Advice please - cooper upgrade to cooper s/sat nav

[fletchie]

Hi guys/gals,

I currently have a loved Indi Blue cooper (51 plate, built Jan 2002) which I have had a lot of fun with. I now have the opportunity to upgrade to a dark silver cooper s -(03 plate) which comes with some lovely looking toys, namely factory fitted sat nav and climate control. Quite nice compared to what i currently have!

I am slightly concerned about the comments about the sat nav - is it reliable, easy to use and does it need upgrading with more current info? I don't know if it is DVD or earlier (and I don't know what the difference is) and what are the problems experienced with it. I had a little play with it, but didn't get very far ( I didn't really understanding what I was doing!)

Any advice as this car is obviously second hand and the sat nav is a gadget I know nothing about. Any helpful tips and also should I go for it!!

Many thanks in advance,

Jean

[S33BBY]

Quote: Originally Posted by fletchie

I am slightly concerned about the comments about the sat nav - is it reliable, easy to use and does it need upgrading with more current info? I don't know if it is DVD or earlier (and I don't know what the difference is) and what are the problems experienced with it. I had a little play with it, but didn't get very far ( I didn't really understanding what I was doing!)

I spec'd it on my new Cooper, and I love it. I think it's easy to use and absolutely reliable; it's yet to let me down! I'd never used it either, but the dealer gave me a 5 minute overview, and now I can use every one of its features.

As for it being out of date, being an 03 plate, the maps may be a little old, though it should still be near perfect I would have thought. If worse comes to the worse, you could buy a newer navigation disc.

Negative comments towards the factory nav system are usually due to the price to features relationship; of course for you, this isn't an issue as it is already on the car. Yes, it's fair to say it lacks the bells and whistles of some aftermarket systems, but there's benefits to the factory system too, most notably the fact that it's permanently on-board.

[fletchie]

Cheers - I was abit worried it was going to be useless due it's age. I take it BMW supply the upgrades - any ideas of the cost?

Nice to hear from you,
Jean

[Tigger, Eeyore & Roo]

I don't know how much this will help, but I've used a decent factory fit system in a Citroen C5, an aftermarket fitted Panasonic system (£2000 ), a TomTom 710 and, currently, a TomTom 900.

I've never used the MINI system.

What I can tell you is that:

1. The fitted system in the C5 was very reliable, but very slow to opperate. It was always there when I needed it and it could never be pinched. The features were pretty poor, the cost to upgrade to a newer CD or DVD were high (around £150 a time) and the cost of having to repair it if it failed would have been heart stopping.

2. The aftermarket Panasonic was a disaster. Utterly unreliable, very slow and involved the dealer's fitters doing horrible things to the inside of my other car. After about 18 month's use it is due to be thrown in the bin Good riddance to it.

3. Aftermarket Tom Tom. You have to take it with you when you go and the screen is a bit small. Other than that, it knocks spots off the other systems. Far better featured, you can take it indoors to programme your route, it will warn you of speed cameras, you can even use it to find your way back to the car if you park in a strange place Updating software on it couldn't be easier. I can take it with me from car to car and, if it fails over the next 5 years, PC World will swap it for another immeadiately.

I would never again spend money on a fitted Sat Nav and would always go the TomTom route. If it's already fitted to a used car then great, but don't spend any more than it would cost if the Sat Nav weren't there. Check out the cost of replacement discs and ask yourself what you would do if the system had to be repaired one day (the cost could run into many hundreds of pounds), as throwing it out and replacing it with another is not an option.

Tigger.

[GTT 280]

Get the NavMan Pocket PC. It is a pocket PC and a GPS system all in one. And it fits neatly in your pcket unlike the box shaped tom tom, which isn't a pocket PC either.

navman rules. end of. anyone discussing otherwise is really only trying to convince themselves that their choice was best (either becase of low functionality or high sky prices)

[DaFlake]

OK folks, lets not turn this into a "which nav is better thread".

Depending on the model the cost is going to change. If it is the DVD version (MK4) then you will pay about 200 pounds for the updated DVD. If it is a CD version, then it will be considerbly less.

To check which model it is, go to the setup screen and in the upper right corner is a series of numbers. If it starts with a 4 then it is a MK4 and is DVD based, if it is a 3, then it is a MK3 and takes CD's only.

[fletchie]

Thank you - sensible words!!

I didn't want this to turn into which is best - the car is already fitted with it. I just wnated to know really if there are any pitfalls, reliability, ease of use etc. It the general consenus was that the factory fitted sat nav was really useless, then I would think twice about buying the car. It just seemed like a nice option to have (I've always relied on a good old A-Z!!) and I wanted to be sure before I spend money on a cooper s with these features as opposed to buying something slightly cheaper without. The sat nav starts with a '4' - I take it this is an earlier version and that it will be more expensive to update.

Thank you for the comments though - I do take them on board.

Jean

[S33BBY]

Quote: Originally Posted by fletchie

I didn't want this to turn into which is best - the car is already fitted with it. I just wnated to know really if there are any pitfalls, reliability, ease of use etc. It the general consenus was that the factory fitted sat nav was really useless, then I would think twice about buying the car. It just seemed like a nice option to have (I've always relied on a good old A-Z!!) and I wanted to be sure before I spend money on a cooper s with these features as opposed to buying something slightly cheaper without. The sat nav starts with a '4' - I take it this is an earlier version and that it will be more expensive to update

It's certainly not useless. I think it's fantastic actually. If it starts with "4", then it's the latest unit, which is good, though the fact that the maps may be slightly outdated remains. The fact it has got this late unit means you can enable perspective mode, which provides a nice 3D view. Have a look in my gallery for a few pictures of the navigation screen with perspective mode enabled.

[DaFlake]

As S33bby said, it is the latest unit that can use the DVD version. This gives you more information as it ha a Falk guide built into it. I love mine and also have other nav units. I prefer it over the others. IT seems to pick the better routes than the others.