Columbus Sat Nav map update pricing?

[K1W1]

Has anybody been quoted a price for up to date maps for their Columbus?
There was a ****ty letter from a Toureg owner in the Melbourne paper today claiming that he was told it would cost him $1900 to upgrade the 3 year old map info in his Feb 2010 purchased vehicle. I assume that the actual map data in all VW family vehicles will be the same so it would be interesting to see how the price varies across brands.

[Bayford Skoda]

I think I heard my parts guy say they had dropped them to $500 for the Skoda disks but I cant promise thats the case. Ill chase it up on Monday.

[thejack72]

...$1900 to upgrade the 3 year old map info in his Feb 2010 purchased vehicle....

Interesting... When we were considering SatNav as an option (before we decided on the Superb) over buying a TomTom, multiple salespeople (2 x VW & 1 x Skoda - so both brands involved here) told us that the maps get upgraded automatically during the life of the warranty. I was skeptical about it but they all swore blind it was the case.

Bayford Skoda, can you ask them if this is true or was it another crap sales pitch?

[K1W1]

There was a second letter of complaint in the Melbourne Sun yesterday on the same subject this time from a Mitsubishi owner complaining that they (Mitsubishi) wanted $580.00 for a disc that was exactly the same as the one Whereis sell for under $200. The problem is that the Mitsubishi sat nav will only work with the Mitsubishi encoded disc which is I guess what all OEM products do.
Seeing as I'm getting the next 18 months worth of upgrades from TomTom for $50 as they are released (on a subscription basis) the whole concept on in dash sat nav seems floored to be for anything other than convenience.
I wonder which manufacturer will be the first to realise that they would have a huge marketing advantage by offering free sat nav upgrades for life provided the vehicle is serviced at approved dealerships. They would more than make the cost of the discs back in other service related charges.

[brad]

A mate used to compile Subaru satnav discs somehow. I didn't have Subaru satnav, so it didn't concern me how it was done or where the base maps came from but it seemed that you needed an Apple computer to do it.

[bobski]

I'm a programmer, so, I can understand why you get charged an upgrade fee. There is no doubt that some work goes into building and testing the new version of the maps on the software. However, as the base software doesn't change in the car (its not like they rebuild the software for each version, they would just copy new map files), my eyebrows are raised. Its like having a 2 year old Sony plasma and them charging you $500 to get the new digital TV channels that are popping up.

I understand a small fee for putting together the disk, and they possibly have to licence the use of the updated maps and maybe a bit of cream on top to make it worth their while. But $500 sounds a bit rich. I don't think it should be free as it would cost them *some* dollars. But its pretty unfair when you can pop down the shop and pick up a TomTom for $150, buy an app for your phone for $70 or use the free google maps on your phone.

They are probably paying a pitance for the maps (they've already licenced the map, they probably do a deal to get access to free upgrades). If they send out thousands of these every year, I'd fall out of my seat if it cost them more than $10 per disk.

I applaud people like Mazda (and now Skoda) who've been standardising sat Nav in affordable cars. However, they are probably doing so knowing full well that the extra cost will be more than offset by people paying to upgrade sat-nav. And we will be seeing more of this as they start thinking Apple and Google are onto something...

[K1W1]

It's costs huge money to superimpose that copyrighted manufacturers logo on the opening splash screen of somebody else's maps - not!
When I was looking for a vehicle I seem to recall that Mazda were quoting $400 for map upgrades (early 2009, Mazda 6)
As I said at the beginning this is one of the things that has kept me away from in dash Sat nav.

[woofy]

It's always been a mystery to me why car GPS systems still cost what they did years ago. 4yrs ago I bought the top of the range Tomtom for $600, these days its more like $300, and yet most GPS units were well over $1600 with extortionate prices for updates, the price of maps has fallen to below $50 as Kiwi said, and no GPS is worth anything without a few updates as generally most maps are 12mths or more behind.

[dazag]

What maps are Skoda running on their Sat Navs? (Google, Whereis, etc etc?) How can a simple map update cost $500 let alone $1600.
Could you possibly purchase a VAGCOM set up and then through the laptop connection do a Map Upgrade direct from the Map supplier?? Might be a cheaper option??

[bobski]

What maps are Skoda running on their Sat Navs? (Google, Whereis, etc etc?) How can a simple map update cost $500 let alone $1600.
Could you possibly purchase a VAGCOM set up and then through the laptop connection do a Map Upgrade direct from the Map supplier?? Might be a cheaper option??

I doubt there's an interface and software to perform the upload through a Vagcom. The DVD would probably have a boot loader, encryption and a program to update the map files. If it doesn't have any encryption, I can imagine someone would be able to put together a DVD that would allow you to update with the required maps. Ie, you'd be able to buy them online somewhere at a reasonable price. Which is why VAG would have some sort of encrypted key to stop that happening.

Could be wrong... I've worked places where we'venot bothered with security because we figured anyone savvy and dedicated enough to hack their way to something free can have it