Online Services - Discontinued?

[SB1500]

Been having a good mess about with the unfortunately slow touch screen on my 2018 Avensis. I seen a few nice features like parking and fuel prices, which require an online subscription from the eStore. When I went on to get it, I got 'this service is not available for your device/car' and then 'this service has been discontinued'. Is this just a redirect error I'm getting, or are these genuinely discontinued in favour of Toyota's newer systems?

I see that you have to pay for map updates for a few hundred £ too. That's not great - my old DS had free updates (at least until a certain point / number of times). It's fair game in that I know they need to invest time and effort to put it together and test the new maps but kind of disappointing.... anybody know of a way around this perhaps?

Before giving up, I wanted to check if any of you have got the online services working / if they're any good?

[Catlover]

Hi Shane, my Prius had 3 years free map updates. I bought the car with 6 months left so my local dealer updated it and then again at the end of the 3 year. Now over 5+ years old, the map would take me places I want to go but I don’t bother, I uses Waze on my smartphone. That is much easier to use anyway.          
land I don’t use any of the other services, paid for or not. I guess I just happy to be driving a economic comfortable reliable car.

[Cessna]

I have a slightly older Avensis, a 2015 pre-second facelift model with the Touch 2 Go multimedia system. I decided I didn't really need the data connection for the fuel prices etc. because I would not really use it. However I did want to update the software and maps when I bought the car last summer (they had not been updated since new). Are you sure it is going to cost you a few hundred Pounds to do that? It cost me £119 for a three year software and map update subscription which I have used twice so far (once to upgrade to the spring 2021 release, and then again to the autumn 2021 release). I hope the price has not been increased to several hundred Pounds for you 😞

[2009joe]

8 hours ago, SB1500 said:

Been having a good mess about with the unfortunately slow touch screen on my 2018 Avensis. I seen a few nice features like parking and fuel prices, which require an online subscription from the eStore. When I went on to get it, I got 'this service is not available for your device/car' and then 'this service has been discontinued'. Is this just a redirect error I'm getting, or are these genuinely discontinued in favour of Toyota's newer systems?

I see that you have to pay for map updates for a few hundred £ too. That's not great - my old DS had free updates (at least until a certain point / number of times). It's fair game in that I know they need to invest time and effort to put it together and test the new maps but kind of disappointing.... anybody know of a way around this perhaps?

Before giving up, I wanted to check if any of you have got the online services working / if they're any good?

as you say its way to slow on my touch 2 head unit which same like you it takes a bit of work even to select  your  music from a usb stick never mind trying to get maps to work. tbh i find on my android phone google maps is the best quick to put into in and you are on the way .i looked at my radio for updating the maps but i forgot what they were looking .tbh i dont understand why this head unit is so slow at doing things and tbh i haven't bothered with maps as kina annoys me as its slow at going threw the head unit settings to even play your albums lol

[SB1500]

9 hours ago, Cessna said:

I have a slightly older Avensis, a 2015 pre-second facelift model with the Touch 2 Go multimedia system. I decided I didn't really need the data connection for the fuel prices etc. because I would not really use it. However I did want to update the software and maps when I bought the car last summer (they had not been updated since new). Are you sure it is going to cost you a few hundred Pounds to do that? It cost me £119 for a three year software and map update subscription which I have used twice so far (once to upgrade to the spring 2021 release, and then again to the autumn 2021 release). I hope the price has not been increased to several hundred Pounds for you 😞

I’m getting an EGR cooler recall done in two weeks by Toyota. I’ll have to enquire about the cost. Maybe I’m looking at the wrong thing. £120 seems reasonable 

 

did the update make your system any faster than before, 

[Catlover]

My personal opinion, if you not liking your Toyota maps now, you definitely won’t when you paid out £120 or whatever for an update. Toyota maps are slow and clunky and an update, in my experience, does not change that. For £120 you are two third the way to buying a fast stand alone sat nav, or towards some mods for your car ie boot spoiler and just use Google maps, Waze, or even a TomTom app which costs about £15 per annum.

[Konrad C]

12 hours ago, 2009joe said:

as you say its way to slow on my touch 2 head unit which same like you it takes a bit of work even to select  your  music from a usb stick never mind trying to get maps to work. tbh i find on my android phone google maps is the best quick to put into in and you are on the way .i looked at my radio for updating the maps but i forgot what they were looking .tbh i dont understand why this head unit is so slow at doing things and tbh i haven't bothered with maps as kina annoys me as its slow at going threw the head unit settings to even play your albums lol

Joe, you probably know I have the non-nav TR, so use my phone via bluetooth for calls and navigation, plus my music source mainly from USB, but have bluetooth music option. The response is almost immediate to controls. From the description of the nav unit, the only thing missing is reverse camera, but I get on fine without that. Voice commands work okay once set up. 

[Cessna]

17 hours ago, SB1500 said:

did the update make your system any faster than before, 

Only marginally, sadly. Like a lot of these things, they want to make them overly pretty and animated, which is too much for the electronics to handle. I still find it useful though when I do need GPS assistance. I prefer it to having a phone or satnav stuck to the windscreen or elsewhere, which can block a view, have cables trailed around and must be removed from view to prevent thieves. I guess my next car will have Android Auto, so then I'll have the best of both worlds (my last car did not have built in GPS, so like others above I used Waze on my phone in a cradle).

[Pedal Head]

I got a update code from eBay, download was from Toyota tho, everything worked fine with the install and activation code. Only issue I have is that the lane guidance is occasionally erratic. For example M1 J23a south when exiting to the A42 I'm told to keep right until the last 100m when it decides I should keep left.

 

[Khryo]

On 1/15/2022 at 6:29 AM, Catlover said:

My personal opinion, if you not liking your Toyota maps now, you definitely won’t when you paid out £120 or whatever for an update. Toyota maps are slow and clunky and an update, in my experience, does not change that. For £120 you are two third the way to buying a fast stand alone sat nav, or towards some mods for your car ie boot spoiler and just use Google maps, Waze, or even a TomTom app which costs about £15 per annum.

Probably it is slow because of hardware, the navigation is Tomtom. Mine weren't updated since 2019, several times this year Nav led me to closed roads. So using Waze since then and a 6" garmin for longer trips.