To those of you who bought your cars without the nav option, did you later regret not buying it? If you could do it all over again, would you buy a nav this time, or would you stick with the same non-nav car you originally bought?

My new RX-8 will have the nav system. My first one didn't and we think it's something that really would be an aid to driving.

Vince

Nav is awesome! I highly recommend it for new buyers, even at $2000.

Didn't buy the Nav, and still would not.

If ever get one, it will be portable so I can use between vehicles.

It was too much- I can buy a portable GPS system for a lot less than $2000. It seems like a nice option, but I don't think I'd use it enough to justify the cost.

I purchased the NAV and I think it was a good idea. But then my wife and I drive up to Canada about 4 times a year and it's alot easier to put an address in rather than try to find directions. Also with all the one way streets in places like Vancouver,B.C. we don't have to try to find our way around their downtown area in heavy traffic. I guess if you were just going to drive the car around your local area and not go anywhere new it wouldn't make sense to have NAV. Me, well I like to drive new places especially in my RX8!

I've been very happy with it. I like it much better than my portable NavTech/PDA system, which I used in my prior car.

I totall wish I had bought the NAV. It was something I went in saying I must have. Then my cheap/cost cutting side cut in right at price negotiation and told me to dump the nav. I wish I would have spent the extra money.

I didn't get it, but wish I had. Even at 2 grand, it's a nice feature I would have used often. I don't think it weighs that much more to have justified not getting one. I know there's alot of talk of adding it as aftermarket. Has anyone done this successfully, yet? Cost?

I highly recommend the (portable) Magellan RoadMate 700. It has 10GB and US and Canada preloaded. One of the best car GPSs out there.

My first 8 did not have the NAV because I had never seen it...then I saw one with a NAV and I was totally bummed to find out I could not add it on...so when given the chance to do the re-purchase on my first 8 I made darn sure my next one had the NAV...I don't use it that much but it's one of those things that I'm glad I have because if I didn't I'd feel like I was missing out on something the car had to offer that I could never have...get it if you can

I would only have gotten it for the LCD display. And frankly, for 2G, I can do a hell of a nice LCD install :D Glad I didnt get it.

Then again, Miami is like, the easiest city to drive in.

two THOUSAND dollars? Are you serious?

For 2 hundred I might have considered it, but probably not. Printed maps are superior, imho.

After playing with the NAV system in an Acura MDX, I kinda wish my car had it... but $2000 seems a bit steep. Maybe I'll just ask Santa Claus for a Garmin Street Pilot III... :)

I'm presuming that unless one needs it to find addresses it has no other purpose. As I rarely go to a new location it has no value to me.

rael

Two grand for something ill probably never use except to find the nearest dairy queen seems a bit excessive.

I would not get the $2000 system, but am planning on forking over around $600 for the Garmin IQue 3600.

Of course you don't need a nav computer if you don't need navigation. Duh. Your flat paper map won't have listings of gas stations, restaurants, etc. I don't know how anybody could find it completely useless. For $2000 I can understand not buying it though. I might get one of the better portable ones instead and save some $.

Originally posted by Nubo
two THOUSAND dollars? Are you serious?

For 2 hundred I might have considered it, but probably not. Printed maps are superior, imho.

You can get a brand new Nissan Sentra (28/36 mpg) for about $12,000. It will get you and 4 friends where you need to go as fast as legally possible. Yet you purchased an RX-8 (18/24 mpg), which only holds 3 friends, for at least $27,000. You don't sound like a penny pincher to me.

Now seriously, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that. Yet you have to ask yourself, why did you spend that extra $15,000? That's serious cash, so be honest. Is it because the RX-8 is more fun to drive? Is it because you wanted to impress people? Fair enough. But wouldn't that slick, retractable factory nav system impress people? Wouldn't it be fun to use, and make your life easier to boot?

For $2,000, it goes on my must-have list. Printed maps, indeed.

Edit: I should note that I'm being completely hypocritical. I used $10 Wal-mart interconnects in my $2500 home theater.

I used $10 Wal-mart interconnects in my $2500 home theater.

$ 2,500 ?!?

Shoot, you could have got similar sound reproduction for $800 :)

Couldn't help myself.

