Are built in Sat Nav's worth it?

[hairyben]

bad company said:

I say that within 5-6 years in car sat navs will become increasingly included as standard in the manufacturers spec and Tom Toms will become redundant.

Your friends may regret their decisions at trade in time. Not everybody likes the dashboard clutter of aftermarket stuff.

OEM satnavs are just about redundant aren't they? What you need is a touchscreen/ basic media amp thing that'll act as a peripheral/talk to any phone/pc device you wish to use and won't be laughably out of date in a couple of years.

merc wanted £2,500 for the proper satnav for my van new in '07. Instead I wanged out the radio and fitted £600 worth of JVC double din do-everything that frankly st all over mercs COMMAND. Today I'm looking at picking up an E46 and the aftermarket android head unit option is twice as good, half the cost and you can even get it with an OEM-style/size/shape facia to fit the dash.

[ann elk]

Sat Nav in my Aston Martin DB9 isn't great. I take a TomTom with me if I go on long journeys in case the built in Sat Nav starts playing up.

[bad company]

hairyben said:

OEM satnavs are just about redundant aren't they? What you need is a touchscreen/ basic media amp thing that'll act as a peripheral/talk to any phone/pc device you wish to use and won't be laughably out of date in a couple of years.

merc wanted £2,500 for the proper satnav for my van new in '07. Instead I wanged out the radio and fitted £600 worth of JVC double din do-everything that frankly st all over mercs COMMAND. Today I'm looking at picking up an E46 and the aftermarket android head unit option is twice as good, half the cost and you can even get it with an OEM-style/size/shape facia to fit the dash.

OK so your JVC works in your van but you wouldn't want it in a new S Class or SL would you?

[anonymous-user]

I'm the sort of guy who buys a 2 year old merc/bmw/jag, and I'd buy a car without a sat nave over one that had, why would I want to buy in to a 2 or three year old system when for few hundred quid I can get a new one? from both a soft ware and hard ware perspective.

I also have several cars new and second hand (none have built in sat nav) and the last thing I want is different systems in each car, why key in things multipal times, all my cars have sucker mounts and a lead for my phone, no problem
Same with hire cars, they try to sell me a system I don't know, I have a sucker mount in my ever ready carry on bag and use my phone, last thing you need driving out of the air port is working out the sat nav, it's bad enough doing the indicator/wiper mix up.
And with the phone I can sit in comfort and key in exact addresses, not sit in the car trying to do surrounded by other priorities and people.

[Gunk]

I love the integrated feel of my built in sat nav and that it's there good to go at any time and there's no rubber suckers or trailing wires, however as an operating system co-pilot on my iPhone 6 is the best sat nav I've ever experienced, I still use it if I'm hiring a car.

[Mr Taxpayer]

bad company said:

ClaphamGT3 said:

You try selling on any decent car without sat-nav....

That's what I was thinking.

You'll just have to price cheaper to reflect the lack of prat-nav. The point is that cheaper price will be about a tenth of the list price when it was an option. And the canny second-hand buyer knows that. Also if the nav system hasn't been upgraded, it's close to worthless. Who is seriously going to pay a premium for a 5-8 year old nav system, many of which don't have full postcode search?

[croyde]

I'm using Google on my Samsung phone and it is brilliant at finding me better routes when there has been a snarl up further along my route and it's time of arrival is virtually spot on.

I have a new car on order and I did tick the satnav box but having had a play in a demo car, I wish I hadn't. Very slow, clunky interface plus the admittedly larger screen is low res plus the maps are already out of date with no current upgrade.

It will be daft as I will still be using my phone attached to an air vent. Waste of £795.

[Superliminal]

hairyben said:

Today I'm looking at picking up an E46 and the aftermarket android head unit option is twice as good, half the cost and you can even get it with an OEM-style/size/shape facia to fit the dash.

If hope for your sake the quality has improved since I last looked. A couple of years ago I bought an Eonon GM5150 - this was one of the last windows CE units I think. The quality was awful - the touch screen would lose it's calibration every couple of days and it would crash/reset every now and again. The sat nav app (iGo Primo) would take about 2 mins to load, so you'd just be sat there waiting. The user interface was rubbish too - I mean why put the radio station name in tiny text yet devote half the screen to the frequency in Mhz? Oh and the screen had no antireflective properties at all so when the sun was shining through the rear screen, you couldn't see anything!

I've recently bought an e46 M3 and made sure it came with OEM nav. Sure it's a bit clunky, but it all works. With an Intravee (about to be ordered) it'll do everything I need. I've upgraded the software to allow 3d perspective view (looks much better than the standard top-down view) and with a modified maps disc I've now got 7 digit postcodes.

I've also got an old TomTom XL that we normally use in the wife's car. It's a great bit of kit but I'm pretty security conscious and removing/refitting it every time we stop is really annoying!

[gizlaroc]

I think a lot of people get confused what you are paying for on a factory unit, it is the infotainment system not just nav.


On our BMW X3 you get all sorts, Real Time Traffic Info nav system of course, but also media interface for ipod/iphone etc. which is all voice controlled and will allow you to see the album artwork etc. and makes looking for music easy, plus you get internet so you can search google and then get directions to the location or call them directly, and the concierge service, which is great, you press the button and get put through to someone on the end, you can ask where there is a car park or if there is a well rated restaurant near by or maybe a hotel, they will send you the number and the address and will even book it for you and call you back to confirm.
You then have services like Spotify, Deezer etc. built in so you can link your account in the car.
You get advanced bluetooth so you can have two phones hooked up, work and personal, or maybe stream music from one.
Also I often sit catch up with with some TV when I know I have a couple of hours to kill.

It is a £1600 option, and I agree, just for the Nav it wouldn't be worth it, but you get the basic Nav with regular TMC traffic as standard, you are paying for so much more than Nav.

[bad company]

gizlaroc said:

I think a lot of people get confused what you are paying for on a factory unit, it is the infotainment system not just nav.


On our BMW X3 you get all sorts, Real Time Traffic Info nav system of course, but also media interface for ipod/iphone etc. which is all voice controlled and will allow you to see the album artwork etc. and makes looking for music easy, plus you get internet so you can search google and then get directions to the location or call them directly, and the concierge service, which is great, you press the button and get put through to someone on the end, you can ask where there is a car park or if there is a well rated restaurant near by or maybe a hotel, they will send you the number and the address and will even book it for you and call you back to confirm.
You then have services like Spotify, Deezer etc. built in so you can link your account in the car.
You get advanced bluetooth so you can have two phones hooked up, work and personal, or maybe stream music from one.
Also I often sit catch up with with some TV when I know I have a couple of hours to kill.

It is a £1600 option, and I agree, just for the Nav it wouldn't be worth it, but you get the basic Nav with regular TMC traffic as standard, you are paying for so much more than Nav.

You also get the ability to look up locations on your mobile device and send to the sat nav remotely. I love that facility.

[gizlaroc]

Yeah me too. Just putting where your going into google maps at home and then sending it to the car is something I use daily and take for granted now.

I have just done it 5 minutes ago with an address I have just been sent, put in google maps and choose to send it to my BMW, get in the car and it is there as a text message with the contact numbers, address and all the info I need.

[hairyben]

Superliminal said:

hairyben said:

Today I'm looking at picking up an E46 and the aftermarket android head unit option is twice as good, half the cost and you can even get it with an OEM-style/size/shape facia to fit the dash.

If hope for your sake the quality has improved since I last looked. A couple of years ago I bought an Eonon GM5150 - this was one of the last windows CE units I think. The quality was awful - the touch screen would lose it's calibration every couple of days and it would crash/reset every now and again. The sat nav app (iGo Primo) would take about 2 mins to load, so you'd just be sat there waiting. The user interface was rubbish too - I mean why put the radio station name in tiny text yet devote half the screen to the frequency in Mhz? Oh and the screen had no antireflective properties at all so when the sun was shining through the rear screen, you couldn't see anything!

I've recently bought an e46 M3 and made sure it came with OEM nav. Sure it's a bit clunky, but it all works. With an Intravee (about to be ordered) it'll do everything I need. I've upgraded the software to allow 3d perspective view (looks much better than the standard top-down view) and with a modified maps disc I've now got 7 digit postcodes.

I've also got an old TomTom XL that we normally use in the wife's car. It's a great bit of kit but I'm pretty security conscious and removing/refitting it every time we stop is really annoying!

Hmm, maybe I'll reconsider. I thought they were android not windows?

I started with an "infill g4" overpriced, unreliable windows carputer which quickly got binned for a jvc double din satnav do-all-everything (which i think runs a version of windows) which has been not far off perfect to be fair. Besides a postcode database that has a few gaps and a scandalously overpriced update disc (roads are all there and can be entered, for when 1 in 20 postcodes get spat out) todays version seems to be half the price but uses screen mirroring instead of onboard maps/music.

[SidJames]

gizlaroc said:

Yeah me too. Just putting where your going into google maps at home and then sending it to the car is something I use daily and take for granted now.

I have just done it 5 minutes ago with an address I have just been sent, put in google maps and choose to send it to my BMW, get in the car and it is there as a text message with the contact numbers, address and all the info I need.

`

I love this too. Yet only 5 years ago ('ish) I wouldn't have touched a BMW with partial postcodes.

My only gripe with BMW now is you can't upload POI...which I still can on my Tomtom.

I remember once there was a car (Alpha I think) that had a slot tp take a Tomtom that looked very factory.

[MR Kirbyz]

I drive a variety of Skoda and Seat cars everyday and personally think the built in sat nav is awesome on these two brands.
I do acknowledge that it is a pretty expensive option in some of the cars. However, Skoda use a system now called smart link where you match your phone apps to the cars display. Which with everyone having smartphones now means you can get sat nav through this. Usually costs around £150-200 so saves a bit!.

[pingu393]

I have one in my Smart (please don't laugh). The only thing that it's useful for is the average speed setting in roadworks. It's very easy to reset to zero as I pass the camera.

The major problem with it (apart from being out-of-date) is that when I get a phone call, the screen goes to "Incoming Call" and I lose the map. This usually happens just as I'm trying to find the third turning on the left in a busy town centre .

TomTom all the way for me.

As said, it is an attempt at an infotainment system, not just a sat-nav. A jack of all trades, but a master of none.

[andysgriff]

I only use Google maps now, so far for me its better than anything i've used. Did a comparison today on a 450 round trip and Gmaps was far 'smarter' , I especially like the live ETA difference for alternative routes. Also warned me of delays etc, my Tom Tom is a fairly old version though.. (950 live). Much prefer g maps.