I was on a training course yesterday....

[Zak33]

....for Accessories.

Best one I;ve been on for along long time.

I learned kids seats, Sat Nav (thats DEEP ), spoilers, car cleaning kit...

who wants to know about Sat nav?

Its a mine field

[Stoo]

It is?

[[GSV]Trig]

Why?

[Moby-Dick]

its a pita when you are driving round london and the gps signal dies

[Zak33]

you lot asked....I'l answer soon .

But in onvolves Giro scopes, speedo connections and GPS....and GPRS

[Moby-Dick]

my phone does that

nav with live traffic info - its all abit groovy

[Stoo]

ahh, I've just got basic pda based sat-nav

[Moby-Dick]

so have I , but my pda is my phone

[gobbo]

I have a 2002 Mitchelin Map of the UK.

[Zak33]

it gets deeper than that guys.

You see, the latest Sat Navs are linked to the speedo, and also have a direction Giroscope, so when you lose sat signal, the full on ready reckoning system sorts you out for the next time you get signal....but further still.

The CD roms contain lots of stuff....in the car versions you whack the disk in, before the journey, choose your destination by address OR postcode, and then choose fastest route/shortest route etc or via certain places, like hospitals etc.....

THEN you eject the disk and it stores the route, plus a borad avenue either side, in case of deviation. Then you can play a CD again, on route. If you detour too much, you need the disk back in.

Most are still CD rom, the DVD versions are popular cos they have ALL OF EUROPE on one disk....BUT they team I met yesterday, from NAVTEC get new maps ready every 5 months.

The CD versions AND the DVD versions contain loads of other stuff....which you can subscribe too.....Speed Camera's, Speed areas, Holiday camping sites, etc etc....

you pay a subscription for the time you want them, ie a week in France plus camping sites, and then type in the code, and off ya go. It then turns off later when the subscrition is finished.

The big colour display with the maps are awesome....plus they have phono and vid in for the PS2 or whatever....AND you get the web cam for the back of the car, hit the button and use it as CCTV for parking

Big dough tho....the full DVD version, colour screen, etc with seperate DVD player (for films) AND camera is about £2000.

However...the ones I saw yesterday that go "in slot" with small screen, showing the junction, and that give audio directions at the same time, are dropping from £699 inc vat and fitting to about £540 in next few weeks.

I feel the need

You get 2 Years subscription, with all new maps sent to ya, and the chance to choose the other content from the disk.

VDO seem to be the brand right now.

Moby....is yours Navman? or Wayfinder? or Garmin?

These VDO have trip computers cos they are linked to speedo anyway and they have constantly adjusting Estimated Time of Arrival too

Just superb.

I did kids seats too...and THAT has been a minefield up til now.

[Stoo]

Mine's Navigon..

and it does just about everything you mentioned, apart from the giroscope and it's not got traffic avoidance in this version (need the business edition for that..)

[Moby-Dick]

I use Tomtom 3 with the traffic plugin , combined with CheckPOI for Accident Blackspot / sneaky police hiding with laser gun location.

I'm told by Tig that the traffic info they give isn't as clever as the Trafficmaster system , but it seems to be quite neat all the same.

[[GSV]Trig]

I was looking at either an HP4150 with the Navman 4410BT GPS or the HP5550 with the Navman 3450? Jacket.....

Where does GPRS come into the GPS thing tho?

[Stoo]

Updating traffic info etc via phone at a guess

[Moby-Dick]

Stoo is right - I can also use it to sync my POI ( speed camera overlay )

[XTR]

do us hexites get any freebies? send me a car cleaning kit


Vauxhall sponges are great!!! i need to buy a new 1.. £1.70 or summit aint they....