Is the Sat Nav on the Gran Turismo any good?

[b14desman]

Hi, just about to get my Gran Turismo in a couple of days and was wondering what members thought of the sat nav? Is it any good? Should I purchase a stand alone unit or is the Maserati unit perfectly ok to use in the UK and Europe??
Any comments will be much appreciated.
Thanks
Colin.

 

[murph7355]

It doesn't have full postcode search, which is a pain. But if you note the street address and the first part of the postcode (first 5 characters) it will get you where you need to be.

The whole entertainment interface has a certain logic to it...you get used to it and it's fine. But the latest car systems, including the one in the latest Ghibli, are much better (no surprise as the GT one is over 8yrs old now).

 

[CatmanV2]

I personally don't understand why everyone feels full postcode is so important. It never seems to get me where I need to be.

The GT Satnav is 'OK' but I use CoPilot on my phone.

C

 

[safrane]

Agree...none of my modern rentals BMW, Merc, Volvo have any off my roads house numbers and always direct me to a different Close rather than my drive.

 

[iainw]

I was really worried about it before I purchased as I totally rely on Sat Navs. I even planned to spend 1000s on changing the whole unit for aftermarket. I have to say I have been impressed. I dont bother with postcode but as long as you know the street its fine.

 

[Wack61]

I personally don't understand why everyone feels full postcode is so important. It never seems to get me where I need to be.

The GT Satnav is 'OK' but I use CoPilot on my phone.

C

you want to change to waze, user generated traffic info is very accurate and if anyone spots a cop car hidden on the down sliproad waze tells you , I've got a £130 tomtom that's in the glovebox because of how good waze is

 

[CatmanV2]

you want to change to waze, user generated traffic info is very accurate and if anyone spots a cop car hidden on the down sliproad waze tells you , I've got a £130 tomtom that's in the glovebox because of how good waze is

Tried it once. Could not see wtf was meant to be going on. As someone else commented, manuals seem passe

I should try it again, it's still installed

C

 

[drewf]

Tried it once. Could not see wtf was meant to be going on. As someone else commented, manuals seem passe

I should try it again, it's still installed

C

It's changed a lot in the last few months, after Google bought it there's now full integration with Google traffic and still retains the crowd-sourced real-time inputs. Very slick, and particularly useful in high traffic density areas, like London.

 

[CatmanV2]

It's changed a lot in the last few months, after Google bought it there's now full integration with Google traffic and still retains the crowd-sourced real-time inputs. Very slick, and particularly useful in high traffic density areas, like London.

Think I tried in June. It's still on my phone, so....

C

 

[Andy Marshall]

Hi, just about to get my Gran Turismo in a couple of days and was wondering what members thought of the sat nav? Is it any good? Should I purchase a stand alone unit or is the Maserati unit perfectly ok to use in the UK and Europe??
Any comments will be much appreciated.
Thanks
Colin.

Its fine. I use mine in UK and Europe and once you get over the slightly fiddly input process (gets faster with practice) then it works well.

 

[b14desman]

Brilliant, many thanks for all the responses. I've got Waze on my phone so I can always fall back on that if I need to. Getting excited about tomorrow now
Cheers
Colin

 

[sofasurfer]

Another vote for Waze here...much better than any inbuilt sat nav I have used and better than my ageing TomTom. Being diverted if there has been an incident ahead of you is a god send.

 

[bigbob]

The GranTurismo nav is fine by me. You can always resort to iPhone spoken navigation on days it is grumpy.

The TMC works fine in my experience.

 

[Michael]

Hi, just about to get my Gran Turismo in a couple of days and was wondering what members thought of the sat nav? Is it any good? Should I purchase a stand alone unit or is the Maserati unit perfectly ok to use in the UK and Europe??
Any comments will be much appreciated.
Thanks
Colin.

Agree with the others, the satnav in the car is ok - does the job.

If you are buying a later GT, then bluetooth your phone to the radio, run Waze and the instructions will come through the car speakers, it is great. If it is an old one, stick a Parrot in the car and you'll achieve the same. I think the way forward for all cars is to have the Android Auto software or Apple car, so what is on your phone is shown on the car's info screen, satnav vendors aren't going to keep up with the application markets.

I would love to know if anyone on the forum has worked out a way of changing their info system so it can run Android Auto or Apple car.

