Standard Sat Nav Upgrade Questions...

[PowerhouseDan]

Getting standard Sat Nav quick question re updates.. If the car is in warranty do audi supply free upgrades... do audi even do upgrades? How does it work via sd card.

thanks

[MFGF]

Your dealer will apply software updates to the MMI without charge, but map updates are not included in this. You need to purchase a license key for any new map, which your dealer then uses when activating the map and registering it with the server in Germany.

MF.

[PowerhouseDan]

Thanks for your reply... Whats the Average cost for key?

[KAM]

When I got my A6 in January, the delivery driver for the leasing company (Lex) wanted to ensure a highly rated customer handover experience. He went through several of the functions and even told me what would happen if I did this when driving or that when stopping etc ...
All sounded very plausible and credible until I asked him about map updates for the Sat Nav.
"Oh you don't need to worry about that. It's all automatic. It's all downloaded from the satellites."
"No, I don't mean my position on a map. I mean what if there's a new feature on the map? Like a new road?"
"Yeah, that's it. It all gets downloaded all the time from the satellites."

We kept on at this for some time until I was completely certain he hadn't a clue how GPS worked, never mind how this Audi worked. At that point I reset all the information he'd previously told me and finished the handover as quickly as I could. I've often wondered since then if I should have got him to sign something guaranteeing that it was "all downloaded from the satellites". It would probably have been void anyway, since anyone who wrote that must obviously have been off his head in the first place. These big clocks in the sky have a lot to answer for!

Since then I've not yet dared to ask the cost or frequency at an Audi dealer. A few years ago I took out a 'life-time' update with Garmin for a previous moveable satnav I had at the time. I'm no fan of Garmin's customer service either but I did get notified every quarter of a new download. Who knows what had changed - there was never any indication of what the updates and additions were.
(Aside: has anyone got a nav map with the 'new' M74 stretch south of Glasgow on it? It's a 5 mile piece of motorway that opened in June 2011 on the edge of one of the country's biggest cities. Although I've driven on it several times I've never yet had a map know anything about it. Any new new A6 owners got it? My 4-month old one hasn't.)

[Timothy Nathan]

I'll see your A74 at Glasgow and raise you the A4 Reims bypass.

[Guest 2]

Audi's maps (as long as I can remember) use the previous years database - IE, a 2012 disc will use 2011 road data. This is how it works on MMI2G so there might be some similarity with the newer cars.

The current years disc isn't released until Feb/March of the year.

[boronet]

I've just bought a 2011 3G MMI DVD to update from my 2009 version. When I insert the disc the message "New database found" appears and it gives the option to "Update". I select this and after about 30 seconds it tells me the database can not be found. TBH I assumed it wouldn't be that simple and that I'd have to visit a dealer. It should be that simple though. You pay ten times more than a more capable system and then they want to screw you again when you try to update.

Does anyone know what they charge to unlock the DVD I own?