Never Lost??
 

So any of you seek cars out with Never Lost? I have used it a few times and must say that it is awful. I use GPS systems every day and the Magellan product used by Hertz is hardly a great product, though I suppose better than nothing. These products have gotten so good that I travel with my Garmin NUVI now everywhere. The Garmin GUI is so much better and the Maps and POI data base are infinitely better. Whenever I get in a Neverlost vehicle I turn it on now, mount my NUVI and laugh and the quirks of the Neverlost. I have said this before, but I simply cannot understand why car manufacturers don't simply buy a licensing agreement from Garmin and use their product and maps.

Do any of you use Neverlost regularly and find it useful these days?

As an aside I must say that the Neverlost is MUCH better than the NAV system that was preinstalled in the Mercedes I rented from Sixt last weekend.

Hertz neverlost was ahead of its time in 1998/1999 when it was launched, however it now is an average product, or below average if they don't keep it updated. But like you said it still is much better than most factory equipped navigation systems.

Since hertz was effectively the launch partner for Magellan/Neverlost, I don't think they will even consider changing brands. I suspect they invested heavily into the product development, now they get a very reduced cost.

I went out and bought a Magellan Roadmate 750 in early 2000 (that's the model Hertz used for the neverlost launch). About 3 years ago it became painfully obvious that it was time to upgrade to one of the newer portable units, which I've done several times since. I've been faithful to the Magellan brand. One nice thing is their tech support--I've asked them a few times about something and they always sounded VERY interested and thankful for the call, then in the next unit or map revision it's been implemented.

Yes, I do remember that Hertz was at the cusp of this product introduction to the market. It was huge in the early days of GPS introduction to the rental market, but even larger to the population in general.

By the way, I will never damn andybody for product loyalty if it goes beyond sheer brand recognition. You have your reasons and they sound VERY valid. I like the Garmin product, but I use these things every day and know that there are many with a few rising to the top. I just see the current Neverlost in the Hertz fleet today as almost providing a negative impact on the marketing of Magellan products. They do have some fine ones I would think they would want to get in the rental customers hands.

TomTom all the way. I had a rental with neverlost, and while it was never lost, half of the time it was saying to proceed to a highway several miles away, without any street level maps to get me there. Totally hated it.

The only good thing was I didn't ask for it, it was all they had so I didn't have to pay for it.

Now whenever I go someplace, that nice computer lady from TomTom guides me.

The girl that gives directions in the 2007 and new BMW NAV is much hotter sounding than the Tom Tom lady.

I'll request Never Lost but its availability doesn't drive my rental car decision, which is sometimes based on size, but sometimes price. Whether it's a great system or not, on at least 1 occasion I found it decidedly convenient.

We only reserve a neverlost in hopes of a cheap upgrade to a low level prestige vehicle. Reserve Full size with neverlost and almost always got a Volvo S80, Audi A6, or Jag X-Type. Only one time, out of 30 or so reservations like this, did we get a Grand Marquis with NL.

Okay this is so funny now but not at the time. Apparently the Neverlost system will take you on all expressways unless you tell it not to.
On one occasion I came out of the hotel turned on to the expressway ramp going South as indicated by the NS, 1 mile later it told me to get off the expressway and go over the bridge, back on the expressway going North and off at the next ramp and a right turn to my location. When I realised what had happed I turned the NS off.

Whenever available I always rent a car with Neverlost. I don’t have a stand alone gps unit at the moment, and I almost always travel alone when I’m in the US, so it’s really nice not to have to look at maps and stop to ask for directions.

I agree that it’s far from the best gps there is. One really annoying bug is the “getting off and getting back on the freeway for no reason”-bug that I’ve experienced a couple of times (southbound on interstate 5 if I remember correctly). The never Neverlost (III?) is a huge improvement over the original, though.

Still haven’t tried the European (portable?) Neverlost.


Cheers

I get cars with NL 99% of the time (I would say I rent an average of 40 times a year). The NL has problems in downtown areas, so I usually have to BS my way for a few blocks. But, I prefer the view of the map over the Garmin Nuvi, which just feels too cluttered. I've been using the NL so long, I prefer it over anything else.

