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Please forgive this lengthly post . . .

I have been using Garmin GPS units for many, many years. I was most thrilled when Garmin added the speed limit display and further enthralled when the actual speed display started showing in RED when exceeding the displayed speed limit. I call this the poor mans radar detector! Quite frankly I prefer it -- and it is legal everywhere!

I have no experience with other brands or with built in units -- until a recent purchase of a Nissan Murano CrossCabriolet. Curiously, right about the same time, my son bought a new Lexus ES-350. We shared a similar problem -- with slight differences. His built in nav does not display any speed limits. My nav only displays speed limits on interstates. We also note that these nav units will not provide audio nav guidance on many rural roads -- although the roads and names do show on the display. I will say that the graphical displays on both the Nissan and Lexus units are clever and mostly informative. Some of the displays are not as informative as many on the Garmin units -- for example, the Garmin units are better on intersection displays. As I will note below, the routing provided by the built-in units are vastly inferior to those from the Garmin -- I presume this results from the absence of actual speed limits when the unit calculates the routing. Quite frankly, I now have my Garmin sitting on my dash.

I decided to send a note to Navteq -- and subsequently to the Nissan folks. Navteq replies that they provide the data to the unit manufacturer and I should contact them. Nissan suggested I contact my dealer. The dealer does not have any idea for where I should go next. That note follows:

I recently purchased a new Murano Crosscabriolet.

I am disappointed with the nav unit in several ways--particularly as compared with my Garmin Nuvi 765T:
1-My local roads are in the unit but it says it has incomplete data or somesuch! If it has the roads displayed, why are they not completely useable like they are in my Nuvi? The specifics are the roads in Madison NH that start with Eidelweiss Dr and connect to it. They are completely useable in the Nuvi!
2-Speed limits are not showing on many/most roads-except for interstates. Examples are NH Rt 16, NH 113, NH 41 which all show the speed limit in the Nuvi!
3-As an apparent result of the missing speed limits on NH Rt 16 the "fastest" routing it chooses using I93 is longer when traveling to/from locations in Massachusetts and my location in Madison NH. The Nuvi chooses a routing via NH Rt 16 which IS faster!
4-Further, the absence of speed limits cause substantial errors in arrival time estimates as compared with the Nuvi.
5-Lastly, it appears that future updates will cost about $150 each. My Nuvi provides me with four updates per year for the lifetime of the unit for a single payment of $64.95! How often do you plan to offer $150 updates for this unit? Will the map coverage and speed limit coverage improve?

My Nuvi and it's cousins are tiny little units but seem to have a huge amount of data compared to the hard drive unit in my Murano. Why does this extremely expensive unit seem so inferior to this Nuvi (available for under $240) in the areas I mention above?

Thoughts please . . .
Bill Gargan

The units in the cars are more of an afterthought; they don't put that much effort into making them really work. They know that after you buy it you are stuck with it so there's not a lot of reason for them to worry.

The Garmin units have to sell and need all the features they can put on them to be successful, plus they have years to improve the units.

I wouldn't pay extra on a car for a built-in nav unit - I'll stick to my Garmin.

Besides if your car nav unit fails, it's going to cost a LOT to get it fixed. You can probably buy a new Garmin for less than the cost of fixing one of the builtins.

At least with Dodge/Chrysler/Jeep you can get Garmin!

http://www8.garmin.com/ces/chrysler.html