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Some Issues - seahull - 28-10-2014 10:37pm
After four months, I want to share some issues with my 2014 RRE, a US-spec Pure Premium. Overall, I love the RRE, but after a road trip gone bad, I needed to vent...
Navigation
The navigation system in this is sub-par. So bad that I need to break this down into categories.
Destination Entry - part of this may be due to an incomplete database from Navteq, but I can enter real/known addresses and the system can't find them or direct me to them. I can try to enter a POI, but it does not find it (entered a school name, but it came up blank, but entered the phone number and it returned the school name that I was entering in the first place). The order of fields is incorrect - should be State (for US), then City, then Street, but the order is wrong. Many times I had my wife in the passenger street using Google to get a phone number for a restaurant, as that seem to be the only reliable way. Twice, she was still trying to get the destination on the navigation, while I was using the iPhone (5 seconds to enter a destination with Siri at a stoplight) and she never got it working before we arrived at the destination.
Routing - Last night I was driving from North Philadelphia back to DC, and I let the navigation choose the route. It routed me for the first 30 miles through the city. I could not easily see the route on the screen when choosing (by default it uses less than 1/3 of the available screen/map). It took 2 hours to travel those 30 miles, as the navigation obviously does not know realistic times to travel through urban areas (does not include lights or congestion), and as a result at the end of two hours, the estimated arrival time was about 1.5 hours later than it was when we started. It had apparently assumed that we could drive at something like a constant 35 MPH (speed limit) and would never have to wait at an intersection or see congestion.
Display - So I am driving through downtown Philly and what shows on the screen? The autoscaling has the display at 1/4 mile (shows about 5 miles on the map), but it only shows three roads. Only three roads of any interest in 5 miles indie a city? Later on outside the city I zoom out to see where I am, but I can see only a few roads (interstates mostly), but no city names - not Harrisburg, York, Philadelphia all of which were in the map. How is one supposed to orient oneself if there are no useful details? Even when I manually zoom in, I am more likely to see railroads, creeks, and elevation lines before I see any of the roads I am passing.
Turn-by-turn - very clear speaking, and it is louder than the radio. But it does not tell me where to turn. I am driving through the city with intersections every 100 or so feet, and it just says "in 600 feet turn right". How about a road name? This forces me to look at the navigation screen, negating the need for spoken turn-by-turn. Many times it tells me to make a turn when the road lightly bends. In one case, I turned when it told me to, but it really wanted me to continue on the same road (straight-ish).
Transmission
In general, I love the 9-speed. I did have to disable the flappy paddles while in Drive, as they are mistakenly activated when performing tight maneuvering in parking lots and such. If I want to use them, I switch to Sport. But sometimes, the car really lurches from a stop. When I give it gas, usually it is quite smooth, but sometimes it has to engage the gear and the engine just revs and then the car jumps forward, sometimes squealing tires. And reverse is extremely slow to engage - in my driveway, I drive in forwards and come to a complete stop, I then switch into reverse, release the brake to engage the accelerator and the car rolls forward for 1/2 to 2 seconds (driveway is downhill) before reverse engages. Again I am giving it gas, so the car lurches backwards when it finally engages reverse. My wife yells at me to be patient - stop being so much in a rush. But all of my other cars are manual (911, 135i, Miata), so I expect when a car is placed in gear it should react or at least I am in control.
Interior Trim
Minor issue here - there is a beautiful brushed aluminum trim piece next to the seats on the center console. I can tell it is real aluminum as it has several dents in it now. They placed soft aluminum right next to the seat belt buckle, so any slight overextension of the seat belt will cause a hit and resultant dent. These must be all from my wife, because I would never be so careless
. But we have 10 or so dings already on each side and the RRE is only driven 2-3 days a week. Controls
There are three computer user interfaces at work here. Two different ones embedded in the dash between the speedo and tach. One (trip computer) is controlled by the light/turn signal stalk which is certainly non-intuitive but functional (for 1990). But why is half of the steering wheel dedicated to 5 buttons for a computer that is not even needed while driving? This Instrument Panel Menu seems to be a big distraction - why do I need to change from US to metric speeds while driving? The touch screen is the worst - the menus are slow to respond and organization is very bad. While parking I want to access the cameras - should be easy to accomplish. But to do this, I have to choose Home (physical button), then Extra Features, then Cameras, then Camera Icon, then Special Views, then finally Kerb View. Six steps to get to what should be a convenience feature needed in a hurry. I sure hope that nobody else is trying to negotiate by me in the car park then. If you want to cancel guidance in Navigation, you go back to the Home screen.
Overall I am happy with the RRE. My wife chose this vehicle, otherwise we would have been searching for one of the last manual transmission European compact SUVs available in the US (are there any still? - my now-dead X3 was probably one of the last). Excellent fuel economy (compared to 911). Huge cargo capability (compared to 911 again, but not that much bigger than 135i Convertible).
RE: Some Issues - PhilSkill - 29-10-2014 11:06am
Welcome Seahull
Can't speak for the American SatNav interface, but it is "ok" in Europe, it does have some funny moments with the route, but for us Postcode (Zip Code?) is pretty accurate and all I ever use... never used a phone number!? other than that occasionally I use town name when just heading in a general direction.
Yep that aluminium is vulnerable, been quite a few complaints on here... mine is dent free (although I'm always worried about passengers doing this!)
See where you're coming from on the Steering wheel controls, certainly use these hardly ever, and never while driving!
The interface is a little clunky in places, but seen worse!
Shame you can't get a Manual in the States... I'm happy with mine! It's always in the gear I choose
But I think Manuals are a dying breed as Manufacturers are pushed to meet emission targets.
RE: Some Issues - seahull - 29-10-2014 03:46pm
If you know the post code (zip in US), I can enter that, but that only gets you to within a few miles. My zip code - inside the Beltway in DC - covers 10 square miles! The telephone entry on the other hand finds the actual address, when entering the POI name does not.
Oh - and I forgot one more issue - Tailgate Party Support
There is a power socket in the trunk (boot), but the car shuts down the power after only 5 minutes. No tailgating with this car.
RE: Some Issues - XFullFatTim - 30-10-2014 07:51am
The trunk socket gets inhibited as part of the Battery Monitoring System, to save you from flat batteries. In my last Evqoue the trunk socket remained live as I used to be able to plug in a solar powered battery conditioner when I went away. I had a lot of battery problems (eventually proved not to be caused by the solar panel draining instead of charging the battery!) and so did a few others. There was an update to the BMS software and a change to an Absorbed Glass Mat battery (not sure if that is the correct term!) and that cured the problem of flat batteries in cold weather, but at the same time the rear socket got shut down too! So no more tailgate parties for you at the football unless you run the engine. As an aside a friend of mine flattened the battery of is Range Rover Sport by leaving the tailgate open for 15 minutes - who would think that one little boot light would drain a battery so quickly!
RE: Some Issues - QUEEVO - 02-11-2014 06:26am
I use the programmable short-cut button for quick(er) access to the surround camera system...