Our testers reported some drawbacks, too. Mainly, the Garmin is mounted too far away to reach easily while seated behind the wheel. To get the Garmin navigator, you must upgrade from the base model to the Technology trim. The step up costs about $1,900, which is a relatively expensive upgrade on a small, budget-priced car. For that money, you get the continuously variable automatic transmission, a leather-wrapped steering wheel with audio controls, and cruise control, as well as the Garmin. Assuming you didn't want a stick shift, the Technology Package would add about $700 over a base SX4 with the CVT. A comparable portable device could be bought for less than $300.

Being a gadget enthusiast, I was eager to try the SX4 Crossover to see how well the system worked, and how well Suzuki had done integrating the Garmin system.

I thought I had found the killer app when I discovered that I could connect my phone via Bluetooth directly to the Garmin, rather than to the car. No more digging through the Suzuki owner’s manual looking for the obscure set of voice commands to pair the phone. I could just sync it up using the simple menu commands on the screen of the Nuvi. With the nav system already connected to the car’s stereo, both the directions from the nav system and any phone call I got would be audible through the car’s stereo speakers. Brilliant!

Unfortunately, it turned out not to be so simple. Once you input a destination and start driving with the radio on, you may find the system mutes the radio every time it wants to give instructions--and that’s often.

It took one of our GPS test engineers to find that this can be adjusted through the navigation menus, though the solution may not be obvious to all drivers.

In case you’re having this problem, here’s what to do: From the volume settings page, select the “mixer” and set “navigation” to 0 percent. Unfortunately, that’s not as easy as using the mute setting on the Garmin. But you don’t want to do that, as it also mutes all cell phone conversations; they can hear you, but you can’t hear them, at least until you remember to unmute the navigation system.

An odd quirk we noticed is that if you want to listen to media, such as an audio book, stored on the nuvi, you can play it using the Nuvi’s media player through the AUX setting on the radio. However, if the navigation mixer volume is not set to 0 percent as mentioned above, every time a navigation instruction is given it returns to the AM/FM tuner selection on the radio. This means you have to manually select AUX after every nav instruction to return to your audio selection--or else be content with not hearing any nav instructions.

Unlike most portable navigators, this Nuvi will not accept new addresses while the vehicle is in motion. A good safety feature intended to encourage driver’s to plan ahead and keep their hands on the wheel, it can be frustrating if a passenger wants to make a change. Many devices offer this feature as an option.

These are manageable, minor frustrations, especially if you own the car and are familiar with them. The general concept of placing a portable device in a closing compartment is smart. In this case, however, the nav placement, quirks, and price premium for the required trim-level upgrade limit its appeal over a traditional portable navigator.