I'm hit and miss with it. It's definitely better than mapquesting directions before I leave for a trip but when it doesn't work, it really doesn't work.

The worst experience I've had was the last rental in NYC. I picked it up at a downtown location and the unit took about 25 minutes to lock on to the satelites. When it did, it had the orientation wrong and about 100 feet off. As I was trying to approach the Holland Tunnel it had me on the wrong street on the map.

The only pet peeve I have with it is that I wish I could leave it in map mode the whole time rather than showing the turning icons. Whenever it does that in downtown areas I'd rather see on the wide area map where the street is rather than what street name to look for.

I had similar experiences in the Arlington VA area where the crazy thing was saying bear left - bear right - bear left in rapid succession which needless to say didn't make the people very happy following me. It also told me the completely wrong thing by my hotel near BWI. I think you have to do a little studying in any urban area to make it work the best for you. There were places I never would have ventured out to without it near Philly. For long stretches it works really well though and "wakes you up" when you are zoning out on the mile markers.

msv

I'm amazed at the number of Presitge cars in So Cal that do not have Never Lost.

I find NL very effective even in NYC with tall buildings that stump other GPS models.

I have used NL on two week long trips to San Francisco and surrounding areas. They were leisure trips, so we weren't racing around. Didn't have any connection problems.

The only real mistake I made was 80/580/880 split driving southwest on the way back to OAK from the Sacramento area.

The feature I liked most was the Yellow Pages. Within YP there is a Local Attractions category. They are organized by distance from the unit which saved a lot of time zig zagging back and forth through the city. Great way to get to know the area.

I have not used Tom Tom or the Nuvi. Google Maps on my Razr works in a pinch.

Oh, my! That sounds much like my most recent experience. The Never Lost babe kept telling me to bear left, but the road signs (and the NL map) indicated I needed to head slightly to the right before bearing left. The drivers behind me were not amused with my left-right-left-right maneuvers as I tried to decide if I should believe NL or my own eyes.

I use NeverLost most of the time, but she sure gets confused when going over water, she seems to lose where she is. A lot of times the NeverLost hasn't kept up with road changes, so it can be a challenge when they are telling you to turn and you can't.

Overall, NeverLost is great.

I've only used it once (it just happened to be in a car I rented) and I was very happy with it. I made sure to add it to my reservation for an upcoming rental where I'll be doing a lot of driving on the East coast.

Slightly OT - but has anyone seen the reports on KNBC (los angeles) where they test a GPS with real-time traffic updates against a courier and someone listening to the radio?

The GPS has come in third each time.

Garmin Nuvi-660 - http://www.knbc.com/investigations/11010753/detail.html

Magellan 2200-T with real time traffic - http://www.knbc.com/investigations/11139003/detail.html

Total time difference less than 5 minutes and one run conducted. Very interesting, but hardly conclusive. I bet that more of these tests are on the horizon. Thanks for the links

I think it would have been better if they had compared all of the real-time traffic GPS units against each other. Does anyone know if any other news/technology organizatons have done this?

I like the experiment, but one run of a 35 minute trip that took everyone at least three times that is hardly conclusive about anything except that traffic in LA is awful. You need more runs over more courses and yes against other units as well as controls. I like the expriment though, and I would never give up my GPS. I also thought that it was funny that the non gps driver was allowed a phone call. Why?

Different Never Lost question...
 

I know on the full size rentals, when I've had NeverLost, it's been a Taurus or something similar - as far as I could tell, MSP didn't put NeverLost in any other make.

Do they spread out the NeverLost over the makes in a class, or will the NeverLost basically guarantee you a certain kind of car? I will be renting a midsize, and I'm hoping for the Corolla instead of the Kias I usually get.

Thanks in advance.

Have it this week in a Hyundai Sonata.... ("Upgrade" in ORF)

There have been a few threads about this in the past year.

Taurus is generally the most common vehicle that has NL in it, so it isn't that unusual to find one in your spot when reserving a car with NL. In fact, I'd say that my track record for a midsize with NL results most often in a Taurus.

