PCM Sat Nav - why bother to order on a new Porsche?
Discussion
Picked up my 981 from the factory in Stuttgart a couple of months ago. It's a great car but:
On the subsequent drive across northern France, I noticed that the sat nav was plotting my track across a void on the screen. While I admit that this detour may have been fairly new, this upgraded national road was old enough to be shown on a 2012 Michelin map. Having rejoined the sat nav's track, another newish detour took me into another blank area of the screen. I was not impressed that a new car did not appear to have the latest national road updates on its sat nav database. On a more recent maiden drive down to Italy, I found several more major (national) roads in France which appear on Michelin maps yet do not feature.
When I queried my observations with my OPC and Porsche Customer Assistance I was told that I have the latest data that is available and it will cost me c£135 next year to get the next sat nav update. Somehow I fail to understand how Michelin, who print their 2012 maps in 2011, can get things so right while Porsche struggle and anyway, why should I spend c£135 in 2013 to get 2012 map data?
My next observation concerns the accuracy of information on roadworks. Again, on my recent drive across France, roadworks were shown on the sat nav when they didn't exist, or they existed but were not shown on screen. Now I realise that roadworks are fluid in nature, so difficult to highlight accurately; however, I was being given sat nav re-routes in order to avoid non-existent problems, some of which could be long detours. Eventually I decided that these were best ignored, rather like my chocolate watch.
Driving across France can be very pleasant, especially if one is not in a hurry and can avoid using autoroutes. If one attempts to programme the sat nav with the option to avoid tolls, the unit responds by saying: "A route with all the selected settings cannot be calculated". However, it does produce time and distance information, plus it will route you in accordance with your selection. If the same destination is selected using toll roads, times and distances are re-calculated which I assume are correct.
Postcodes: My PCM software is v3.41. There seems to be some confusion about whether this version will accept full UK postcodes, though I note that my unit will only take 5 digits.
I notice that here: www.boxa.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=54534 another customer says that his v3.41 PCM has full postcode entry. However, in one of the threads below, there is a suggestion that a software upgrade is available at a cost of £500! What is going on?
So should one tick the PCM box when buying a new Porsche? If one is just buying it for the sat nav, the answer must surely be no; it is an expensive option which now costs c£2.5k and one that does not reflect the quality of its host. For now, my TomTom works very well thank you.
So if you haven't already, other threads that may be worth reading are:
http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?t=119...
and maybe even more relevant is:
http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...
On the subsequent drive across northern France, I noticed that the sat nav was plotting my track across a void on the screen. While I admit that this detour may have been fairly new, this upgraded national road was old enough to be shown on a 2012 Michelin map. Having rejoined the sat nav's track, another newish detour took me into another blank area of the screen. I was not impressed that a new car did not appear to have the latest national road updates on its sat nav database. On a more recent maiden drive down to Italy, I found several more major (national) roads in France which appear on Michelin maps yet do not feature.
When I queried my observations with my OPC and Porsche Customer Assistance I was told that I have the latest data that is available and it will cost me c£135 next year to get the next sat nav update. Somehow I fail to understand how Michelin, who print their 2012 maps in 2011, can get things so right while Porsche struggle and anyway, why should I spend c£135 in 2013 to get 2012 map data?
My next observation concerns the accuracy of information on roadworks. Again, on my recent drive across France, roadworks were shown on the sat nav when they didn't exist, or they existed but were not shown on screen. Now I realise that roadworks are fluid in nature, so difficult to highlight accurately; however, I was being given sat nav re-routes in order to avoid non-existent problems, some of which could be long detours. Eventually I decided that these were best ignored, rather like my chocolate watch.
Driving across France can be very pleasant, especially if one is not in a hurry and can avoid using autoroutes. If one attempts to programme the sat nav with the option to avoid tolls, the unit responds by saying: "A route with all the selected settings cannot be calculated". However, it does produce time and distance information, plus it will route you in accordance with your selection. If the same destination is selected using toll roads, times and distances are re-calculated which I assume are correct.
Postcodes: My PCM software is v3.41. There seems to be some confusion about whether this version will accept full UK postcodes, though I note that my unit will only take 5 digits.
I notice that here: www.boxa.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=54534 another customer says that his v3.41 PCM has full postcode entry. However, in one of the threads below, there is a suggestion that a software upgrade is available at a cost of £500! What is going on?
So should one tick the PCM box when buying a new Porsche? If one is just buying it for the sat nav, the answer must surely be no; it is an expensive option which now costs c£2.5k and one that does not reflect the quality of its host. For now, my TomTom works very well thank you.
So if you haven't already, other threads that may be worth reading are:
http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?t=119...
and maybe even more relevant is:
http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...
Edited by Oi U on Friday 21st September 19:22
Gassing Station | Porsche General | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff