European sat nav mapping

[jimmy156]

Hi all,

The maps on my sat nav are around 5 years old, It's never a problem in the UK is I know roughly where i'm going. This however wont be the case in europe. Any seasoned continental drivers have any opinions on weather its worth updating my maps?

Mods: i have put this here as the sat nav forum seems to get next to no traffic, but move it if you have to!

[marshalla]

It depends where you're going, but there does seem to be a lot of road building going on in various parts of Europe, and some cities are getting quite aggressive with low pollution and congestion areas.

[balders118]

Don't be a cheap skate and update your maps!

[jimmy156]

marshalla said:

It depends where you're going, but there does seem to be a lot of road building going on in various parts of Europe, and some cities are getting quite aggressive with low pollution and congestion areas.

We are going surrey -> calais -> Black forest, Germany -> zurich -> lake garda -> venice -> stuttgart -> bruges -> Home.

Any idea how much the Tom Tom maps are?

[Herman Toothrot]

Update them. Borrowed my sisters Tomtom that had 2 year old european maps for my trip a few weeks ago, we found ourselves driving along autoroutes that according to the satnav were virgin countryside, loads of roundabouts were present in reality and many missing from the maps.

[jimmy156]

okay i think i probably will, better safe then sorry!

[marshalla]

If you're going anywhere near Bruges you'll need new maps - they're really b*gg*ring about with the roads round there.

[redstu]

Get a new satnav from eBay, cheaper than a map update.

[markmullen]

If your unit is 5 years old I'd be tempted to get a new unit, I got a Tomtom Via 125 Europe Live for £200, less £30 trade in for an old nav, latest map update, European mapping, live services (traffic, speed cameras etc) for a year (I was about to spend £50 subscribing for another year on my old device).

On the way back from Le Mans mine was the only unit to be absolutely spot on with new roads around Alencon, the live traffic saves me loads of time both in the UK (I even use it when I know the route, last night my road home from work was closed which saved me getting in a big jam) and abroad and when driving abroad the lane guidance at junctions is a godsend, especially when around big cities with plenty of junctions (I'm thinking of the Rotterdam ring road etc).

[Elroy Blue]

PC World are selling Tom Tom XL IQ2 Europe for £79.97 at the mo. Went in today and it was a toss up between that and a Garmin 1690 which has live updates (traffic and camera database) through a mobile signal, bluetooth, live chaepest fuel database, etc for £99.97 (it's £199 in Halfords). Went for the Garmin in the end because it's got an sd card slot. The memory problems when updating Tom Tom units swung it.