Lost my onstar excitement.

Ok, i'm going to poke some fun at myself here.  
 
On  a very recent trail ride, my uncle, his wife and son in their jeep rubicon, and myself and a female co-pilot in my h3 were driving on dirt roads for several hours. It had gotten dim, then dark, VERY fast, and we had been driving for at least an hour in the darkness...  Worried that we would come out near the lake again, i didn't want to go further the wrong direction and have to make the 3 hour drive back...so...i hit the blue onstar button. The conversatioin went something like this...
ME: You have me on GPS right?
OP: Yes.
ME: Do you have me on a road?
OP: No.
ME: Can you tell me how far from a road i am?
OP: No...i don't see how i could even get you to one. There's nothing around you. You're in the middle of nowhere.
ME: Thanks.
 
Well, after this i almost turned around, but after 4 or 5 more minutes of dirt road....can you imagine this...PAVED ROADS!! Should have been well known too. Thanks onstar.
So if the new onstar commercial involves the operator saying...hey look buddy, you're screwed. You know it was me. 
 

thats funny........

Yep.  I don't need no stinking Onstar.     

Onstar is too expensive for what it does and when a person really needs it, it usually doesnt help out enough...this has nothing to do with this but did anyone hear about there being a law of a black box in your car that everytime you go over the speedlimit it would give you a ticket and it could actually stop your car?

Must not be in effect yet...cuz i prob wouldn't have a license...lol. Big brother...hmm...if they did do that i think i'd cut the box out. Or just buy an older car. Oh, and i didn't pay for the onstar. It's the free year. The phone is worth it though. I always can talk on it, when my cell doesn't get service. (Like constantly)

I wouldn't expect directions on a dirt road, but they should be able to tell you in what direction the paved road is.
 

quote:

ORIGINAL: GorillaH2

Onstar is too expensive for what it does and when a person really needs it, it usually doesnt help out enough...this has nothing to do with this but did anyone hear about there being a law of a black box in your car that everytime you go over the speedlimit it would give you a ticket and it could actually stop your car?

 
The "black box" is not related to OnStar, but the BCM (I believe).  It has a buffer of a few seconds that is stored after the airbags deploy.  It stores information such as speed, break input, throttle input, steering input...... There is information on it in the owner’s manual.
 
As for stopping your car, it won't be available until 09 or 10 and will only be activated in conjunction with police in stolen vehicle cases.
 

Funny Story! I disabled my onstar when I bought a double din player.

I love OnStar and had a similar problem.   I was in the middle of the Green Swamp in FL and nowhere near where I wanted to be.  I too mashed the blue button and asked basically the same question and got the same LAME answer.  I told the operator to ZOOM OUT which I knew they could do and heard Oh!, There you are.  Sigh....Low bid on the operator contract again....I was only about 4 miles from the hard road but when you page OnStar it always shows you at full zoom in.  Any operator with more than 2 days experience should have known that.

I dont have onstar activated in my H2 nor do I want to.  But Im thinking that for some reason OnStar was not designed to get you over the river and through the woods to grandmothers house we go.  I think it was more designed to get you from I-74 to I-75 on marked roadways. 
Now it would be bad ass if they had a live satellite shot to see exactly where you are and could plot a course for you when offroad!!  If that was the case I would have it! 

i think what you are talking about is starting in 2009 onstar will be equiped to safely stop a moving vehicle, if it has been reported stolen, or in a car chace, or whatever if the police request it.

WTF?!
 
That's what I was going to say.  Why can't you just ZOOM OUT?  All you need to do is tell the person what direction they need to drive.  SHEESH! Now I don't regret cancelling it.
 
How do you disable it all together, like, pull the plug on it? Isn't it a separate box somewhere inside the vehicle? There has to be a fuse or something you can pull to disable it completely.

what if the if the thief knocks off the antenna?  can onstar still slow down the vehicle or know the position?   just wondering....

I've got turn-by-turn on my Solstice and love it, it's the killer App for Onstar and worth every penny.  Unfortunately, our H3 doesn't suppport it so it's record the directions but it still gets us where we need to go.
 
I also love the voice activated phone, we've got ours connected via Verizon's family plan.
 
If you are not happy with the results from an Onstar contact, hit the button and ask the same question again from another advisor.  They're all not created equal.  We've only needed to do this twice in the past so I'm not knocking Onstar, their advisors are top-notch.

quote:

ORIGINAL: RealJeep

I love OnStar and had a similar problem.   I was in the middle of the Green Swamp in FL and nowhere near where I wanted to be.  I too mashed the blue button and asked basically the same question and got the same LAME answer.  I told the operator to ZOOM OUT which I knew they could do and heard Oh!, There you are.  Sigh....Low bid on the operator contract again....I was only about 4 miles from the hard road but when you page OnStar it always shows you at full zoom in.  Any operator with more than 2 days experience should have known that.

 
This makes me feel much better. Haha.

I also like the onstar service...use the turn by turn all the time, even to look for a starbucks they will get you there. On Saturday my wife locked us out of the house. I called onstar to open my H3 and I used the remote control for the garage to get me back in the house. Luckily I had my cell phone with me. 

Here's my story.
When I bought my 2007 N3 I was told that the Onstar would be able to help me anywhere is the US
When I have used my navigation system, it has proven very good for most posted roads, but
not "everywhere' off road
I recently made a trip to the Toyibe National Forest in central Nevada and thought I'd give Onstar
a buzz, while up in the mountains.
No dice at all. I tried many times.
Even tho the nav system works off GPS, the Onstar call in blue button works by cellular connection,
THEN Onstar can find you through GPS satellite fix after you reach Onstar.
When I returned to the paved roads, Onstar was there

I have called Onstar and they confirmed that they use everybody's cellular service to make connections
I'm sure that if Onstar had been reached they would have told me what they told you
"We can see your location, but have no idea which way to have you go"

Onstar can be useful, but for the things it does and navigation system could do the same and it could do it better

I though about upgrading my onstar for the turn by turn nav, but when I think about it good nav systems are now selling for around $200, so it will pay for itself in 2 years.

i cancel my service since they where always getting me lost plus they told me that at the end of the year i have to upgrade my system  $300 bucks plus i had to pay 1 year a head

funny story!!