Well we've had my girlfriends R56
MCS for a while now, but the last few days I have had a chance to really experience living with it myself and driving it myself.
Over the last couple of days I have been exploring a new area which I didn't know so really had to rely on the R56 Sat Nav to get me from place to place, so this is based on those experiences of how the system works.
I have to say that if we were speccing the car again that even though the Sat Nav does improve the look of the car that both of us are in agreement that we would not spec the current Sat Nav again
This is said with great pain, as I have had the built in Sat Nav on both of my MINI's and also on the GF's last MINI too, so its an option that I have always loved to have in a car.
I know others have said that they really want a split screen option, but I would have to say that this is essential. Whilst using the nav the guidance of the map view is frustrating and annoying, the lack of information a total let down, which results in you taking the wrong turning more than once on a journey.
The purpose of sat nav is to assist the driver to get to where they need to, without them having to change the screen, as this is dangerous to take your eye off the road or hands off the steering wheel.
By having the map screen on during guidance, you have no directional arrows on screen to tell you which junction you need to take, there is no information about what the road is that you are on and which you are going to take next, there is no information to tell you the time to destination, you are totally relying on the voice of the nav and trying to hear her clearly and remember her last command. And the fact that the voice now has an unclear American accent where you struggle to tell if its said first or third exit is even more frustrating whilst driving.
The controls are different, but you can get used to this change, the map colourings although not been map styled, as in green for land, blue for water again can be accepted as a styling feature and could be lived with if only the system problems were resolved.
The old Sat Nav system although it was very basic, really was designed with the use in mind, all of the things which you needed whilst driving were there on screen, and you could use the nav easily with the voice deactivated, even though the voice is a good feature and much clearer on the old system. It was very much the function that was the key to how it operated rather than the look of it.
I know MINI have invested in the Sat Nav system for the second gen MINI by it been MINI specific, but I really don't think the people that designed it have considered how it is used, or even got any feedback on how the customer used the previous nav and what they like or desliked about it.
Its a total annoyance and I found myself cursing it more than actually listening to its useless instructions, which lead to me feeling stressed behind the wheel and having to resort to having a road map in the car to get to where I needed.
We even tried the non map view option but again the lack of clarity in the voice and the lack of warning of a change in your journey made this almost as frustrating as the map view
So this leaves us totally disapointed in the second generation navigation, and hoping that MINI will considered urgently reviewing the software to add in the missing features, or to at least give the user the option select and set up the nav in the manner that they need to have it for it to be a useful tool.
This upgrade cannot be hard for MINI to make, as the system has all this information already, its just a case of bringing it all together on the screen, even just by adding the arrival time on the map screen, and having the junction indictors which appear when not in map view appear over the map screen would be a good first step.
Otherwise it is purely a decorative option which I shall not add to another MINI in the future after having had it on the last 4 cars we have purchased, and something that I strongly recommend that other buyers do not invest in