake.

I forgot to mention that the cable was modified with the bypass prior to installation at the shop. Even with this in place, I get two error messages on startup that I have to press OK to. Maybe they figured it out already and nullified this hack.

Still for sale.

I forgot to mention that the cable was modified with the bypass prior to installation at the shop. Even with this in place, I get two error messages on startup that I have to press OK to. Maybe they figured it out already and nullified this hack.

 

Still for sale.

Are you saying you have done the bypass and you still cannot change the the trip parameter during drive? What two error messages are you getting? My experience is that I can change the trip parameter in the middle of the drive and the GPS will recalculate the route. I still get the standard OK message at the startup after doing the bypass and have no error message since the installation three weeks ago.

@TMF: If your getting errors, the bypass is not correct.

@Everyone else: Its funny that the issues you guys are aware of with the navi are only about half of the issues these units have. Just wait until you start stumbling on the rest.

Are you saying you have done the bypass and you still cannot change the the trip parameter during drive? What two error messages are you getting? My experience is that I can change the trip parameter in the middle of the drive and the GPS will recalculate the route. I still get the standard OK message at the startup after doing the bypass and have no error message since the installation three weeks ago.

The first one complains the parking brake is not wired correctly. The yellow wire was moved up one position. Since I'm going to pull it out I will double-check it for the next user.

@TMF: If your getting errors, the bypass is not correct.

 

@Everyone else: Its funny that the issues you guys are aware of with the navi are only about half of the issues these units have. Just wait until you start stumbling on the rest.

Maybe it worked loose, but there are other issues. What have you stumbled with?

What's funny is, this wasn't my first barbecue with in-dash display units. My first is a home-build CarPC with a 7" Lilliput display that runs RoadRunner (RideRunner now I guess, but I never upgraded it). It has WinAmp as the MP3 player and a stripped down WIndows XP core, bluetooth to my phone and hooks up my Sirius adapter. The nav is iGuidance and integrated nicely. I honestly didn't want to build another system so I went with this because it was "easy". Well, I now know how "easy" turned out and should have just done the same thing again.

If I don't get any offers on the unit, I might as well crack it open and put a real CarPC motherboard inside it and reuse the touch screen. Won't be the worst way I've ever spent $1000 before.

The first one complains the parking brake is not wired correctly. The yellow wire was moved up one position. Since I'm going to pull it out I will double-check it for the next user.

 

 

 

 

 

I hope you meant the yellow/black wire (mute). Yellow is the +12v always hot.

I hope you meant the yellow/black wire (mute). Yellow is the +12v always hot.

Sorry I wan't specific enough for you.

Well this unit has now been hacked and other apps run on it so you might want to wait a little while to see where this goes. It should get very interesting over the next month or so.

Well this unit has now been hacked and other apps run on it so you might want to wait a little while to see where this goes. It should get very interesting over the next month or so.

I read that, but it is still only running WinCE and not very upgradeable.

Sorry I wan't specific enough for you.

its as simple as this, YOU should not be getting those error messages if everything was done correctly. So either you have a faulty unit or it was installed incorrectly, THATS IT. Yes the gps is not a strong point of these units, but thats all been well documented and knowing that I still bought one, and do not regret it. To me the bluetooth is more of an annoyance than the gps... however i've now gotten a chance to experience some different kenwood models and like everyone else their are pros and cons. I bought this unit for the interface and the fact pioneer lets out yearly upgrades.