GPS NAV System - How do you use yours?

I use the Navigation system on my LS430 ALL the time! I never want another car without one.

I have about 25 places marked and named. I use these the most to guide me to places I go to from time to time.

When I'm on a trip and staying at a hotel, I always mark the hotel so I can easily get back there each evening.

Whenever I have the street address of somewhere I haven't been before, I enter the address and let the car help me get there. This is especially usefull when I'm going 200-300 miles away. The system keeps me informed about how many miles and how much time (the time isn't always accurate) is remaining.

Sometimes I like to take smaller roads, so I instruct the Navigation system to avoid freeways.

When I'm on the road and want to stop at a restaraunt., the "Local POI" feature guides me to the type of restaraunt I want. I only wish I didn't have to stop the car to use this....

Read your manual. The Navigation system is one of my two most used "Gadgets" on the car, the other being the laser cruise control....

HBH

The toyota based GPS is the best out there. The new one from Magellan is about as good too, the one with the 20 gig hard drive. Anyway, I use mine all the time. Especially when meeting clients, and going to towns I am not familiar with. I wish entering detours would be easier, but that is my only complaint.

Thank you, thank you. This is the exact kind of response I was hoping for. I hope others will also write how they set their systems also.

I recently had better results on a long trip by setting shorter destinations one-at-a-time, but have not mastered that switch to avoid freeways. I will find that step in the manual again and attempt to set it that way.

I failed at one particular thing yesterday; I thought I could make it avoid some freeway miles by setting a series of "Add preferred road" but it only took ONE. I needed a series. I will try this over and see if it allows me to follow the blue highways in one step by "avoid freeways."

I really appreciate your answer.

Thanks Dan J.S., How does your Toyota (Camry is it?) allow setting a complex route? Does it allow setting a series of towns? or a series of roads? The problem on the Lexus (to me so far) is that it does not allow setting more than five stops or destinations. A long journey sometimes requires more than that.

Could you explore on your system to see how you can make it do that?

Is yours a 2003, 2004, or what year?

Thanks again. I appreciate your answer.

I have a 2003 4Runner and a 2004 Lexus ES330. The 330 has a little better GPS. Basically very similar, but more points of interests, etc. You can set

8 destinations I think. I dont do that. I usually do just one, dont really put more than that. I guess my point is that I am using maybe 30% of what it can do.

You can do town, but then it puts you in a middle of it. Which is ok i guess. I will check more for ya.

Yes. I have tried on two 2004 Lexuses and both stopped when I got to five destinations. I tried making it use a different preferred road. This made it act like an intermediate destination. I have not yet tried switching on POIs yet.

I am just not getting enough practice. It is disconcerting to sit in the car using the battery to do this after a lifetime of trying to conserve the battery.

There is the big difference between a routing program on a computer and a GUIDANCE program. With a guidance program it only releases a destination when you get within ____ feet of it. That is why choosing towns is sort of chancy. If you take a bypass or if they are detouring you away from that spot, the program continues to try to get you to make turns and get back to that spot -- even if you are miles and miles beyond and close to the next destination.

Please post more when you get a chance. Thanks for helping.