Well the play by play goes as follows. Example 1: I live on the other side of a canyon from my parents, friends and some places I frequently hang out. Now there are a few ways for me to get from my house to where I want to be. I can take the freeway route that is about 31 miles and has me take 3 separate freeways and basically make a big U. Not my first choice EVER. Traffic always sucks and no matter what time of day it takes forever. I can take canyon road 1 which is about 15 miles total and even in rush hour never takes me longer than 20-25 min. Or there is canyon road 2 which is 13.2 miles (according to Google Maps) and in non rush hour times takes me about 15 min. I would think to anyone out there, the choice is fairly obvious. Either canyon road 1 or 2. So you would think that a so-called Smart Navigation unit would do the same. Well, think again.
I have taken both of these routes about 10-15 times each since I got the unit and yes I had my destination in it every time. Not ONCE has it ever even given me the canyons as one of my six options. To make it worse, while I am driving these routes it keeps telling me to make a u-turn and head back to the freeway as I watch my total trip time rise higher and higher. Not until I am just past the middle of the canyons does it route me the right way. It does the same thing every time. I tells me to make a u-turn and says my destination is 40 miles away and will take an hour and a 31 min then all the sudden is says I have 8 miles remaining and will be there in 12 min. EVERY TIME!!! Even my N1 never did that. I was always given the canyons as an option with the N1. Google Maps, Yahoo Maps, Map-Quest, the N1, my Dads Garmin all say the take the canyon. But not my beloved Z2. FOR SHAME!!
Even when I tell it to avoid the freeway and or shortest route it turns my 15-25 min drive into an hour plus.
Example 2: My girlfriend’s house is 12 miles away. The Route I have always taken is a total of 6 turns door to door and all major streets. The 'one' time I made the mistake of trying the Z2's route it turned it into almost 20 turns and over 22 miles. My Route, I never hit a stop sign (some stop lights but never any stop signs) and the speed limit is 45+ the whole way. The Z2's route takes me through a residential area that is covered in stop signs, speed limit is 25 and right next to a school. STUPID!
I have many, MANY more examples like this if you really want to hear them but I'm sure you get the point.
As I was typing this my not so bright room mate just asked me what does it matter if it screws up the routes I take all the time? Well as I am sure you all agree if it can't handle my easy routes what do you think it's doing to the ones where I have no idea where I am going?
Point is, Pioneer needs to get off there A$$’s and fix this thing before all of us jump ship for a cheaper, more updated Nav unit that doesn’t make it difficult to bypass and has up to date BT and iPod controls. Oh and there is that whole sucking ass at Navigation thing too. I just hope it doesn’t take all of us switching to Kenwood’s 7100 with Garmin built in or to an Eclipse unit before Pioneer gets the message.
Ya feel me dogg? (Wow, I can’t even pull that off in Print) 