Luke:
Uh, I want to be diplomatic when I say this, but: I have used both a BMW Nav II and a Garmin 2650 (DR version of the 2610) for over a year now, and I can assure you that "BMW" has not modified anything at all, other than the price.
Garmin themselves made a few small modifications to the basic 2610 in order to create the BMW Nav II. Mostly these modifications consist of additional screen views (sort of like an aircraft RMI) and some additional controls, such as the ability to turn the touch screen off. All the other BMW specific parts, including the black case, are made by Garmin for BMW. Garmin also makes the special mounting cradle for BMW, under exclusive licence to BMW.
Up until two months ago, I used the same Garmin system software in the BMW Nav II that I used in the 2650.
SO: There ain't no modifications to the Nav II that Garmin doesn't know about, OK? Chances are that the people you spoke to are perhaps not 100% familiar with the Nav II. This is understandable, because Garmin makes a heck of a lot of different products, and I know how hard it is to just stay on top of a few of them (the Nav II, 2650, and 296 I own) - I would hate to be a Garmin support dude who has to stay on top of about 100 different products. In fact, I'm not even sure what the agreement between Garmin and BMW is regarding support for the Nav II - perhaps BMW is supposed to support it directly, I don't know.
Now, getting round to your problem, which is that you are having trouble uploading maps: This has NOTHING, repeat NOTHING to do with the fact that you have a Nav II rather than a SP 2610 or a SP 2650. I suspect that you don't have the cartography properly installed on your computer, or you don't have the USB drivers properly installed on your computer, or you don't have the correct version of MapSource (the application, not the cartography) installed, or you don't have the unlock codes registered for the cartography. It is also entirely possible that you have a problem with the OS on your computer. One thing I do know for sure - you don't have a problem with the GPSR itself.
Your comment "Got a loan of a navigator 11 from BMW" suggests to me that you are pretty new at using this equipment. I will give you odds of 100:1 that the problem is with the software installation on your PC, and that you have a perfectly healthy GPSR.
I wish I could give you more specific troubleshooting advice, but you have not even provided the exact text of the error message, so there's not much in your post that I can go on. That's probably why no-one has bothered to reply to your message - if you don't take the time to document your problem carefully, why do you expect someone else will take the time to try and guess what the solution is?
What you might want to do is find someone who has a SP 2610 in your area, and visit them with your BMW Nav II and the unlock codes for CN Europe 6 that match the serial number of your Nav II. Have them install the unlock code on their machine (won't do them any good or any harm, and doesn't violate any licence agreement), and have them try to upload a map segment to your GPSR. I can promise you that if they can upload maps to their 2610 successfully, and you provide the correct unlock code, they will be able to upload maps to your Nav II.
I am astonished that the BMW dealer would not have supplied you with the GPSR complete with appropriate maps for your area already loaded, if the purpose of the loan was to allow you to 'test drive' the unit to determine if you want to purchase it or not. It seems to me to be rather careless of them just to give you the whole box and say 'figure it out yourself'. That's the approach that the discount internet retailers take, not the level of service one expects from a specialty retailer selling a high margin product.
PanEuropean
