I already adjusted the Voice Prompt under Guidance Setup to Maximum and I still can't hear the navigation voice commands. Am I missing something ? This is true whether the radio is on or not.

Push the button that makes the last command repeat, then when the nav voice is repeating (or should be repeating) increase the volume AT THAT TIME.
Gilly

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I'll try that. Thank you.

Hi:
I'm looking at a manual now. The button I have in mind is the one that is labelled "VOICE". Of course, the unit has to have something to say, you may want to program in a trip so it has an instruction to give. Maybe it won't matter, the "voice" button I believe just repeats whatever the last thing the nav system said.
I don't believe you can even operate the nav without the radio being on, that's one irritating thing about the MCS nav system. You can turn the radio way down though, but it has to be on for the nav to work.
Gilly

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Does anyone have a problem with the Nav where the location is on the opposite side of the street. When your actually destination is on the right, the Nav will tell in on the left and vice versa.

Also, sometimes the actually location is off by 500-1000 ft.

John:
When it's malfunctioning, especially if the location is off by that much, I would check the GPS signal strength (the semi-circle "smile" marks under the figure of the satellite). You can also go to the info screen and it'll tell you how many satellites it is receiving a signal from. I'm betting your GPS antenna is going bad, or you have a loose connection to the antenna. Need at least 3 satellites to be accurate.
Gilly

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Gilly,

I checked and it shows 6 satellites in the information and I live in the big city San Jose / San Francisco. How about the building numbers, at certain places, the numbers of odd and even on either side of the street are wrong on the Nav? I've brought it in 2 times for service all ready on this same issue, I installed this after I've purchased the car, so is there anything else I can make the dealer do?

John:
When the error occurs that the vehicle position is wrong, that is when I would check the amount of satellites. Is it possible that this occurs around tell buildings and you are losing sat's? You need clear view of the sky to get sat reception.
I am not familiar with having a database complete enough to give street numbers. Where I am at (Madison, WI) there just isn't that much info. There are some restraunts, etc in the database, and so is the dealership I work at, but when the nav system says you have arrived, you are actually 1/2 mile away, but the exact street we are on also is not on the database. This fact may explain why the location is wrong.
Some of this is Navtech's fault, some is Mercedes fault. MB and Navtech I believe decided together how much area each disc will cover. This will determine how much detail (information) can be placed on each disc. In my case with our dealership location being wrong, if say the disc contained only Madison, it should be able to navigate you right up to the service entrance door, it can be that exact. But as it is, the disc that Madison is on also contains for example Milwaukee and Chicago, so they can't have every street, much less address, in the city of Madison.
I can only guess that Navtech may have made a mistake on the disc you use. Maybe the dealer can let you try a different disc, or I also believe that in the CD jewel case literature is a number you can call to get in touch with Navtech, and maybe they can verify this is an error.
So in short, I think you may have an antenna problem, which you will need to verify by checking the number of sats being used when the position is wrong, and also possibly a disc programming error.
Gilly

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Thanks for your help.

To answer some of the questions, my residential areas is about 20-40 years old (my house has been there for about 30 years). My neigborhood has no tall building anywhere near, it's all flat land and open area (no mountain either). My disc is for California and Nevada and I live in the San Francisco area so it should not be a small town where they may mess up.

I will check with the dealership with a different CD to see if that helps but as far as the satellite, my house has 6 satellite connected when I check that info button. The CD for the ML seems to be only for ML right (when the MCS boot up, it shows ML picture) or are you referring to different year CD(2000 or 2001?) Thank you again!

John

John:
The age of the houses in your neighborhood and all that, that's not important to this topic, OK?
Being around tall buildings or mountains can be one explaination, not saying it's what's going on with your situation.
If your location on the GPS map is messed up, and you have good GPS reception (at least 3 sats) then there is probably a problem in the nav unit inside the MCS (not the MCS itself, the nav unit is a drop-in component of the MCS and is replaceable seperately). What I am suggesting is that if the position on the nav map is intermittently incorrect, that when this occurs to check the amount of sats your are receiving at that time. The more sats you are receiving, the more accurate the location on the map.

On the discs, they can screw something up just as easily in Frisco as thay can in East Undershirt, OK? Screwups happen when programming this stuff just as easily in a large town as a small, it's the same people entering the information.
Yes, the nav disc is different for an ML (MCS) as compared to all other MB factory nav units (COMAND). COMAND uses a Bosch nav unit, the MCS is made by Siemens. The info between the discs is the same, it's CD-ROM based and the info is from a company called NavTech. The info is updated by NavTech, and if I remember correctly, all original owners of these discs (even the ones supplied with the car/truck when new) receive one free update, i believe 1 year after purchase. I believe the info is sent direct to the owners address, maybe they just send the disc out, i'm not sure. I believe there is a number where you can obtain info on the discs, should be in the printed material that is in the nav disc cardboard box. Maybe they can tell you if you should get 1 free updated disc or not.

Also, if your location is not very close at times, and you check the sats, and the count is low, it may be a bad GPS antenna, I have had to replace a few of them. If the count is normal, it may be the GPS unit in the MCS, as I mentioned, or there are other factors that may affect this, including the weather, the actual amount of satellites in the sky above your position, or the DOD activating Selective Positioning, which intentionally creates positioning errors. Hey, it's THEIR satellites.
Gilly

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Gilly,

Just to update you, took the ML in for service and told the advisor about the problem (off by 500-1000 ft). They did not believe me so he got the technician and did not believe it as well. We took a ride to my house to prove to them and they were amazed. We went back to the dealership and call the 800 number and told them about this issue. They say that "it's as good as it can get!" So now dealership say I can get a full refund if I'm not satisfied with the Nav. Told them I will let them know how to resolve this in a few days.

I guess there's nothing else I can do?

Hope this only replys once, hit the wrong button, etc, etc.
John:
You are missing the point, the dealer should know how to logically approach this.
When you noticed that you are way off course (not where you are supposed to be at all) THAT is the time to check the amount of satellites you are receiving. This is the "Y" in the road. If it's super, say 5 to 10 satellites, then I would proceed with a new nav unit in the MCS (not the MCS itself, the drop-in nav unit. It's all in there except the antenna. If the reception is lousy (3 or less satellites) then I would blame the antenna intermittently bad. If you have something between 3 and 5, then break out the shotgun and try both if it's under warrany anyways.
You can do a synchronization to tell the GPS "exactly" (more or less) where the truck is, if you drive it and it strays alot from where you are (check intersections, bridges, railroad tracks, etc) then the either the nav itself or the antenna is at fault, or maybe wiring. Was the internal version coding changed to reflect that the GPS is there? Could have forgotten I guess.
The truck can change position even if no satellites, so don't let them tell you that because the map moves, everythin g is OK. This is built in, using the wheel speed sensors for when you go through tunnels, around tall buildings, etc where there is no nav reception. It won't be accurate forever though.
Please digest this info carefully so the dealer and I can help you rectify this.
Gilly

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Gilly,

Thanks for your advice, I guess you are a consumer that won't settle anything less, thanks for the encouragement and now I'm determine to get this fix, hehehe :-)

I will talk to the dealer again tomorrow and keep you updated.

Hey Gilly,

I took back to the dealer and they basically say that there's nothing more they can do since they've call the Mercedes headquarter and they say that it's as accurate as it gets. They did gave us the option of returning and get a full refund!

What should I do? I was thinking of refund and go to another dealership and install it! They won't even give me a discount either so that's why I definitely want to return it.

John:
I recommend you read my previous post on the subject and tell me what direction is the most logical.
Gilly

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