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BMW’s 3 Series was highest rated among all European cars offering navigation systems, but only 34th out of all 70 vehicles rated. BMW was 17th among 23 automakers.


There’s good news and not-so-good news for BMW owners in the wake of the most recent J.D. Power and Associates survey of navigation systems. Among all European automakers surveyed, BMW ranks highest as a company and the 3 Series is the highest-ranked individual vehicle. The bad news is, the European automakers fared miserably, and BMW is the best of an indifferent lot, ranking No. 17 out of 23 European, U.S., and Asian automakers surveyed.

The 2006 Navigation Usage and Satisfaction Study, the eighth by the Westlake Village, Calif.-based firm, used responses from 14,103 owners who purchased or leased new vehicles with factory-installed navigation systems. According to Mike Marshall, director of automotive emerging technologies at J.D. Power, the top factors determining satisfaction are, from most important down, are ease of use, routing, system appearance, speed of system, voice directions and navigation display screen.
On a 1,000-point scale, the 3 Series was No. 35 out of 70 vehicles rated, with a score of 770, which was just above the industry average of 767. Mini Cooper/Mini Cooper S was No. 37 with a score of 769 and the 5 Series was No. 62 with 731. All use Siemens VDO navigation systems with Navteq map data and Nuance voice recognition. The survey also generated responses for the 6 Series, 7 Series, M3, M5, X3, and X5, but not enough to be reported, Power said.


The German question
What’s wrong with German automakers’ navigation systems? That might be a fair question in the wake of owners’ ratings of their navigation systems. Out of 23 brands, the German makers rank 17 (BMW using Siemens VDO), 21 (VW using Blaupunkt), 22 (Audi using Asin AW), and 23 (Mercedes-Benz using Alpine and Harman/Becker). Other automakers besides Mercedes have used Alpine units and gotten high satisfaction scores; five of top 10 are Alpines. BMW is the only rated company with Siemens-VDO units, although others such as Mercedes-Benz use Siemens on some models such as the SL-Class.


Who’s best and worst
Lincoln-Mercury has both the best-rated and worst-rated vehicles. Its Lincoln Zephyr sedan was No. 1, using a Pioneer system, and its Mercury Mariner Hybrid was dead last with a woeful Visteon saddled with a dinky four-inch screen, about the size you’d find on a $500 portable navigation device. The top 10 vehicles were the Lincoln Zephyr (Pioneer), Acura TSX (Alpine), Acura RL (Alpine), Lexus IS (Denso), Lincoln Town Car (Denso), Ford Freestyle (Pioneer), Honda Ridgeline (Alpine), Ford Explorer (Pioneer), Honda Civic (Alpine), and Honda Accord (Alpine).The top six automakers (based on the average of their rated vehicles) were Honda, Acura and Lincoln, Infiniti, then Dodge (one point back of Infiniti, which is essentially a meaningless difference). Mini was No. 11. The top suppliers were Pioneer, Alpine, Delphi, Xanavi (the Nissan/Infiniti house brand developed with Hitachi), and Denso. Siemens VDO and Kenwood were tied for sixth out of 10 suppliers.


Power doesn’t report the margin of error on its surveys, but on a 1,000-point scale it’s safe to assume differences of 10 point, equal to 1% of the score, may not be meaningful. There are six times as many car models offering navigation now compared to six years ago. Six times as many vehicles offer navigation systems as in 2000, and “owners still struggle with the functionality of their system,” Power’s Marshall said. The top problems are route or map related and account for more than half of all problems cited. Missing map data points are especially vexing. Marshall said 95% of owners say they’d like real time traffic information in their cars (such as what BMW now offers), but it’s possible the evolving state of the art may prove frustrating if traffic reports are late and incomplete.