Updating the built in satnav after 13 years..... impossible? Or just expensive?

Fiona/Trevor

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Hi again,

our Satnav is as old as the car (2005) and the discs are pricey. That would be ok, except I've read that you can't update by more than 5 years at a time... so we'd need 3 separate discs.

Is this true? ?

Thanks in advance!

Fiona
 

V6Matty

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Best to speak with the guys at command online, they will be able to confirm exactly what's required and if you can skip updates.
 

SRE

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Not sure where you heard that but last year I updated the Satnav in my 2005 car which was using the original disk to the 2017 maps simply by inserting the new disk purchased from Command Online. It took a while it loaded the software updates but was soon up and running. Definitely speak to the guys at Command Online.
 

Craiglxviii

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I have the same for my 2000NY car with 2014 Teleatlas disc. Well, I will when I fix the navi head unit!
 

gramey

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Best to speak with the guys at command online, they will be able to confirm exactly what's required and if you can skip updates.

Excuse my ignorance but having just bought a 2003 R230 with comand, obviously a very early version, I've seen these comand online people mentioned how can you contact them, do you have a number please?
 

V6Matty

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rifiki

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I have 2005 CLK with 05 disc. Last year I got a 2015/16 OEM disc on Ebay for around £50, stuck it in and it works OK.
 
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Fiona/Trevor

Fiona/Trevor

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I’ve contacted Comand. They say it only needs one disc, should be fine. Waiting for a quote now!

Thanks for the help :)
 

Chrishazle

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Look on ebay (EU, not just UK) for a geniune MB DVD a year or 2 old, it'll be loads cheaper! Not sure which version of NTG satnav you have, but that will beome clear when comand give you a quote.
 

rifiki

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If you buy a disc on Ebay make sure it genuine MB or oem, I believe pirate discs can give problems.
 

Chrishazle

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Only use genuine MB DVD's, some have used the cheap copies successfully but others have bricked their Comand system making it completely useless, an expensive mistake!!
 

Chrishazle

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Latest NTG1 disc is just over £150, there's quite a few on eBay but be wary, the really cheap ones (from Bulgaria amongst others) look like copies rather than genuine MB discs. Caveat Emptor!!
 

rifiki

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The one I got on Ebay was second hand, if you buy on Ebay inspect it very closely. If in doubt send it back.
 

SRE

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I bought one on ebay that claimed to be genuine but when I got it I could see that it was a fake. The printing on the case and DVD were not perfect. I tried it and sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't. Lesson learnt I returned it and managed to get a refund and went to command on-line. Cost me twice as much but got a genuine disk that has never caused me any problems.
 

Flyinspanner

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Just download WAZE onto your smartphone, it's free, gets real time updates and will reroute you to avoid holdups.
the updates will give you 'new ' roads etc, but the actual screen you see won't look any more modern than it does now.

I got a newer disc for mine, but it till looks 'old fashioned'....
 

SRE

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Agreed, the system is still a 15 year old system and looks very out-dated. The update did enable the Traffic Alerts which I think were not working as the broadcast frequencies must have changed and the new roads but very little else.
 

JBell

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Replace the stereo with a Kenwood / Pioneer

Sell the COMAND unit on E-Bay to re-coup some of the costs
 

Botus

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early cars with a CD reader for the disc need more than one map disc to get about in Europe. A DVD based system should be OK for most of it. However its becoming increasingly hard to get the discs as they can't be bothered to support such old systems and or keep the mapping current.

On a system so old you could buy a later one (hopefully genuine - but probably not !) second hand off ebay. 2016 or newer should be pretty up to date. Don't forget all car manu updates are out of date even in the current release.

There's a lot of talk that using a non genuine disc causes issues with the system and its mostly a load of fairy tales.

Indeed you can get issues if the wrong type of disc is used in any disc drive and it may fail to read or be unreliable. This is NOTHING to do with legality but plain and simply the reflectivity of the material used and or type of disc.

In the centre of any CD, DVD or BluRay disc is a bit of data that any drive looks at first so it knows how to handle the disc. If the drives firmware doesn't understand this info it's possible it will fail to work.

Thus if the car's disc drive is not set up to see this type of disc they misbehave and the unit can run its self ragged trying to find the data. But in todays world do we really think supplying the wrong type of CD or DVD so it won't work reliably is the best way to do things, when discs matching the system needs are readily available and cost exactly the same?

I have this issue with discs in both one of my PCs and in my car and its NOTHING to do with mapping.

On the Merc the mapping is out of date and buggy and its on a hard drive with the VERY latest genuine mapping from Mercedes Benz. However the DVD drive for movies or music can't read my preferred Titanium datawrite discs I have all my films on. But no device in my house struggles to read them. On a Dell laptop I have two DVD re writable drives I can't load a windows operating system from because they don't like the discs. Even after the firmware was flashed.

The other warning of note to the OP is the sat nav antenna in all merc's is designed to go wrong. You can stick a 10 pound ebay one under the dash and it will be as good as the original


I didn't find a site selling these for 29:99 on the second page of a google search

PN: A2118270701

Mercedes COMAND APS NTG1 V18.0 Europe Sat Nav Navigation Disc
This is the latest available update for NTG1 satnavs

This disc is for the Mercedes NTG1 COMAND DVD based navigation systems, not CD based Audio 50. Also, not for NTG2.5 HDD units.

COMPATIBLE:
E-Class from 2002 to 06/2008 (Model W211)
CLS-Class from 2004 to 04/2008 (Model C219)
SL-Class (R230) from 07/2004 to 04/2008
CL-Class (W215) from 09/2003 to 09/2006
S-Class (W220) from 09/2003 to 09/2005
SLK-Class (R171) from 03/2004 to 04/2008
Maybach

NOT for the 2009 MY with HARD DRIVE navigation

It is put into the navigation DVD drive in the boot (trunk) of the car. It is not suitable for cars that have a CD that only covers one to three countries in the head unit and not suitable for the latest MY2009 face lift cars that have a built in hard disk.

COVERAGE:
Andorra, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria and Romania, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Gibraltar, Great Britain, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Monaco, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, San Marino, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Vatican City
TMC
A,B,CH,D,DK,GB,F,I,NL,S

INSTALLATION
Installation for this disc is just a simple case of removing your old disc and inserting the new, your firmware will auto update and takes between 4-45 minutes, once complete you will have the most up to date map and poi data base.
 
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