this post was submitted on 15 Jul 2026
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Mine doesn't. Specifically downgraded big time to a nearly dumb car (AA is the only modern feature and this I can control)
I hope for the future those dumb things will still be built or else I'd have a problem...
What’s “AA”?
Android Auto, I assume.
Android auto, sorry. I also hate forced onboard navigation that either gets stale or where you have to pay for updates. At least after warranty ends in my case.
Some people prefer paying with money over paying with personal data.
Having said that, these days the paid solutions also collect your data ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Exactly...that's why my only viable solution is the AA one. Phone on VPN with a dummy account. Automatically switched to airplane when car off and to my phone's hotspot when car is on. Google has no usable data here. Not perfect, yes.
If you're going to all that effort, why not just use something that's powered by OpenStreetMap like OsmAnd?
Really tried. They just totally suck for us. Sygic isn't great either but way more helpful (with lane-assist or speedcam warnings and such). And the yearly sub costs a tiny fraction of what Bentley would want for a post-warranty service with nav-update 😁
Sadly found no better alternative so far, especially because I effing hate google and have it removed 99,9%.
What do they suck in?
At least what i said above. Comfort-features. The open ones are great, don't get me wrong. But not here and not for cars. At least not for me. Would've otherwise prefered open of course.
I had a pretty good experience with Comaps but i guess the open map is not good for every place, which makes sense for such a project since it need people to work well
I don't actually remember comaps. But those crowd-sourced are usually problematic here, as you already pointed out. I can live with Sygic though. Good lifelong discount for yearly, and it's european :)
Not OP: I can't give up gmaps because none of the open source maps I tried allow me to search for business name or a type of business (gas station, grocery store etc). I am sure they would guide me wonderfully but I would need to look up the address first and that's less than ideal when driving.
Have you tried Comaps? I can write in the searchbar something like "grocery", "market' etc etc and it will give me releated results
So.. yours does track you.
No it does not. The AA phone is a dedicated one without SIM and a dummy google account. Whatever they track is not only useless, it couldn't even leave the phone.
And the car itself has no uplink or anything that would need one. The best the onboard system can do is show the time and play radio. Without the phone the car is dumb as a wet rock.