"infotainment" needs a lot of work

[bobk2824]

I just got an e-Golf! The car itself is great, but the navigation, voice recognition, iPhone app, even the radio, is embarrassingly bad.

I tried using the navigation and got it going, then I turned on the radio. Then, I found the map was so unclear and confusing that I wanted to turn off the radio so I could concentrate. Is that even possible? I found I could only push the volume knob that turned everything off.

I suspect I'll continue to use my phone for navigation.

Sometimes when I turn on the car, the radio is set to the very left end of the dial. Just static. Then I have to figure out again how to get to my presets and get my station.

The iPhone app mostly just times out and fails. Sometimes it appears to work but displays a battery status that is old and inaccurate. At least there is a mechanism for updating the app. Are they going to update the car firmware, and if they do, how would we get it? My guess is we are not in Tesla's league where it is magically updated one morning, even though I suspect that with their "car-net" it would be possible.

I did use the phone app to send down a list of addresses to be stored in the navigation in the car. No errors! But in rooting around in navigation, I don't see any of the addresses.

All in all I'm pretty disappointed in the car software and user interface. It has all the hallmarks of a 1.0 version. The problem is I understand that this has been released in Germany for the past year! Does this mean that VW thinks it's finished?

Bob

 

[svento]

Welcome!

You are right about this system feeling 1.0. Honestly, I think given it anything above 0.8 is being very nice.

I certainly never use the nav system (something I was excited to have since my previous car was 12 years old). I find my iPhone nav system connected to bluetooth provides a far more usable experience.

In case you have not seen this posted, the 2016 e-golf will have a new infotainment system (called MIB II) that supports apple's CarPlay and a few other phone/car integration systems. I believe this will make the system light years better since all the logic and control will be handled by your phone. Of course, no one knows if there be any (software or hardware) upgrade path for us.

So far I've seen reports of only 1 software update that has been made available for some owners, but the reports are that it fixed a few problems which were not ones that I noticed on my car, so maybe my car already had the update. I've seen no reports of any usability/feature enhancements. You are right that this does appear technically possible, but as you said, this car is NOT a Tesla S and VW does NOT operate like Tesla Motors... at least not yet.

 

[bobk2824]

Thanks for the info. I didn't see the stuff about MIB II.

Very interesting, but I'm not hopeful they'd develop this system for the 3 screen, high res setup shown in the CES video, and also develop it for the 2015 e_Golf.

I leased the car because of quickly moving battery tech, but it looks like this is another reason.

 

[svento]

Yes, I agree. I see very very little chance that it would be a software upgrade. My best hope is that the overall side/frame of MIBII looks similar, and that maybe it could be a hardware swap. But then I'd guess the new unit to be priced WAY higher than I could ever justify just to get a nice nav system (ie, carplay).

And same here about leasing because of fast moving battery tech but realizing it'll probably be worth it more for issues with the car in general, not the battery.

 

[Frank3]

I like the infrequency of mentioning street names and the constant "turn left" and "turn right" instructions on winding roads. I sure hope they don't change that in upcoming models. (Thank goodness I've got Google Maps) Let me add that the NAV option to have icons indicate where gas stations are located is immensely valuable to me.

 

[GadgetGav]

Coming from a 2010 VW GTI I can say that this system, while not perfect, is a great improvement over the one from that model year.
I'm pretty sure there won't be a software upgrade path to CarPlay for us - it'll need new hardware and a replacement head unit is around $1,200 - $1,800. Cheaper than a new car, but hard to justify just to get some relatively minor feature improvements.

That said, there are certainly issues that need to be fixed with this system:
I've yet to be able to transfer a destination from the CarNet app to the Navigation (though that could be CarNet's fault)
I've sometimes got into the car and it's gone back to 87.7FM instead of the radio preset that was playing when I shut it down
Sometimes when switching from Media back to Radio the volume goes to zero
The parking sensors interrupt Bluetooth audio streaming even when they are set to not come on automatically

At least the touch screen is much more responsive that the 2010 version and the right hand knob acts as a scroll / zoom wheel..!

 

[svento]

I like the infrequency of mentioning street names and the constant "turn left" and "turn right" instructions on winding roads. I sure hope they don't change that in upcoming models. (Thank goodness I've got Google Maps) Let me add that the NAV option to have icons indicate where gas stations are located is immensely valuable to me.

This is good stuff. Thanks for the laugh!

 

[NeilBlanchard]

I would like to see a couple of improvements with my iPod Classic:

Show the cover art

Let me rate the songs

Show the song number out of playlist number

The Leaf does all three of these.

 

[Bink]

My eGolf is my 5th. VW, the first being a 1968 Beetle. The 1968 Beetle is the only car that had a worse system than the eGolf. Had I looked at the infotainment system before getting the eGolf, it would have been a deal breaker. It is HORRIBLE! Especially compared to the 2012 Beetle. That car had a great system, I expected the eGolf to have an improved system and when I picked up my car and turned it on... I was furious at how old this tech is. I mean an SD card? Really? The maps are being read from an SD card? WTH VW?!!! I find the system embarrassing and only use it to play my iPod through.

 

[GadgetGav]

My eGolf is my 5th. VW, the first being a 1968 Beetle. The 1968 Beetle is the only car that had a worse system than the eGolf. Had I looked at the infotainment system before getting the eGolf, it would have been a deal breaker. It is HORRIBLE! Especially compared to the 2012 Beetle. That car had a great system, I expected the eGolf to have an improved system and when I picked up my car and turned it on... I was furious at how old this tech is. I mean an SD card? Really? The maps are being read from an SD card? WTH VW?!!! I find the system embarrassing and only use it to play my iPod through.

