Hi all, I have problem with my Mini Navigator locating my car on the wrong street very often, therefore the guidance is off till it picks up my correct location.
I have a 2003 mini with CD Nav system. I want to know if anyone has experienced this problem and how did you fix it, My dealership has not been able to help. I suspect the problem maybe the receiver/antenna.
Also could an uppgrade help (waiting for the Navteq 2005 maps to come out)
Any ideas or suggestions

 

How far apart are the streets it is confusing? The receiver is only accurate to a few meters, so it could, and does, easily confuse close roads.

alternately, bring it to the dealer and show them.

 

Mines been doing it a lot lately. I've got a 2003 MC with the DVD nav. On certain areas in downtown LA, I'll be driving on the surface streets and it will think I'm on the freeway and continue routing from there. Wish there was a way to force it to know I was on the street and not the freeway--short of changing the preference to Avoid Highway.

 

This could also be a problem with the Map Data. Someone had to create/digitize the streets. If the street was not digitized "correctly" then although it may look correct on the visual map, it won't align with where your GPS says you are.

The system works by snapping you to a street based off of the lat/long that the GPS is calculating compared to where the data says the street is.
Would suggest comparing to another Mini with Nav. Or take a standalone GPS receiver and see where it shows you, in relation to the lat long that your Mini will display on the Emergency. This would at least confirm for you if your GPS antenna is working correctly.

The only other caveat I can think of could be if you are surrounded by very tall buildings in a canyon type environment (think New York Wall Street area). You can get what are called secondary path signals that can introduce error into the GPS calculation. But this situation would be rare and wouldn't apply to a wide area.

 

Yeah, I've got digitizing issues. Mom lives in a little town in the mountains, and even though the map shows her road layout perfectly, the Nav thinks I'm on another street. Doesn't help with all the trees around, but since my Garmin has the same issue at the same place (Fern drive? Where is Fern drive?) I assume it's a mapping issue.
And on Hwy 17 (lots 'o trees) the MINI Nav keeps thinking I'm off the road and tells me to 'turn left to enter the motorway' As soon as we clear the trees it knows where it is.

 

Thank you all for the replies, sorry for the delay, was ill over past few days.
To answer some of your questions & replies;
The streets are one block or more away that is at least 200 - 300ft off, usually in Brooklyn / Queens in NY.
I took it to the dealers, no help. Interestingly one of their staff has a system that takes forever to fix and they think that is normal, Duh!... so I gave up on them.
The problem happens anywhere on the open roads, highways with clear view of the sky, so canyon / foliage not the issue.
I have used Mapopolis (+ serial mouseGPS) on a PDA and really that was how I found out that GPS systems do not behave erratically as the one in our mini did. Mapopolis uses the same Navteq database and it is always accurate to 20 - 100ft max, and whenever I had the problems in the mini, Mapopolis was still on track (using both simultaneously)
I am waiting for the 2005 maps from Navteq to be released and hope this will fix the problem, but I was just wondering if the problem is the GPS receiver, since the software only acts on the coordinates it receives from it.

 

You could see if they will replace the receiver if it's that bad. I've never had mine plot me more than 100ft off my current location...

I'm also using a Delorme Blue Logger GPS with ALK Co-Pilot Live and Street Atlas USA PDA on my Pocket PC and Streets and Trips 2005 and the full Street Atlas USA on my laptop, with that receiver I've found the position to be off regularly by 100ft... I had the same problem with the Pharos receiver that came with Streets and Trips until the cheap piece of crap broke...

 

I think its your map data that is incorrect, I see this where I live out on LI ther is one specific section of a street that say its in a different town that it should be. Example: I come out of my street which has the correct street and town, I turn on to the main road and it says I am in the town next door I drive a couple houndred feet to the intersetion it then says I am back in my town I go across the intersection and I am back in the town next door and few houndred feet down the road it reads correct again. So I have driven all the streets around the section of road and the town info is correct. So there is this isolated section of Mooney Pond road which say its in Coram when it sould say Selden.

 

Have they tried upgrading your software? Whether or not they have perhaps you should try a different dealer, not every service dept is equal and some just know more then others I have found. If you are not satisfied with how thing are being handled you could also escalate it and request that the issue is reviewed with the area Field Rep. If you can show that others (Minis/BMWs) with the same maps do not have the problem that could help as well.

It is one thing to have repeatable instances/locations where it puts you in the wrong place, which would point to bad Navtech info, another to have that happen randomly and inconsistantly, which would indicate problems with the unit or antenna IMHO.

 

Hi eVal, I am thinking along the same line as you, the dealers keep saying there is no upgrade yet when I know there have been two versions at least since we got the car, thats why I have been waiting on Navteq since Sept '04 to come out with the newest upgrade, ....date keeps changing.
If the software upgrade does not solve it then they will have to change the receiver at least.
dkstone, it is too random to be a map issue, it will locate me on a street then suddenly puts me two blocks away and follows my general direction, sometimes it catches up.

 

Hmm, there you go, I think you need a new dealer..the software upgrades for the GPS refers to the version Mini upgrades not the maps from Navteq. I don't know about the CD version offhand, but with the DVD system in my car you can check the software version in the settings menu. They usually release quite a few versions of the software, on my 3 series with the CD I had a handful of upgrades to the nav software done regardless of the map versions and I found it really helped the speed of the system on at least one occasion. In most cases I did have to request the upgrades, for some reason it is something that the dealers seem to neglect otherwise.

Anyway, hope that helps and best of luck

 

I'd lean away from the map data being the problem at this point and more likely a system/antenna problem. Again, I'd watch the setting on the emergency screen comparing it to your pda. They should be less then 15 ft difference from each other. So when you look at the actual lat long, the seconds should be pretty close.

I'm not familiar with Mapopolis, but the base map data does typically come from the same sources. For example, the city where I work sales our map data to the public, because we generate it ourselves for approx 1200 sq miles. That way they take advantage of our error checking/corrections.

 

I’m with MINI USA. I’m sorry to read about your concern with your navigation system. If you or your dealer would like our assistance, please phone us at (866) ASK.MINI or email us at MINI.Assistance@askMINIUSA.COM and mention Reference # 200508200588 so that we can help you more efficiently.

 

Thanks MiniDIvision, I will give Mini USA a try and hopefully I can get this fixed, it is really driving us crazy having a GPS system that can't even find itself.

 

http://www.tomshardware.com/mobile/20050404/index.html

Article titled, "Is After-Market GPS Up to Driving Speed?"

 

But you really can't draw any conclusions off of that article, it's hardly conclusive or even definitive since it only tests 2 units, the Magellian and the iWay.

There's what 8 units with a similar form factor on the market, then there's PDA based systems...

Of course though, that post as well as mine are off topic as the original post is about a problem with the Factory Nav System...

 

what i do when i go into nyc and the navigation has me one block over is manually input the intersection i'm at and everything works perfectly. I have only really noticed the problem after i get out of the tunnel probably because the gps has 0 signal for that whole time and isn't sure exactly where you come out.