Navigator 2, a good buy?

[samson]

I have been dithering about getting a GPS for the bike and have tried a couple of ( unsucessful ) bids on eBay for some kit. Can't afford new and things like Zumo are out of my range. The Garmin 2610 etc and Quests seems to come up quite frequently, but I have recently been offered a BMW Navigator 2 with V7 mapping and all the relevant connections and cables. As I understand it, the BMW unit is essentially a Garmin with some extra buttons, although my mate who is the seller says it has a touch screen ( which he has had recently replaced). These things develop and go out of date so quickly, but I get the impression that the Nav 2 is a bit old tech and V7 mapping has been superceded by V9. However... for my purposes that would involve just a few long distance runs plus one longer trip on the Continent ... is it good enough? DO I really need all the bells and whistles?

If it does fit the bill for me, two questions remain. 1) Is it likely to be reliable, knocking on for five years old and 2) Is the asking price of £250 a tad on the heavy side. I have seen Streetpilot IIIs going for around £100 on eBay.

Any experiences or views gratefully received.

 

[Deleted account 220427002]

too expensive..
maping is a bit out of date now that 2010 is out
nav 2 is a great unit and much better to use than the 2610 the extra buttons are very useful
£150 would be closer to the mark nowdays IMO

 

[Yellow Peril]

agree with tuned, beaware of the screen too they suffer from cracking of coating

 

[Bumpkin]

V7 mapping has been superceded by V9

There is quite a bit of confusion around this thanks to Garmin deciding with their 2008 mapping to change the naming convention from a version number to the year:

City Navigator Europe V7 (=2005)
City Navigator Europe V8 (=2006)
City Navigator Europe V9 (=2007)
City Navigator Europe 2008
City Navigator Europe 2009
City Navigator Europe 2010

You can see that your mapping is going to be considerably out of date. A year or two isn't too much of a problem but you're looking at mapping that's six years out of date.

So long as you get the registration of the unit and mapping transferred to your name (vitally important) then you can upgrade directly from v7 mapping to City Navigator 2010. This will cost you £60-70 once the transfer of ownership, in the eyes of Garmin, is complete.

 

[chasr]

I'm a fan on the Nav II, & the 2610 it's based on, but for £250 you can near enough get a Nuvi 550 with RAM mount & Garmin charger which will come with the latest mapping and is entirely suitable for motorcycle use. Don't waste your money.

 

[MikeP]

I've been using a NavII since 2004, I bothered with the map updates up to and including V9 and then realised that the updates are only really important if it includes map-sets of places that were missing from earlier versions and you intend to go there.

The NavII isn't perfect by any means but it works fine and someone on this forum uses his with V7 very effectively.

I agree about the asking price. If it's in perfect condition, 200 quid tops, average no more than £150.

The only reason that I will change from NavII is if it stops working, terminally.