Ordering without navigation. Mistake?

[comike]

Hi,

 

I'm about to purchase a 2014 Fusion Energi Titanium.  I've never been a big fan of built-in navigation systems.  A portable Garmin, and more recently Waze, have been far better than any built-in nav I have ever used.  Therefore I'm not planning to purchase/order a vehicle with nav (unless it's unavoidable).

 

I know of only one situation where the navigation appears to interact with the operation of the vehicle. That is the feature where the vehicle switches to EV mode as it nears the destination.  

 

I don't understand why this is a useful feature.  What am I missing?

 

Also, are there any other benefits to an integrated nav system that I'm missing?

 

Thanks,

Mike

 

PS - I did a few searches but I didn't come up with the answer.

Edited March 6, 2014 at 08:57 PM by njmike

[JATR4]

"I'm not planning to purchase/order a vehicle without nav"

 

What?

[comike]

"I'm not planning to purchase/order a vehicle without nav"

 

What?

Typo. Fixed. Thanks.

[murphy]

Hi,

 

I'm about to purchase a 2014 Fusion Energi Titanium.  I've never been a big fan of built-in navigation systems.  A portable Garmin, and more recently Waze, have been far better than any built-in nav I have ever used.  Therefore I'm not planning to purchase/order a vehicle with nav (unless it's unavoidable).

 

I know of only one situation where the navigation appears to interact with the operation of the vehicle. That is the feature where the vehicle switches to EV mode as it nears the destination.  

 

I don't understand why this is a useful feature.  What am I missing?

 

Also, are there any other benefits to an integrated nav system that I'm missing?

 

Thanks,

Mike

 

PS - I did a few searches but I didn't come up with the answer.

The car has a GPS receiver whether or not it has a NAV system.  SYNC uses it to provide turn by turn directions independent of NAV via directions downloaded via your smartphone.

 

EV+ holds off starting the ICE when you are very close to home, if the hybrid battery portion still has sufficient charge, on the assumption that the battery will be hooked to a charger when it reaches home.

[comike]

The car has a GPS receiver whether or not it has a NAV system.  SYNC uses it to provide turn by turn directions independent of NAV via directions downloaded via your smartphone.

 

EV+ holds off starting the ICE when you are very close to home, if the hybrid battery portion still has sufficient charge, on the assumption that the battery will be hooked to a charger when it reaches home.

So it sounds like EV+ will work with or without NAV. Excellent. Thanks!

[jeff_h]

One consideration is whether you deal with traffic a lot... I've found the navigation with Sirius traffic displaying on the screen useful every day.  If the portable Garmin also has that feed integrated that's good, but my portable Garmin that I use for rental cars doesn't have it (that's I've found, anyway).

 

I also like the integrated navigation over the portable to help avoid the temptation of a smash-n-grab of the car, which yes can be mostly prevented by stowing the Garmin each time but that gets to be a pain, IMHO.

[Eric4539]

It's probably a personal preference for you, njmike.  This is the 3rd vehicle I have with Nav, and I prefer to have the factory Nav over carrying my Garmin around.  

 

I like that the Ford unit can be programmed by voice commands.  My Garmin doesn't use voice commands so with the Energi I can program destinations as I'm driving instead of having to be sure I program destinations prior to me leaving my house.  My previous car wouldn't allow programming the Nav while driving either since it was all by touch.

 

If you drive in EV Now and program your destination, the Ford Nav shows you your predicted range on battery only.  Not sure if that's a plus for you or not.

 

$795 is still a little pricey but that is about half of what factory Nav's used to cost.  I wouldn't say that not ordering it is a mistake or that you'll be missing something.  I find it much more convenient to use than my Garmin.

[dnorris78]

I love the factory nav with MFT. The voice command ability is a big plus.

[pluggedin]

Yeah, Mike, I waffled on the NAV too but the smash-n-grab thing convinced me to pony up for the NAV and I haven't looked back since. I still use my TomTom for rental cars, like others have mentioned here. And I was never a fan of having to remount the TomTom every time I needed to use it anyway.

[Kybuck]

Like you, I didn't want nav, but there weren't any on the dealer's lot without nav, so I reluctantly got one with nav.  Since I'm typically commuting, I've rarely used it.  I haven't had very good luck with searching through the POIs either, at least when compared to Google maps my android smartphone.  Since I use nav so rarely it wouldn't be a big deal to use my phone (that I always take with me) or even a portable Garmin that I only get out when I need it.  My phone also shows traffic, and I tend to trust free Google maps over Sirius traffic (which will expire at some point).

