I am using coordinates quite often.
Once I was joining a group of campers, that went day before to beach campground with no marked sides and 5 miles long.
Coming at night I might spend the rest of the night locating them.
Coordinates lead me straight to within 20 feet from them
How you On-star will send ambulance, when you are 5 miles from the nearest village Lugnut?
I am not even going into details how the cell coverage works.

 

GPS co-ordinates are exactly the same as map co-ordinates so as people are saying it is the most accurate method of working.

If an air ambulance is called out it will be given map co-ordinates and actually anyone wanting to get to the correct place rather than - well we are 5 miles from intersection so and so.

This is what is so infuriating about Mercedes. They have a software bug which is ONLY on their GPS system and yet won't acknowlege the fact other than to say 'we will fix it in 2007' which is the same as saying '**** off'.

You spend all that money and....................

Now if the brakes were dodgy then it would be a recall which actually happened this week in the UK. There have been lots of recalls including one for the GPS system which when the car was new reported that if the car went below sea level it was actually at some incredible height.

They fixed that which is trivial compared with co-ordinates but won't fix the co-ordinates.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

That's a little different than what I was talking about. If I wanted to go to within 20 feet of a group of people then I would use coordinates too. But, when the police or other emergency responders get an emergency call from the average someone in trouble, they don't expect to get GPS coordinates. That's all I was saying.

Have you ever heard of geocaching?

Do you mean when I'm in a rural area and there is no street address? It gives mileage and a highway number. It can even tell which side of the highway I'm on and therefore, the direction. I've never seen OnStar's software, but it could be customized to do things automatically, like compute mileage and direction from the nearest major intersection, for example. OnStar would have something customized if I controlled it. Short of that, it can be computed manually.

No need. It's not a perfect system, nor is it failsafe. The GPS system is the same way. It's easier to block GPS signals than cell phone signals.

 

I agree. However, it's the authorities in the US that calls the air ambulance. They would need to get the coordinates somehow. An injured person or a witness would call 911, for example, and tell them that an accident is "5 miles from intersection so and so." They won't have GPS coordinates, they can't call an air ambulance directly, and I'm not at all sure the first responder police could use coordinates.

 

I understand your frustration organum, when after spending big money on the system it is coming with a bug, that nobody wants to fix.
But Mercedes is famous for building the cars, not for drawing the maps and designing software. Just like guys here, those folks in Germany might not even understand what you are talking about.
Can you find who is actually building and designing those navigation systems and notify them directly.
For my travels I am using USB antenna, that plugs into my laptop. New antenna with Street Atlas 2005 sells for $99.
That gives you screen split on 3, different scale maps, so when you observe the curb turn on one map, you see neighborhood on other and county on the third.
Than 3-dimensional Topo version is very hopeful in seeing hills in front of you. Very helpful in heavy rig driving, not necessarily at night.

 

Its a Mercedes supplied own system. I think they call it Comand.

For sure all the firmware updates have come from Mercedes so far and the car is under warranty including the nav system.

 

The E Class command system is made for Mercedes Benz by Harman/Becker. They have a website at
http://www.harmanbecker.com
In the website it shows that they have an office in the UK in Shirley/West Midlands . Perhaps being more local, they will have a better understanding of your problem, although I would think that Mercedes Benz will be trying to get an answer out of them too once they have worked out that there is a problem with the system.

It looks as though they do the system in BMW's and Porsche's too as well as some other high end cars.



For a good look at map co-ordinates, check out a program called "google earth", but don't bother unless you have a fast internet connection. See http://earth.google.com/