I also thought I wouldn't use GPS, but my dad also wanted a system that could be used in several cars. So he bought a pocket pc with bleutooth gps (tom tom navigator). And I was surprised how handy it was. From now on, I just can't imagine driving without it. But I'd rather have a built in GPS than a portable system because the reception isn't strong enough, and you don't need to charge the battery.
It also bothers the front sight hanging on the window, wobbling around on humps...

But when you're once used to GPS, you can't imagine without it anymore :)

Originally posted by bluesnowmonkey
You can get a brand new Nissan Sentra (28/36 mpg) for about $12,000. It will get you and 4 friends where you need to go as fast as legally possible. Yet you purchased an RX-8 (18/24 mpg), which only holds 3 friends, for at least $27,000. You don't sound like a penny pincher to me.

Now seriously, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that. Yet you have to ask yourself, why did you spend that extra $15,000? That's serious cash, so be honest. Is it because the RX-8 is more fun to drive?
Absolutely. Not only more fun, but more precise and safer, and more beautiful.
Is it because you wanted to impress people?
I have to admit that will be fun, but not my primary motivation. I want it because it impresses me
Fair enough. But wouldn't that slick, retractable factory nav system impress people? Wouldn't it be fun to use, and make your life easier to boot?

It might impress some people, but it doesn't impress me. I'm not one to parade stuff for oohs and aahs unless I think its great too.
For $2,000, it goes on my must-have list. Printed maps, indeed.

I can take a printed map inside to my kitchen table and plot a course. I can take it into a roadside diner to double check my plans and notice details I might have missed before. I can use it to ask questions of people familiar with the area. It's not irrevocably tied to the vehicle. It doesn't depend on a satellite network that could be shut down without notice (or disabled for non-military use). It does not depend on the car's electrical system, or a dvd reader or for that matter, a dvd. I can unfold the map and see the big picture instead of a resolution-limited piece of it. Consider the following passage from "River Horse", a fantastic book by William Least Heat-Moon. It is his story of crossing the U.S. by water:

It wasnt, of course, the beginning, for who can say where a voyage starts - not the actual passage, but the dream of a journey and its urge to find a way? For this trip I can speak of a possible inception: I am a reader of maps, not usually nautical charts but road maps. I read them as others do holy writ, the same text again and again in quest of discoveries, and the books I've written each began with my gaze wandering over maps of American terrain. At home I have an old highway atlas, worn and rebound, the pages so soft from a thousand thumbings they whisper as I turn them. Every road I've ever driven I've marked in yellow, the pages densely highlighted, and I can now say I've visited every county in the contiguous states except for a handful in the Deep South, and those I'll get to soon. Put your finger at random anyplace in this United States atlas, and I've either been there or within twenty-five miles of it, but for the deserts of Nevada where the gap can be about twice that. I didn't set out to do this; it just happened over forty years of trying to memorize the face of America."

Printed maps, indeed! And yes, it may not have the location of every gas station and Starbucks. I may even get lost at times. But living with and by maps you will likely not stray far because you have the lay of the land in you head from studying them. A little moving display doesn't do that; rather it invites a short-attention-span way of looking at the world; secure in the assumption that the gadget knows all. Not a journey to be remembered but a military sortie to be gotten over with.

I voted "no", mainly because I have a Garmin StreetPilot III already and because paying $2000 is too rich for my blood. However, if the nav option would only cost $1000, I'd have gotten it.
It's hard to justify the ridiculous $2000 price for ANY car navigation system.
Of course this is just IMHO.

I got it on the first RX8, I got it on the second RX8. Yes, it's a little (or a lot) expensive. Yes, I can read a map. Having driven cross country once in a motor home with a nav system, it saved my ass more than once, in ways that maps wouldn't.

Anyhow, I've used it numerous times, usually when traffic backs up in places I am not used to and need to find detours. Can't do that with a map, not on the highway (well, I shouldn't do it with the nav system either, but :D ).

If only the joy stick worked better and was more forward (I am short, so the seat is way up). My wife's Prius has one also (she can't read a map) and it has a touch screen, which makes it a hell of a lot easier to use when driving.

The other gripe I have is that the mapping software (or map) isn't as good as either the DeLorme or the Prius'. I went to Harbin Hotsprings during the summer, and both found both the location AND the town nearby. The Mazda's system couldn't find either, and when I was driving near Harbin, the GPS location and the map location were off about 1/4 mile (on the first RX, haven't tried it on the second one).