Comand APS sat nav not very good..

[fredT]

is my satnav faulty or are these just not very good? considering mb charge 1800 quid for this unit i hope it is the former..

driving around london my satnav is only slightly better then using a compass.. it is frequently too slow, telling me to turn after we passed the road or after already turning
same on motorways, on a few occasions i was already off the motorway on the slip road when the satnav is telling me to turn..

and dont get me started on the limited post code functionality, this is plain embarrassing

my 100 quid portable mio is just so much better..

have anyone experienced this or is it just me? i was expecting, considering the price tag, that the sat nav would be on par with or better then the equivalent portable units.

FYI this was factory fitted in my 2005 55reg c class that i recently bought.

appreciate any information on this.

Thanks / Fred

 

[amwebby]

Sounds like your satellite navigation is out by a few hundred yards. I had this once and reset it using the "current location" and "calibration" for wheel size/new tyres, functions. Been fine ever since.

I'm assuming your disc is up to date.

 

[whitenemesis]

My COMAND is on the button when it comes to turn commands. Perhaps your system needs calibrating?

As for the postcode thing well, it's German and they only have 5 digit codes out there!

It has been much commented on here that COMAND is way behind the portable sat nav units but COMAND is much more than just a sat nav unit

edit..amywebby beat me to it

 

[verytalldave]

Going by old posts that cover the same ground there seems to be an equal split between members that think COMAND is a good thing and those that say a £200 portable is better.
I can see both sides of the arguement, but for me, the fact that it is a built-in unit and always there outweighs any minus points. I have never had any problems with my COMAND. And providing you are using a reasonably up-to-date nav disk, then problems are very few and far between. The instructions on my unit are always spot-on.

 

[BTB 500]

For £500 or maybe even £1000 I would have specified COMAND on our Vito. But £2,144 was simply too much. We got the Sound 20 upgrade (which includes phone integration) for £230 instead, and use our TomTom for navigation.

 

[verytalldave]

I admit, I would not cough up an extra £2K+ for COMAND. However, when you buy pre-owned the difference between a non COMAND car and a car with COMAND is about £1K - or probably even less - depending on year and model. Its then that COMAND makes financial sense.
However, Mercedes are not budget price cars and all extra prices are geared more towards the E and S class buyers pocket rather than the Vito or A class.

 

[crockers]

I would buy a car WITHOUT Comand if the price reflected this and then get Alfie to fit it.........get all the code adjustments too ....

 

[Howard]

Exactly what i did ...

My turn commands are right on the money. Great bit of kit.

 

[Alfie]

is my satnav faulty or are these just not very good? considering mb charge 1800 quid for this unit i hope it is the former..

driving around london my satnav is only slightly better then using a compass.. it is frequently too slow, telling me to turn after we passed the road or after already turning
same on motorways, on a few occasions i was already off the motorway on the slip road when the satnav is telling me to turn..

and dont get me started on the limited post code functionality, this is plain embarrassing

my 100 quid portable mio is just so much better..

have anyone experienced this or is it just me? i was expecting, considering the price tag, that the sat nav would be on par with or better then the equivalent portable units.

FYI this was factory fitted in my 2005 55reg c class that i recently bought.

appreciate any information on this.

Thanks / Fred

It sounds like you comand unit is faulty as it should be a lot better than what you are experiencing.

The newer comand units like the one you have dont need calibrating. They just work!

Have you checked how many satellites your unit is seeing and is the disk upto date? Its also possible that your unit is having trouble reading the disk hence it is slow.

Hope this helps,

 

[Marque]

This postcode thing is overblown, IMHO. My TomTom sometimes sent me to a completely wrong part of town based on a postcode that I entered correctly. (And yes, I did have an up-to-date map.) The COMAND method is more accurate and intuitive, IMHO. The main problem is that it takes longer to enter the destination.

There are very few countries in the world using postcodes that indicate a particular section of road. The UK is one, and the Netherlands is another. (TomTom is a Dutch company.) Most postcode systems simply indicate a postal delivery area.

I believe the 2009 version of COMAND does allow full UK postcodes to be entered. However, this probably requires a new head unit, not just a map update.

 

[BTB 500]

However, Mercedes are not budget price cars and all extra prices are geared more towards the E and S class buyers pocket rather than the Vito or A class.

Agreed, but did you know there's only £1000 difference between the most expensive Vito and the cheapest E Class (list price for both, without extras)?

 

[fyonn]

In my opinion, things like comand and other built in satnav's have the advantage that they are built into the car, so they don't leave any trailing wires, and they're always available. they have much bigger screens that portable devices (the idrive screen on my bmw is 8.8 inches) and the screens get reused for other functions too. Also, being built for the car and wired in, means they often take speed pulses and the like to be able to track the car even without gps signals.

however, as actual navigation devices, they a distant second to the portables. the portable soffer full postcode support (the car manufacturers are just being *cheap* on this front), they are much faster both in map access and routing, often as their maps are on SD or hard disk (I know some cars are now coming with HD based maps). the portables even make it easy to include user definable PoI's, and their featureset is very rich.