That said, there are lots of other vehicles that have NL. In addition to the Prestige cars, others with NL I've rented include:
- Camry (though you can't reserve one)
- Sonata
- Corolla (rare to see)
- Town Car
- STS
- Ford 500

I received a Corolla with NL (requested) when I rented at ORD two weekends ago. FWIW, I actually like NL, and I like the Corolla since it gets great mileage compared to the other mids and full-sizes. I was a bit peeved when I arrived to my stall a couple of weekends ago in CVG to find a 2-door Monte Carlo when I requested a Corolla. So they put me in a Taurus. Acceptable, I guess...

Noah,
Thanks...I'll double-check the search; I had missed those threads the last time I searched.

I did call the station in question - the agent had only ever seen one Corolla with NL. I tried to request one, but the agent said that it was impossible to request. Granted, this is a smaller station (BTR), so that would explain why.

Given the new Taurus' gas mileage (17/24) vs. the Corolla (32/41), you can guess why I'm not as much of a fan of the Taurus...

Agreed. I thought I read somewhere on the Hertz web site that all Prestige cars came standard with Never Lost. I basically banked on that this weekend in SFO and did not bring directions to my destination. Needless to say my Lincoln MKX did not have it nor did any of the other cars available. I ran into the manager of the area and asked him about it and he said many of the newest Prestige cars do not have Never Lost installed.

Speaking of the MKX I traded out of it in Oakland the next day for something with a 3rd row rear seat. I got a Subaru Tribeca with leather and sunroof and other than it's lack of power I preferred it's drive to the Lincoln.

I read that Lincoln/Ford made it a goal to get the Lincoln close to the class benchmark being the Lexus RX350. The last RX330 I drove was a 2004 and I think in comparison they missed it.

Damn, ive got an MKX reserved at SFO in a few weekends and really would love to have the NL. Im arriving later in the night (10pm) and if the gold desk is not busy, maybe i will go hassle them and try to get something with NL....

I've just reserved a car with NL in Spain. Anyone have any experience with these in Europe? I'm hoping it's reasonably reliable there.

Good luck, but you may walk away annoyed. My reservation was for 10PM this last Thursday. Nobody was happy to see me at the counter asking questions. But the manager I ran into on the lot was good natured.

I do remember him specifically saying that none of the MKX's had Never Lost and I also noticed none of them had moonroofs. I was actually fairly disappointed about that because I was expecting a little more than a upscale for Edge. But that's exactly what they are in my mind. Actually I prefer the drive of the Edge because the MKX is very floaty, not a trait I enjoy in an SUV. The Navigator is the same way, it doesn't inspire confidence. But then again you can't beat the special SFO is offering on the MKX $47.99 a day is hard to beat.

I made a comment on the Hertz Web Site about my Prestige Collection (MKX) not being equipped with Never Lost after I read this on the web site last night.

"Complimentary Never Lost In-Car Navigations Systems-- All Hertz Prestige Collection Vehicles are equipped with NeverLost, Hertz' in-car satellite navigation system."

Hertz customer relations just emailed me back and said that I was confirmed for a MKX w/ NeverLost which is a Prestige Collection Vehicle. They're sorry for my inconvenience and would like to send me a $50 coupon off another rental.

Which to me is a perfectly appropriate way of handling it. Another $50 towards one of the multiple rentals I have in the next few months is welcomed.

Agreed. Seems fair to me. Besides, I'd choose a $50 "rebate" over NL any day.

So, to finish my question from earlier, BTR had mentioned that they'd only ever seen 1 Corolla w/NL. So, what do I see when I check in? That's right...a Corolla with NL! So they do exist...

Hopefully Hertz will soon update their maps. I was trying to get a sense of what version maps are in Neverlost III, but several searches haven't confirmed which version they have (it said 4.7 something when booting up - is that the version number?).

I have been happy with Neverlost navigation. But when I tried to get it to bind my a local business, I found it had been loaded in Arkansas. I was in Tampa.:p

So did you drive to Arkansas? :D

Seems to me they should call it "Almost Never Lost". I get it on every rental, saves me from doing tons of mapquest prints, and it's usually pretty good.
However in BOS, PHL, and SFO among a few others, it tends to get lost, or send you where you can't go...i.e. wrong way on a one way street in BOS, onto a highway in PHL where there isn't an entrance ramp, just to name two.
Overall it's pretty reliable.