Hard wiring in new SatNav

[pstruck]

I'm getting a new Garmin Nuvi 660 next week and would like to permanently wire it into my car. The cigarette lighter is not conveniently located and I'd rather not have wires draped all across the dash.

Has anyone 'hard wired' in their SatNav? What did you connect it to?

[glassman]

Tapped into feed to head unit. But then again, it's a van...

[belleair302]

I have had my Garmin Nuvi 360 hard wired in by an auto electrician and it works beautifully. Just be careful that the right voltage is supplied to the unit and you don't blow it when turning on the power.

[Dr.Ickwood]

Just wire it to any ignition live and earth found in the fuse box. Look through your car manual and you should have some spare. Just make sure as belleair302 said that you get the correct voltage.

Alternatively take it to any Halfords and thell do it for £40 in a couple of hours.

[AMG Merc]

Get something like the new Sony CDX-410 unit - has a socket in the front panel for USB sticks and the Nuvi signal also feeds into the front panel aux-in 3.5mm jack socket. A 2Mb SD stick in the Nuvi holds 220 songs and the SatNav mesages cut in and out of the music (or vice versa) - works great.

[anonymous-user]

Dr.Ickwood said:

Alternatively take it to any Halfords and thell do it for £40 in a couple of hours.

Has anyone used them? I need my tomtom and mike for the mobile wired in. Are they any good?

[Dr.Ickwood]

I used worked for Halfords as an electrical fitter for a couple of months last summer and the service you get really just depends on who does the work.

Each store has at least one trained fitter, who takes electrical and automotive blah blah blah... courses and thats the person you wanna get doing it. However any Halfords employee is 'allowed' and insured by the company to do it. Therefore iv seen some shocking lash-ups by over-enthusiastic 'kids'.

So the advice id give is to go in and have a good chat wiv them, and find out whether the person that will be doing it knows what they are talking about. Doesnt matter if there not the qualified tehnician however, as there are usually many capable staff members, just make sure you dont get the store idiot doing it.

And remember if all goes bad, make your feeling known in store but stay calm, phone customer services and complain and thell bendover backward to make it up to you.

All this for stores WITHOUT a garage service attached. I didnt work in one of those stores, therefore i dont know how they operate, as they obviously have qualified mechanics on site.

Hope this helps

Edited by Dr.Ickwood on Tuesday 24th April 23:25