Sat-nav assistance
- Thread starter blossomchris
- Start date
True, but watch out for the usual chicanery from car hire firms.
I rented an E-class from Avis a couple of years ago, with built in satnav, but in turning it on it showed “no maps loaded” and no option to download them over the air. The office claimed since I hadn’t specifically ordered satnav, no maps, and if I wanted it, I’d have to pay. Some remonstration at the office yielded - for free - a Tom Tom the size of a brick, with maps a few years out of date. In trying to plug that in, I found the SD card slot for the maps, with a card, but it wasn’t seating properly, so I enquired about that. One of the service chaps came along with a high tech piece of paper, which was neatly folded and wedged into the reader with the card. Voilá maps.
On a related note, it’s worth looking into an app called what3words. It’s not so much a navigation tool (but it will connect to google maps, etc.), as a location tool, but it can come in handy when post codes don’t work properly, and places don’t appear in the points of interest lists.
I rented an E-class from Avis a couple of years ago, with built in satnav, but in turning it on it showed “no maps loaded” and no option to download them over the air. The office claimed since I hadn’t specifically ordered satnav, no maps, and if I wanted it, I’d have to pay. Some remonstration at the office yielded - for free - a Tom Tom the size of a brick, with maps a few years out of date. In trying to plug that in, I found the SD card slot for the maps, with a card, but it wasn’t seating properly, so I enquired about that. One of the service chaps came along with a high tech piece of paper, which was neatly folded and wedged into the reader with the card. Voilá maps.
On a related note, it’s worth looking into an app called what3words. It’s not so much a navigation tool (but it will connect to google maps, etc.), as a location tool, but it can come in handy when post codes don’t work properly, and places don’t appear in the points of interest lists.
gintonic
50 shades of grey pussy cats
I turned up in Inverness last summer collected a nice hire car, with a screen, but the satnav wasn't functional as the hire company hadn't paid for the plugin gps dongle. After much huffing and puffing they gave me a Garmin dash mounted one for free.
After getting over the quirky interface it got us around 1000 miles of Scotlands B roads quite nicely
JensenHealey
pfm Member
Hired a Merc from Avis in Germany some years ago. Needed to use the sat nav but of course it was in German. My German is not quite non-existent for dealing with hotels and restaurants but the sat nav was tricky. A good 20 mins sat at the the airport to get it to converse with English menus and speech. I did not bother to change it back at the end.
Of course nowadays one uses ones phone. Corporate data package so easy.
Of course nowadays one uses ones phone. Corporate data package so easy.
Jamie
pfm Member
I'm currently in Los Angeles on hols, having driven down from San Francisco with several stops on the way. I downloaded suitable Google maps to my phone, and am pretty impressed by its satnav function. I don't think I will bother with a satnav again.
As an aside, I can't use it in landscape orientation when wearing polarised sunglasses! Has to be portrait, or the screen looks black.
As an aside, I can't use it in landscape orientation when wearing polarised sunglasses! Has to be portrait, or the screen looks black.