So, with some reluctance on my part, we went looking for a less costly alternative, probably Japanese but still maybe made here in the USA. I don't spend a lot of time driving so a nice reliable car and, moreover, one that performs well in the snow and not too much of a gas guzzler, would be nice. After quite a few test drives and much research on consumer reports, we hit upon the all-wheel drive Subaru Legacy. And to cut a long story short, we bought 2012 model: a very pleasant shade of red. I had traded in the BMW and was really very sad to leave it behind. But I love the new Legacy! I really do. Not only have I actually visited the original Subaru (Fuji Heavy Industries) in Japan, but the Legacy is actually made here in Indiana.
The car is well-endowed, with navigation system, 3.6 litre 6-cylinder horizontally aligned engine , leather seats, all mod cons. Even the gas mileage is decent (better than I was getting with the bimmer). The audio has blue-tooth connectivity so that, theoretically, I can play stuff from my iPhone on the speakers. I definitely can make phone calls hands-free through the speakers, although the voice recognition to make it truly hands-free either doesn't work, or is too hard for me to figure out. I've since learned that there are some deliberate policy decisions which prevent certain things happening together, like voice recognition while the map is visible. Or something like that.
The real Achilles heel of the car is the navigation system. First, the good news. It has the best voice that I've ever heard in a navigation system. Really nicely done. But after that things start going downhill a little. The only time I've bought a factory-installed navigation system was in one of the BMWs, back in around 2000. There were some minor problems, mainly with the accuracy of the maps, and little things like choosing non-optimum routes. I figured that the state-of-the-art would really have improved in 12 years.
I was too optimistic. You'd think that getting from our house to Sturbridge and back would pretty easy, right? Not so fast. As we were heading down I-290, we ran into a huge traffic jam which we later learned was the result of an accident. I figured that with the navigation system, it would be easy to get off and go around it. The manual says, press the "Dest" button and then touch Address, or whatever. But Address wasn't sensitive (i.e was dark). Eventually we found that double-clicking the button sometimes made the address on-screen button sensitive. But then, actually entering the address was incredibly difficult and took several attempts. By this time, we were pulled over on a side street so I got out my trusty iPhone. It showed the way with no problem. Its only drawback is that it doesn't give turn-by-turn directions audibly. Both systems were in agreement about the first couple of turns. Then they diverged. We followed the car system. It was wrong and we made a u-turn. Then when we finally were approaching the ticket booths for I-90, the car system told us to go East instead of West (showing a route to the next exit and back). We ignored it of course but making an error like that could easily cost 15 or 20 minutes. On the way home, it wanted to take a bizarre out-of-the-way route, avoiding I-90 (no, it's not programmed to avoid tolls or anything like that). I ignored it.
One of the hardest things to do with it is to turn the darn thing off! You'd think it would be incredibly easy to cancel navigation. But apparently, the designers didn't think we'd want to do that. You have to turn the whole system off before you can start over.
Fortunately, I didn't buy a GPS system because I need directions. It's unusual that I do. But every now and then, I'm going somewhere I haven't been before and so navigation that I don't have to break the law to use would be nice. I mainly like these systems because I'm a map nut. I love maps and anyone who loves maps presumably also loves the GPS system. So, having a few errors doesn't bother me all that much. It's more of a joke really.
But, if anyone at Subaru is actually reading this, then get off your zabuton and get the bugs out!
