I have a UK Outlander Warrior Spec. This didn't come with the Sat Nav or Music Server as my budget could stretch that far.

When I was in Gatwick Airport a couple of days ago I bought myself a Garmin Nuvi 660 Sat Nav Unit for £212.00. This is now fixed in place behind the gear lever in the centre floor console and plugged into the cigarette lighter socket next to it.

Nice little unit, powers itself up when you turn on the ignition and powers down when you take the key out. Sat nav works very well and possibly due to the fold out GPS antenae picks up the satellite signals without a problem even in such a low position.

It will also play MP3's either via its internal memory or from an SD Card. I filled up an 2 gig card with music and with 2 gig cards available for under £10.00 it wouldn't cost much to put my whole collection onto cards. The display will also show an image of the album.

I don't think it would be too much of a problem to hard wire the Nuvi's power cable into the cars system for a cleaner look and keep the accessory socket free for something else. What would be better still, as the Nuvi has a headphone outlet would be to connect that into the Radio somehow, so both MP3's and sat nav commands could come through the cars speakers (anyone know how to do that - as UK spec cars dont have the audio inputs behind the centre console.

A few photo's below. I must admit it looks better in the flesh than it does in these photos!

 

Looks pretty neat. But it seems too low for the screen in that position. Perhaps a good place would be on top of the dash? Looking down that low while driving can really pose some danger, taking your eyes off the road, just my 2cents.

 

Ditto about the position. If you are able to hook up the sound and play through the speakers, well problem solved. What about mounting in the top storage area, and flip down when not in use for a stealthy setup?

 

Bad position but good idea. It could cause a crash looking down. But atleast you wont get at ticket with having the gps in the window.

 

You can get a ticket now for that? I know there isn't supposed to be anything obstructing the view, but I didn't think people actually got tickets for it!

 

Well you can get obstruction of view. I think theres a law all of its own for having GPS devices stuck to your windshield while driving. I understand the reason after seeing some people with a 6 inch by 6 inch square block in the dead smack center of their windsheild hooked up to this 2 foot arm thing sticky cupped to the windshield.

 

Mount it in the pop up on the top of the dash. Close it then its out of sight from prying eyes.

Regardless of where you mount it you can easily run the power by drilling a small hole and fishing it behind the dash after removing the base stereo, theres instructions in one of the stickied posts for taking the stereo out. There are jumpers at auto zone that allow 2 connections into one fuse socket without having to tear anything up.

I really like your GPS unit, I have a satelite stereo receiver there. I use the GPS in my phone and stick in the cubby on the top of the dash. It helps to amplify the audio directions.

 

Ref the Nuvii, I also have a Nuvii 660 and use it in my Uk outlander Elegance in conjunction with the outlander GPS. The Outlander unit is better for TMC (traffic info) and the Nuvii is used primarily for its ability to store speedcamera locations and other POI's so I get the best of both worlds. One thing I haven't fathomed out though is the purpose of the small ?? input/output jack?? below the left hand corner of the MMC screen, you only seem to be able to access it when the screen is in the horizontal position, ie when accessing the cd/dvd drive. It's not mentioned anywhere in the relevant literature, can anyone enlighten me as to its purpose please???

 

picked up the car today and the rear view mirrorobstructs my view will I get a ticket for that?

Puddy

 

Isn't that for updates.

Wired the Nuvi headphone out into the back of the standrd car radio now, just used a space headphone lead which I cut the end off. and inserted into the correct pins in the 18 pin connector on the back of the radio, so mp3 and sat nav commands now play through the radios speakers.