A story about Saab Infotainme​nt system and a trip to Madrid

Some of us love the Sat Navs in ours cars and some don’t but here is a little story from Lars Peterssson and his trip to Madrid.

This is a story about Saab Infotainment system and a trip to Madrid.

My Saab 9-3 has an infotainment system and with that follows a built in lady. This lady seems to be well educated since she speaks many languages. So far she has helped me to translate Danish, German, French and Spanish messages to plain Swedish when I have travelled.  She also helps me to keep my hands on the steering wheel when I want to change radio channel, CD and so on so I am very fond of her.

Please take the jump.

My wife and I realized that we had to go to Sweden 2700 km or to the Swedish ambassad in Madrid 468 km to get some work done. Since we have a dog and some cats fly to Sweden is not the best choice so we decided to go to Madrid. The cats could be home for a day or two and we brought the dog with us.

The open time on the ambassad is 10 – 12.30 so we decided to leave 5.30 in the morning but first I had to put in the address in the navi system. Then I got three choose on the screen – fastest, shortest and other. I selected the fastest way but then the Saab-lady informed me that this is not according to your basic settlement.  Well, well that’s good I said now we take off.  It was dark during the two first hours so we don’t saw much of the nature but we followed the lady when she told do so and so. I have changed flight in Madrid airport but never been driving in Madrid so I was a little eager to see it.

In this info system there is also a TMC-icon in shape of a car that can be green, yellow and red depending on I f you have chosen a route or not and how that the traffic jam looks.  After some hour the icon changed from green to red and in the same moment the Saab-lady told me that there is traffic jam in about 5 km.  Do you want to change route comes on the screen. No, I clicked. The traffic was not so heavy. Later I saw the motorway had just one field and under the trip to Madrid there were about 20 works on the motorway and the Saab-lady told me the problem every time but it was no such problem that can be on German autobahn.

We reached the ambassad after about 5 hours and one hour later began our return but first I had to put in my address. The same happen as last time. The lady told me that the selected route was not according to my basic settlement. I said yes, yes and we went on. After some hours we stopped to eat and refill fuel. It was here the later problem occurred.

A little later we travelled further on the motorway but when we came outside the town Albacete the Saab-lady told me to travel through Albacete. Why I thought. Maybe there is a traffic jam on the motorway I thought so we went through the town and continued on a national way. I took a look at the screen and saw that the arriving time had been moved two hours later than before. Because of that we took the first possibility to go on the motorway again.  Then the Saab-lady begun to tell us at every turn-off to just turn-off and continue on the national way.  After ten requests from the Saab-lady I became tired of her and went off the motorway and stopped to see what was wrong.

I recognized that I some time ago had changed the basic settlement to avoid motorway.  But why became the problem after our stop?  I think it was because at that time I did not select what kind of way home I wanted. If I had did that that could have overtaken for the basic settlement.  Now the system thought that I wanted to avoid motorways.

So the conclusion is – listen to what a lady says and the Saab-Navi will work fine.

I must say I am impressed of the Madrid people. The traffic in Madrid is quit heavy and many people double-park but the traffic moved smooth and well as I could see.

Thank you Lars.