Does anybody know how to get free sat nav upgrades?

Syl

Hi everybody,

My son gave us his sat nav when he bought a car with an integral one. Although it is pretty well up to date, we had a look on the Garmin site to see if we could update it. As it is (just) over a year old, we cannot uprgrade it for free and the cost of upgrade is nearly as much as a new sat nav. Any ideas on how to get a free or reduced price upgrade?

Yes, I know our son should have registered it and had it regularly updated but some people just aren't as savvy as their parents!!

Many thanks for your time.

A Happy Easter to all moneysavers.

richard734

Syl, it depends how tech savvy you are. there are a number of ways of updating Garmin SatNav, but they involve downloading maps and files, renaming and moving and a little bit of shuffling around

Mine are 12mths out of date, and I am also looking at £49-£99 to do it via Garmin.

A quick google will send you to a couple of god sites - i am not brave enough myself - but good luck if you feel up to it!

Lum

It's very unlikely that any 3rd party site offering you free maps is doing so legally.

Up to you if you want to try it anyway, but probably not a good idea to discuss methods here, and no guarantees that whatever you download will be genuine and free of viruses or spyware.

bengalknights

smart phone and Google maps does the job just as well

Premier_2

Syl wrote: »

Hi everybody,

My son gave us his sat nav when he bought a car with an integral one. Although it is pretty well up to date, we had a look on the Garmin site to see if we could update it. As it is (just) over a year old, we cannot uprgrade it for free and the cost of upgrade is nearly as much as a new sat nav. Any ideas on how to get a free or reduced price upgrade?

Yes, I know our son should have registered it and had it regularly updated but some people just aren't as savvy as their parents!!

Many thanks for your time.

A Happy Easter to all moneysavers.

But a new sat-nav will only give you a one time update of the maps.

Buy the garmin maps for life upgrade and you'll get exactly that ... up to 4 updates per year, every year.

Syl

Thanks for all your ideas. Might look at the updates for life or go with this sat nav until we find ourselves seriously lost and then upgrade. We have relied on maps and and road signs for 40 years so we try not to depend on the satnav, it is just fun to have and gets you round some funny routes when in unknown territory.

Many thanks. Happy Easter.

Notmyrealname

I just update mine every other year. No point doing anything else. The map updates are still out of date anyway.

Lum

All maps are out of date, by definition. Here's why

http://www.gpsreview.net/outdated-gps-maps/

Paper based road maps have the same problems.

forgotmyname

Cost of the updates is not really worth it, Just double check your routes before you go.

And take notice of road signs that may have changed. One way streets, Speed etc.

What if it gets a fault soon after the update? Wasted money?