Navigation surprise

This is the story of poor product design we ran into shipping our car to the islands that came to a happy ending after much wasted time and effort. Our Honda arrived safe and sound off the boat but the navigation system did not work - "out of coverage area" it would say unhelpfully and every single time the car was started. I never figured out how to just make it go way - removing the DVD just gets you a message that the DVD is removed, every time the car starts.

In time I found hondanavi.com and saw that the latest DVD "includes the 48 contiguous United States, Hawaii and the border region of Canada," so we order it ($159). Ground shipping took a long time but when it turned up the package even said it includes Hawaii with a color coded map with a big blowup of Hawaii in the same color as the mainland - mission accomplished.... But when I installed it it didn't work, same thing, "out of coverage area". I looked at the "setup menu" and all that for clues, read the manual, and as a last resort called the 800 number.

After explaining the problem and giving my order number the fellow informed me it does not include Hawaii. "But the web site says it does, and the package the DVD comes in has Hawaii on the map..." Those details were irrelevant, so I got a return authorization. No, they would not pay for shipping back even though they misrepresented the product apparently.

Happy ending to the story: today I was near the Honda dealer in Lihue so asked the parts department about it. I gave them the details and mentioned that hondanavi.com didn't work this guy who seemed to know everything about Hondas wandered over, brought up a page on the computer and handed my a printout.

It works: you hold down three buttons at once (MENU+MAP+CANCEL) to get into a special diagnostic screen, select Detail Info & Settings, select Coverage area, and in there is a Mainland or Hawaii selection. That did it - the old map DVD worked just fine, up came the map. (Full disclosure: there was an extra step needed because we had gone back from the new version DVD to the old one that required another step in the secretive diagnostic screen to reload the old version software to make it happy.) Actually a good thing we didn't waste money on the new map DVD after all as I don't think many roads have changed in the last few years anyway.

Editorial commentary:

• The navigation DVD folks are missing the boat not having a "FAQ" for customer service on this.
• The car has GPS so it knows it is in Hawaii so why on earth does it need me to tell it too?
• At least the "out of coverage" warning could mention the relevant setting if not suggest it.
• This is a classic example of something customers cannot reasonably anticipate when buying that hurts them later. Companies need to learn that anticipating these problems and addressing them makes customers very happy but with this kind of 800 customer support they aren't even aware.

Mahalo to the service department!