New Sat Nav Disc

[Normski]

Evening folks...

My RX goes in for its 70k service this week in Notts. and while booking I asked about a new sat nav disc. I was quoted about £100 for a new one. Couple of questions though...

1). The lady said I would get a "couple of discs to cover Europe". I found this a little strange as I believed the one DVD disc covered the WHOLE of Europe. Correct? Or am I wrong? Anyone know how Europe has been split up over the discs?

2). WHERE is the DVD nav drive?? I've had a look all over but can't find any loading mechanism!

3). Does the nav disc also update the operating system?

4). When are new maps out? Should I wait on for a bit longer?

Cheers,

Noman

[MartyCee]

Evening folks...

My RX goes in for its 70k service this week in Notts. and while booking I asked about a new sat nav disc. I was quoted about £100 for a new one. Couple of questions though...

1). The lady said I would get a "couple of discs to cover Europe". I found this a little strange as I believed the one DVD disc covered the WHOLE of Europe. Correct? Or am I wrong? Anyone know how Europe has been split up over the discs?

2). WHERE is the DVD nav drive?? I've had a look all over but can't find any loading mechanism!

3). Does the nav disc also update the operating system?

4). When are new maps out? Should I wait on for a bit longer?

Cheers,

Noman

Hi Norman, my current RX400 has three DVD's for the whole of Europe - my guess is they're all the same as the costs one one for each model would be horrendous. It's amount of information that's increased, new roads, new POI's etc.

The Nav Drive is in the boot under the main (most forward) floor cover. Once open look in the bottom right corner, ir e looking back towards the bumper & you'll find a clip on cover, the drive is behind there.

In fact this the one MAJOR critism of the car, whoever thought that location up should be made to live with it in Europe for a year - to change the disc your luggage has to come out & be reloaded. You can mangage on the existing disc (whichever is loaded) but that only gives the major roads outside it's coverage &, as I found out on the M25 going to Dover last year (I had loded the next disc to try & avoid the luggage escapade) the TMC can't reroute if you encounter traffic.

New maps are released approximately every year. My thinking is once you notice new roads cropping up (the M6Toll is a great example - it took three years for some systems to get that on board!) you need a new disc.

It's question of how much you use it & over how big an area. If it ain't broke don't fix it!

Or, if you are selling the car at some point having the latest disc for £100 is a good investment. Consider this, the Honda I had before had only one disc & Honda wanted around £250 for that!

Hope that helps.

[pobrown]

New SatNav DVD are generally released in Nov/Dec each year. I purchased my current 2008/2009 set in Nov 2008 when it was first released.

My set is 4 DVDs. The only disc I used is the one labelled "Europe West" which has full mapping of the UK and France which is fine for me as they are the only places that I drive. However, if I did drive into Germany, for example, I would need to change to the "Europe Central" disc.

£100 is a good price from a Lexus dealer. They are usually €159 from http://www.lexus-mapupdates.eu/

[Neil Morphett]

I just picked up my new discs - can't comment on whether the maps are any better/fresher but in the 2008-09 set ('86271-0W071' on the disc) they've unblocked the use of the nav on the move which, to me, is pretty much worth every penny in itself. So if your current discs are 2007-8 vintage or earlier, that may be a factor for you.

If it makes any difference to the way you order it, the on-line place http://www.lexus-mapupdates.eu/ delivers via DHL; took about four days to arrive (quoted five). Also the 4-disc box (which would have fitted through the letter box) came wrapped in a huge envelope full of bubble wrap which meant I had to drive 30 miles to the 'local' DHL office, ironically passing the local Lexus dealer en route...