What does the 2012 Beetle use as the source for maps data? My 2010 GTI used a DVD downloaded to a spinning hard drive inside the unit, so SD cards seems an improvement over that.

 

[NeilBlanchard]

I am playing my MP3's from the SD1 slot with a 128GB SD card. It is really tricky to get it to scramble ALL the music in all the folders. It defaults to playing the files in the first alphabetical folder, and then moving on to the next folder.

Also, ONLY 400x400 JPG cover art shows up - apparently iTunes makes an PNG, so that won't work, if you copy your files from there. Most of my cover art is 500x500, so that doesn't work, either.

Another annoyance: I was using the navigation, and I got a phone call. When I finished the call, the view on the screen had toggled to the mode where the little arrow turns as you drive and the map stays put. I had to figure out how to toggle it back so it moves the map.

 

[Bink]

What does the 2012 Beetle use as the source for maps data? My 2010 GTI used a DVD downloaded to a spinning hard drive inside the unit, so SD cards seems an improvement over that.

The Beetle it was just built into the system, I didn't deal with anything other than turing it on. Plus it had a look that was sharp and fit the personality of the car, all the onscreen graphics were crisp, the controls easy and intuitive.

The infotainment system in the eGolf is so bad, if I had it to do over again I wouldn't have gotten the car. I've connected three different iPods to it so far, each one works for the initial drive or two, and then... the system can't read them. Or it gets stuck on one playlist and won't let me get to the file tree to change it. I find myself not even using it anymore.

As far as the navigation goes, here in Los Angeles its worthless. I tried to use it to get from Down Town LA up to the Angeles Forest, and the delay was so bad it was comical. The voice would tell me to turn about three seconds AFTER I had already made the turn. If someone didn't know where they were going, they would be screwed using that.

 

[GadgetGav]

The Beetle it was just built into the system, I didn't deal with anything other than turing it on. Plus it had a look that was sharp and fit the personality of the car, all the onscreen graphics were crisp, the controls easy and intuitive.

I haven't actually felt with the SD card in my e-Golf. I just know it's there somewhere because I've got an empty case for it. Again, coming from the previous generation Golf infotainment system, the graphics, touchscreen and physical controls are all improved, so I don't think you're making an apples-to-apples comparison. It's perfectly valid to wonder why the infotainment systems are not more common across models from the same company, but that gets into the logistics of modern vehicle manufacture so it's kind of a black box. The vendor for the systems in the Golf and Beetle might well be different.

The infotainment system in the eGolf is so bad, if I had it to do over again I wouldn't have gotten the car. I've connected three different iPods to it so far, each one works for the initial drive or two, and then... the system can't read them. Or it gets stuck on one playlist and won't let me get to the file tree to change it. I find myself not even using it anymore.

It sounds like you might have a bad system. Are you connecting the iPods via a cable or bluetooth? Either way there's no reason why it should work initially and then stop. I'd take it in to the dealer and have them check it over. I think there was a software update available for the infotainment system according to other posts on here.

As far as the navigation goes, here in Los Angeles its worthless. I tried to use it to get from Down Town LA up to the Angeles Forest, and the delay was so bad it was comical. The voice would tell me to turn about three seconds AFTER I had already made the turn. If someone didn't know where they were going, they would be screwed using that.

Again, that sounds like fault in the system to me (or lack of GPS signal in downtown LA). I don't use the nav a whole lot but I find it recalculates routes much faster than the 2010 system did if I make a wrong turn and is always telling me about turns in enough time. When I've used it, it seems to have three stages e.g. 'right turn ahead', 'turn right in 1/4 mile' and 'turn right now' and it shows the road name in the display between the power needle and speedometer.
If it's not a fault and in the LA area it really is that bad, maybe find out who makes the system that's in the Beetle and buy an aftermarket unit from them, but I'd have the dealer check it over, especially the cable from the antenna to the head unit. Maybe it's never getting a good GPS signal.

 

[Skryll]

The navigation voice sounds like Siri's retarded sister.

No offence.

 

[JoulesThief]

I like the infrequency of mentioning street names and the constant "turn left" and "turn right" instructions on winding roads. I sure hope they don't change that in upcoming models. (Thank goodness I've got Google Maps) Let me add that the NAV option to have icons indicate where gas stations are located is immensely valuable to me.

Dude, at least use a sarcasm face when posting crap like this, all of which is true. What do we need gas station icons for when we are totally electric? is there a way to delete all the gas stations in the mapping? Unless in some model which is a hybrid, they use the same infotainment center and software and mapping/POI.

 

[miimura]

I like the infrequency of mentioning street names and the constant "turn left" and "turn right" instructions on winding roads. I sure hope they don't change that in upcoming models. (Thank goodness I've got Google Maps) Let me add that the NAV option to have icons indicate where gas stations are located is immensely valuable to me.

Dude, at least use a sarcasm face when posting crap like this, all of which is true. What do we need gas station icons for when we are totally electric? is there a way to delete all the gas stations in the mapping?

Yes. Go into the NAV setup and remove the POI display for the items you don't want to see. I just did a select-all and remove.

 

[JoulesThief]

I like the infrequency of mentioning street names and the constant "turn left" and "turn right" instructions on winding roads. I sure hope they don't change that in upcoming models. (Thank goodness I've got Google Maps) Let me add that the NAV option to have icons indicate where gas stations are located is immensely valuable to me.

Dude, at least use a sarcasm face when posting crap like this, all of which is true. What do we need gas station icons for when we are totally electric? is there a way to delete all the gas stations in the mapping?

Yes. Go into the NAV setup and remove the POI display for the items you don't want to see. I just did a select-all and remove.

I did a "select all", which removed them all, then put check mark next to "electrical recharge" icons, and that's pretty much whats on my map now.