In a survey of automotive navigation systems by J.D. Power & Associates, Lincoln-Mercury holds down the two extremes. The Lincoln Zephyr sedan ranks best among 70 vehicles surveyed, while the Mercury Mariner Hybrid is dead last. The difference: the Zephyr uses a newly designed Pioneer head unit, while the Mariner employs a Visteon module with a tiny 4-inch screen, which is smaller than screens you'd find on some portable navigation devices.

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J.D. Power, the car-satisfaction-survey outfit that's now part of McGraw-Hill, asked 14,103 recent buyers (or leaseholders) about their experiences with navigation systems. Cars powered by Alpine (5), Pioneer (3), and Denso (2) made up the top 10 vehicles, which were all of either Japanese or American origin. Not until the BMW 3 Series in 34th place does a European car or navigation module (Siemens VDO) enter into the picture. The top 10 were the Lincoln Zephyr (Pioneer), Acura TSX (Alpine), Acura RL (Alpine), Lexus IS (Denso) and Lincoln Town Car (Denso), tied, Ford Freestyle (Pioneer), Honda Ridgeline (Alpine), Ford Explorer (Pioneer) and Honda Civic (Alpine), tied, and Honda Accord (Alpine) and Honda Accord hybrid (Alpine), tied.

Power doesn't specify the margin of error (odds that the winner really is the winner, and would be if the survey were run again). But on its 1,000-point scale, a 1 percent margin of error, 10 points, would mean first and second place would be interchangeable, and a 3 percent margin would put the top six in a grouping at the top.

Mike Marshall, director of automotive emerging technologies for J.D. Power, noted that navigation systems are moving beyond luxury brands and into the mainstream. Six times as many vehicles now offer navigation systems as did in 2000.

"With the popularity of navigation systems continuing to increase," Marshall warns, "many owners still struggle with the functionality of their system, which can cause satisfaction to suffer. The top four navigation system problems are route- or map-related, accounting for more than 50 percent of all problems cited by owners. Missing map-data points continues to be a highly cited problem among users." Power says the top six factors in a good navigation system are ease of use (most important), routing, system appearance, speed of system, voice directions, and navigation display screen.

The survey also found high interest (95 percent) in receiving real-time traffic information. My initial experience with this technology has been disappointment, however, at the timeliness and thoroughness of the information. Real-time traffic reports may be delayed by 5 to 20 minutes; it's limited to major roadways; it missed some incidents; and it's slow to report when the congestion has cleared. Heading into 2007, users may want a lot more than they may get.

TechnoRide analyzed the results by navigation maker and found that Pioneer, with five units that are all in Ford-Lincoln-Mercury vehicles, was best overall; its average score was 815. Alpine had the most units—22, on Acura, Chrysler-Dodge-Jeep, and Honda vehicles—and had the second-best score, 782.

Delphi, with three units on GM cars, and Xanavi, with eight on Infiniti-Nissan vehicles, were tied for third place. Denso, with 18 units on Lexus-Toyota, Mazda, GM, and Mazda cars, was fifth. They were followed by Kenwood, Siemens VDO, Blaupunkt, Aisin AW, and Visteon. According to Power, the Pioneer unit "performs particularly well in the ease of use, routing, and appearance factors." Continued...

The top five automakers, regardless of which brand of navigation system was installed, were Honda, Acura, Lincoln, Infiniti, and Lexus. The lowest-ranked five were Mercedes-Benz (lowest of the low), Audi, VW, Mazda, and Chrysler; German cars may lead the world in most forms of engineering, but somebody's asleep at the telematics switch. Of 23 brands ranked, the Germans came in 17 (BMW), 21, 22, and 23. Porsche may be an exception, but it didn't have enough cars in the survey to be ranked.

Another trend is that U.S. automakers are picking up recognition for their navigation systems by open bidding, rather than just reflexively using formerly captive electronics components makers such as Delphi and Visteon.

The six lowest-rated individual systems were (from the bottom) the Visteon unit in the Mariner Hybrid, an Alpine unit in the Jeep Liberty, a Visteon in the Ford Expedition, an Alpine in the Mercedes-Benz C-Class, and a Denso unit in a Toyota Avalon tied with an Aisin AW unit in the Audi A4. Not to pat my own back too much, but a year ago TechnoRide took flack for pegging the Mariner Hybrid as a reasonable vehicle "held back by a sorry-ass navigation system." Thanks, J.D. Power, for bailing us out.

Following are the J.D. Power ratings for all 70 navigation systems. Several dozen other vehicles were surveyed but didn't have enough responses to be measured.