DT Garage: Suzuki Swift Sport – getting lost driving back from James May’s pub
Time to turn to the Suzuki Swift Sport's in-built sat-nav...
The world has been opening up, so we’ve been back out and about filming.
Recently, Lucy Brown and I spent the day at James May’s pub, seeing if either of us were worthy of a job. Lucy was front-of-house, and I was working in the kitchen with head chef Johnny.
The drive over there was absolutely fine, but I had a few troubles on the way back…
As I’ve mentioned before, the in-built infotainment system in the Suzuki Swift Sport isn’t the best out there, or even close to the best, but because it’s got Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, it really doesn’t matter.
There are still some considerably higher end and expensive cars that don't come with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto as standard (Volvo XC40, I’mma lookin’ at you. Nothing personal, we've just had one at home for the past few months), so really it's just a good thing the car has it.
If I wanted to criticise anything, other than the Suzuki's infotainment system, it would be that the connection sometimes took a while to sort out, and might require plugging in and plugging out again a few times until the car recognised it. I did try with different cables, so I don't think it was a cable issue.
Getting lost in Wiltshire (an over-reliance on Google Maps)
After a long day of filming at James May’s pub in Wiltshire, it was time to head home. However, as it's in the middle of nowhere, there's zero phone signal, and on leaving the pub I couldn't program my Google Maps to get me home.
While some people are blessed with the ability of good direction, or at least knowing where they're going in someway shape or form, I’ve never really been one of those people. Despite having travelled home-home countless times, I will still put my sat-nav on, just to be sure… yes, I am that person.
I was proud of myself for managing to navigate out of the village, and get myself onto a road I thought I recognised, but my phone still wasn't playing ball. I eventually managed to pull over after 45 minutes of Google Maps giving me a spinning wheel of doom, with no moving map, so I couldn’t even work out if I was remotely going in the right direction (yes, I do know road signs exist before you start…).
Time to pull out the big guns of the Suzuki Swift Sport inbuilt sat-nav. I mean, it got me home, an hour after I should have got home, but it wasn’t a particularly pretty or relaxing experience…
Check out that map
I’ve clearly got way too used to good Google navigation technology. I often wonder how people used to go on road trips armed with nothing more than a giant AA map.
My other half once got us back from the south of Spain using nothing more than road signs while I was silently panicking in the passenger seat.
I however, think I might have inherited my navigational skills from my mother, who, back when I was a tiddler, armed with said AA map, managed to get us to the Jorvik viking centre in York on an attempted day trip out to Wigan Pier.
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Comments (2)
Ahh... too much of James's bindweed and calvesfoot gin methinks? One sip... and you're lost.
It's very good looking.