I'm kinda surprised that none of the car manufacturers ships a car with a built in nice touch screen, but backend it with something like a garmin car-mount unit (a screenless box in the boot, but wired into the car). The maps would be on an SD card which would be easily replacable and updateable. This would give the user the best of both worlds, and make it easy to keep the technology up to date. wouldn't it also be cheaper for both the manufacturer and the user?

dave

 

[BTB 500]

I think some car manufacturers now offer a built-in dock for one of the portable satnavs (TomTom?).

Bigger screen size on COMAND etc. is a plus, but the position of it (low down on the console) is a minus.

I rarely use the in-car power cord for my TomTom (battery life is approx 4 hours, with plenty of warning when it starts to get low), so normally there are no trailing wires. I agree it doesn't look great having it on the screen, but we do share it between 3 vehicles so the saving over a built-in satnav in each would be immense. Both in terms of original purchase, and applying updates.

 

[oldcro]

Postcodes are only useful in towns where a postcode is given to one or two streets. My postcode covers an area of more than 15 square miles so is not much use in the countryside.

The map however is very good. Remember a postcode covers a postman's route so narrows the search area on the map.

 

[amwebby]

I went through this agony when I purchased my Mercedes-Benz and found that my Tom Tom wouldn't work inside the car.

At first the COMAND system seemed dated by comparison. Now I'm used to it I find the integration is a boon, especially the in dash display, which is so helpful I hardly ever look at the screen.

The gyroscope is a hidden bonus, keeping the position of the car pretty accurate when going through long tunnels like the Limehouse link. My Camera warning system falls down here and doesn't warn me about the cameras until after I've left the tunnel and it catches up.

I've got Google maps on my Mobile and that replaces any functionality I may still miss from my Tom Tom and has the added benefit of being extremely compact and portable.

 

[verytalldave]

I rarely enter a destination using a postcode. I use the moveable target more often than not. That normally gets me close enough.

 

[Rory]

FYI this was factory fitted in my 2005 55reg c class that i recently bought.

I have a 54 reg C Class and your experience is exactly the same as mine.

Which disk have you got? My car came with 2.0 and the dealer said they would update it - they put 2.1 in.

Bizzarely, it called the turns late everywhere *except* on the roundabout outside my MB dealership. So they take the car out and say it's fine.

I bought version 6.3 of the DVD myself - this is the first edition to have TMC. It is better with that - it's only late on some junctions now! I think most people probably have some idea where they're going and are using the nav more for interest so late calls are not a big issue in everyday use, but I was in Hemel Hempstead (not a huge place) the other day for the first time, and COMAND just isn't quick enough to stop me making a couple of wrong turns.

The postcode thing is wierd - I believe the data is there on the disc as the mapping companies supply it, but the Mercedes interface doesn't pick it out. Maybe it's a German thing, as they only use 5 digits? Again, it's a real pain if you don't know an area - the the address picks up on local place names is no good if you don't know them. It's certainly put me in the wrong place.

If I'm going to a place for the first time I take a multimap printout to the car and use that to find the location using the map, then store it. Absurd!

 

[fredT]

ok i suppose i have to check what version dvd i've got, anyway the latest it could be is 2005 so on london roads thta have been around for the last 200 years you would've thought it should work. i;ll have to check when my missus comes home with the car. if she finds the way that is...

it probably is broken though, yesterday it tried taking me in a 1.5 mile loop to my house instead of going straight there at about half the distance!

if i get the latest version dvd will this also let me se the estimated travel time, or is this a software update i need mb to do?

 

[raymont]

If I'm going to a place for the first time I take a multimap printout to the car and use that to find the location using the map, then store it. Absurd!

I do this! Nonsense isn't it,

Agree it's quite often a few metres out meaning it says 'turn left' slightly too late. This means you miss the turn which then highlights the next deficiency which is the slowness with which it recalculates the route. Often goes like this; miss a turn due to late announcement and very quickly arrive at a T junction and have to guess which way to go as Comand is still considering the matter.

Having said that you can't compare Comand with TT etc. as Comand is supposed to provide an integrated interface enabling you to control Nav, Phone, CD, radio etc.

IMHO the interface to all these functions is pretty poor and the Nav component, which is very important to a lot of people, is too far off the pace as to be excusable.

Also the junction schematics the nav displays are too often inaccurate and I do have the latest DVD.

 

[popuptoaster]

I notice a lot of people comparing Comand to Tom Tom, i dont have personal experiance of Comand, but i will say Tom Tom is by no means the best portable sat nav out there, me and my buddy have done side by side comparisons with his tom tom and my garmin all over europe as we share driving and its interesting to have both my garmin and his tom tom unit running together, much like the ipod the tom tom has become the first choice for many people even though technically they are by no means the best.