 

One somewhat interesting feature that seems to come with nav is that it will (sometimes) show the speed limit of the current road.  But since I'm usually on known roads, it isn't that useful for me.  If that feature integrated with the driving coach to not dock my "crusing" score when traveling the speed limit on the freeway, that'd be another plus.  But as far as I can tell, it doesn't.

 

To me, the navigation wasn't worth the cost.  When comparing it to the other options, it isn't nearly as handy or as fairly priced as the minimal cost addition for the backup sensors and backup camera.

[SteveEnergi]

I have a Tom Tom with traffic alerts.  I feel the Tom Tom does a much better job with traffic, than Sirius.  The Tom Tom uses the AM radio to receive local traffic reports, while the built in NAV uses Sirius Traffic and I'm not sure if that provides as robust a traffic alert as the Tom Tom.  In fact, I have yet to receive any traffic on my car NAV, when I know there is an accident ahead because the highway alert signs state so.  The Tom Tom, always showed accidents, almost immediately as they are reported.   With the built in Nav, only on one occasion, if I pressed the "traffic" button from the "information" button did I see a traffic alert, but never saw icons on the map itself.  I've checked my settings several times and the maps are supposed to show traffic.

 

In my opinion, Tom Tom is far superior when it comes to real-time traffic, however I like the larger display of the built in NAV and the additional mapping views.

 

Steve

[jeff_h]

Here are a few shots of traffic maps in my area, I use it every day to see the colored lines from Sirius traffic and adjust accordingly if possible.  I think the more someone deals with traffic on a regular basis the more they would want the integrated nav and traffic. I have my settings to only show accidents and the red triangles for disabled vehicles, as if I also had construction zones and slow traffic icons showing it really clutters things up since there are so many.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[SteveEnergi]

Thanks for the Pics, Jeff

 

I think it's because you're in one of the areas covered by the traffic.

Boston, New York metro, Washington DC, Seattle, LA,etc...

 

http://www.siriusxm.com/siriusxmtraffic/marketcoverage

 

I'm in the Hartford area and haven't seen an accident show up "on time" on my map. I'm not sure how long it takes their system to get updated with an incident.  However, it seems to be timely enough for your commute.

 

I don't know if the Sirius traffic uses the AM radio frequency to get the alerts, making the coverage far less than say a Tom Tom.  The coverage map from the link above is pretty sparse.

 

Steve

[jza80]

One thing to consider is resale value.  A vehicle like this that is missing a major option like nav will be a little harder to sell later on, since most persons are looking for this feature.  

[comike]

One thing to consider is resale value.  A vehicle like this that is missing a major option like nav will be a little harder to sell later on, since most persons are looking for this feature.  

Yep, that's a consideration.  

 

Regarding carrying a Garmin vs built-in NAV, I almost never use my Garmin. I use Waze on my iPhone 99% of the time, and it's always with me. I also stream music from it a lot.

[meyersnole]

One thing to consider is resale value.  A vehicle like this that is missing a major option like nav will be a little harder to sell later on, since most persons are looking for this feature.  

 

Actually, at one point Nav was considered a negative and cars with out it were actually selling higher than cars with it. The study is quite dated though (2007) and portable GPS systems were running circles around the in car systems. Today's NAV systems are cheaper and more likely to be updated than that time period. I think it is still fair to say that a NAV system in the car is way down the list of what most car shoppers would consider essential. 

 

Here is a list from CARS.COM on the topic: http://www.cars.com/go/advice/Story.jsp?section=buy&story=car-options&subject=best_resale

 

There is no date on that page, so I am not sure how dated that information is either.

Edited March 7, 2014 at 11:19 PM by meyersnole

[shaggy314]

Actually, at one point Nav was considered a negative and cars with out it were actually selling higher than cars with it.

 

That makes no sense. I could see them priced as the same but why would you lower the value with built in, just don't use and you have the same as a car with it. So no loss in value.

 

Even if the maps are way out of date, you don't use it. Weird.

[meyersnole]

That makes no sense. I could see them priced as the same but why would you lower the value with built in, just don't use and you have the same as a car with it. So no loss in value.

 

Even if the maps are way out of date, you don't use it. Weird.

 

I would agree, that was just a line from one of the articles that read on the topic from either edmunds or cars.com (forget now). I think the study was performed by a university.