 

[Corranga]

I think the way forward for all cars is to have the Android Auto software or Apple car, so what is on your phone is shown on the car's info screen, satnav vendors aren't going to keep up with the application markets.

I agree with this in part.

Personally, I don't get why buyers guides etc. seem to insist on SatNav for future value in a car. Once the car hits 4,5,6+ year old the SatNav is outdated and likely ****. The system in the 4200 will get you home, but I'll more than likely continue to stick my old TomTom to the windscreen instead.
Having cars with Android / iPhone compatibility is a great idea in practice, however, I think the same thing would happen.
4 or 5 years later you'll be hard pushed to find a handset that is compatible with your car, and that you actually want to use.
Make that 10 years and the way Android / iOS go, it'll be near impossible to find one that even works.
Unless of course they make it forwards compatible, but that usually ends in tears..

 

[CatmanV2]

I think the way forward for all cars is to have the Android Auto software or Apple car, so what is on your phone is shown on the car's info screen, satnav vendors aren't going to keep up with the application markets..

Won't make that much difference. In 5 years of OS upgrades, they won't be compatible. I'll lay odds on it

C

 

[spkennyuk]

You only have to look at iphone and android phones. No software updates after 18 to 24 months. Iphone 4 and samsung s4 as examples are pretty much consigned to the kitchen drawer.

If you could upgrade the head unit every 4 or 5 years then it would not be so bad. Its a bit difficult to do that when its embeded into a custom facia or housing.

The days of standard din and double din entertainment systems had a lot going for them in terms of straight swap upgrades. The theft rates were much higher as a result.

I think the best way forward that is fair to consumers would be an embeded manufactuters screen / interface in the dash which would be linked to a standard upgradeable infotainment system in the boot that ran either android or ios. You would simply need to install a branded GUI to the upgrade units to have the Maserati logo appear on start up. The GUI could be made available by car manufacturers as a download.

All easy to do. The car manufactuters have no interest in doing the easy, obvious and cost effective things.

 

[StuartW]

It doesn't have full postcode search, which is a pain. But if you note the street address and the first part of the postcode (first 5 characters) it will get you where you need to be.

The whole entertainment interface has a certain logic to it...you get used to it and it's fine. But the latest car systems, including the one in the latest Ghibli, are much better (no surprise as the GT one is over 8yrs old now).

I've been reasonably happy with mine and updated my discs to the 2015 version, but I didn't even know it had a partial postcode search function. I have not seen that on the menu when entering an address (is it really that obvious?!) & can't recall it from when I read the manual, I assumed it was just town & street name like the Navteq on my Nissan truck.
I must dig the manual out again - I guess it's even better than I thought!

 

[CatmanV2]

You only have to look at iphone and android phones. No software updates after 18 to 24 months. Iphone 4 and samsung s4 as examples are pretty much consigned to the kitchen drawer.

If you could upgrade the head unit every 4 or 5 years then it would not be so bad. Its a bit difficult to do that when its embeded into a custom facia or housing.

The days of standard din and double din entertainment systems had a lot going for them in terms of straight swap upgrades. The theft rates were much higher as a result.

I think the best way forward that is fair to consumers would be an embeded manufactuters screen / interface in the dash which would be linked to a standard upgradeable infotainment system in the boot that ran either android or ios. You would simply need to install a branded GUI to the upgrade units to have the Maserati logo appear on start up. The GUI could be made available by car manufacturers as a download.

All easy to do. The car manufactuters have no interest in doing the easy, obvious and cost effective things.

Still can't see it happening. Computer hardware moves way too fast for embedding in cars. Look at the iPhone 4 you have in the draw. Not only will it not run the current software, it probably *can't* run the current software. When the new hardware becomes available, everyone codes to take advantage of the new features.

*If* it was *just* a display mirror (and control) it might be feasible to keep it going for maybe 10 years. But then resolutions (for example) would change too much and the screen in the car wouldn't be able to show the image. Compute is just not consumer durable as yet.

C

 

[azapa]

another vote for Waze. Free and amazing, real time updates, police traps etc. And it fits on your cellphone to take car to car.. Even a dedicated Andriod tablet (these cost a 100 bucks now) mounted in the car, with waze installed and internet shared from the cellphone will beat any solution I know of.