Some Problem Changes After Changing From 10 To 64 Registered T Spirit.

[oakridge]

There are a few changes with the new car which are causing a few problems for Chirsine, the driver, who is hard of hearing.

1. We did not bother with the rear sensors on this car because Christine could not hear the beeps, but the guidelines have disappeared from the camera which she found very useful.

SatNav, although the new display is very good and it is good to have speed limits there are some problems.

2. The SatNav is not linked to the heads-up display.

3. The instructions ramble on. A person who is hard of hearing needs short precise instructions; volume is not the whole answer.

4. The voice itself is not clear.

These may seem minor problems but Christine spends a lot of time travelling alone so I am not there to tell her what the instruction said and they often come at a time when a lot is happening on the road so looking at the display is not a great idea.

Malcolm

[MEP's Yaris GS]

Hello Malcolm, unfortunately this is the the system Toyota use, which is apparently better than the old in some respects, but does loose the head up display for nav, and does operate differently. I'm not aware of any work arounds as it is a completely different system.

[Grumpy Cabbie]

You'd have thought car manufacturers would at least consider drivers with additional needs as above. The "Touch & Go" system is only used in Europe and is a bit "rushed". Little things like it not working on the HUD are a significant short coming. You don't want to take your eyes off the road to glance at the sat nav screen and that's where the HUD came into its own. You may as well just stick a TomTom in the side of your windscreen than take your eyes away to focus on a screen 18 inches away, take in the information and then back to the road. Much safer just glancing sideways for a split second.

With all the functionality these days couldn't manufacturers allow different options to help hard of hearing drivers such as personalised indicator 'clicking'? Some are too quiet (which suits me) but some people might want them louder or higher pitched. Don't say there's no demand as having looked it up, nearly 19% of the UK population have some hearing difficulties - me included and I'm only in my mid 40's.

But I guess such issues never come on the radar of the 20 something programmers. They should, especially as a lot of Toyotas are purchased by the erm, more mature.

[barrycoll]

A big shortcoming, as my wife wears 2 hearing aids, and can't hear either the phone nor the front door bell, without an accessory buzzer/vibrating system.

She can hear a windscreen Garmin satnav, but that has a good volume control, but not the Toyota one, although I must say, that she is greatly improved with her latest digital hearing aids.

Toyota have really taken a step back in time by deleting all those helpful features in the latest Gen 3.

I am wondering if the CT200 Lexus has these features???

[oakridge]

Thank you for your replies. Christine also wears two hearing aids which are gradually getting stronger and stronger. Just to add to the fun my eyesight is bad enough for me to be on the Blind Register - sometimes we make a good team.

It is frustrating when things get mended worse. The only problem with the old system was the satnav upgrades which were an expensive farce. Christine uses the satnav a great deal, even for well known routes, in order to get the traffic information. Buying the same car we did not bother with a test drive otherwise I think we would have had a lesser model and would have gone back to a Garmin.

Oh, and just to add insult to injury it must be a TomTom system because it does not find our house.

We looked at the Lexus which does seem to have the same satnav and was about the same price, but it did not have enough room for our dog.

Bob from Burrows, the salesman, is ringing tomorrow so we will see if anything can be done.

Christine is, erm, more mature at 70, but don't tell her that I told you.

Malcolm

[FROSTYBALLS]

The Touch2 with Go has TomTom mapping.

[oakridge]

Thank you Frostyballs. Now there is a sentence I never thought I would write.

I might have known it was a TomTom our Son-in-Law complained a number of times to TomTom but they never even replied.

Malcolm

[MEP's Yaris GS]

The Touch2 with Go has TomTom mapping.

Good god I hope not. I've always been a Garmin man and hated tomtom with a passion. Please say its not so. I'll never have any trust in it again now haha.

[CPN]

It's not "TomTom mapping", it's Navteq; same as the original Touch & Go. The TomTom bit is an app, "TomTom places" ...

[Sagitar]

I still keep a Garmin satnav in the car and use it on journeys that involve routes that I haven't used before. You can still buy an excellent satnav, with quarterly map updates for life, for around £100 and it's brilliant value compared with the cost of the very poor map updating on the Prius.

[oakridge]

We gave our trusty Garmin away when we bought the first Prius in 2010. Thinking of that prompted the thought that if we did not like the car very much we would not have bought another, er, warts and all.

After some research - good ol' Google - we find that it is possible to register the Touch&Go with TomTom. This brings the ability to plan a route on Google Maps and transfer that to the car and have a choice of voices which should help Christine. Whether we can get rid of the wordy instructions or not we will see.

http://blog.toyota.co.uk/toyota-touch-go-how-to-use-sat-nav-features#.VE1N3SKsUxh

Malcolm

[johalareewi]

... our Son-in-Law complained a number of times to TomTom but they never even replied.

That sounds like TomTom customer support.

Once they have got your money...