Nav update
 

Good old MBUSA.

What arrives in to today's mail but a big card from MBUSA (except that it's from some Utah address) offering a C-Class nav map update for a mere $199. This gets you a DVD in the mail, apparently.

What I really like about the card is that although it has my address, it has someone else's name on it, plus the offer expired on 12/31/08. Of course, the card does say it's a limited time offer but I ask you...............

So much for German precision.

Precision?
 

MBUSA is in NJ and that explains a lot.

had the same card in my mail right before christmas, actually with my name on it :rolleyes:

$200 for an update?! You can get an entire GPS unit for less than that...

Although, my friend who is a pilot recently told me he is required to buy updates for his planes GPS every year which costs $1200 if he wants to fly IFR. Now that's spendy.

Anyone want to do a group buy and make copies and mail them out to us? ;)

Wife just bought a 2009 C350, new at dealer about a month ago, and we also received the mail about the Nav update.

First we thought that was for our old 2006 W203 C230, and now it seemed the update is for the W204. Does this Nav update apply to our 2009 W204 C300/C350 as well? Thanks for the insights.

With best regards,
- Alex.

Copies
 

So you want me to illegally copy copyrighted material? In your dreams. And BTW, I am a former pilot and I can tell you that aviation navigation software cannot be compared to what is used in a Garmin unit from Costco.

And, considering the overall costs of aircraft ownership, $1200 is pocket money.

As a current IFR rated pilot, aviation GPS updates are at least monthly. The $1200 is for a yearly subscription. :)

i got the same thing... and mine has someone else's name on it too!

Yup... got the same thing. I thought someone was *** with me. :nix:

MBUSA probably deleted a line in their excel file or something. :mad:

Ummm... I got this postcard too, but almost a month ago. If you read closely, it states $199 is for DVD navigation discs only, and when I asked the dealer, they said it only applies to DVD-based navigations, not our HD based ones. I chalked this up to simply being in the database as having owned a W203 with nav.

On a side note -- I will be heading to the dealer on wednesday: I was driving along on the lovely roads of NJ when I saw a gaping pothole, swerved to avoid it and actually hit it instead. If I had not tried to avoid it, I probably would have missed it *GRRRR*. Luckily it was only at 35mph or so, but I now have a steering wheel that is ever so slightly to the left just to go straight.... Sucks.

- Eric

if you go to the web site and select "built-in, factory", "mercedes-bens", "c-class", then "2008" you'll see that under "in the box", it says;

User Guide
1 Mercedes-Benz COMAND North America Map v.4.1
Instruction Guide for updating the navigation system

from this i take it there are instructions to update the maps on our HDD based system.

i could be wrong but it seems logical...

I've updated mine once already. It is simple just follow the prompts the thing that sucks is it takes over two hours to update. One of the other MB forums has a pass around going on.

Relax, I was joking. Maybe you missed the wink... :nix:

And I was in no way comparing aviation navigation units to something at Costco... I knew someone would make that jump... :crazy:

Nav update
 

You are not wrong but exactly correct.

I originated this subject line (wrong name, too late) and I called the fulfillment center that was sending these discs out. I explained about the card arriving after the cutoff date and the wrong name and customer number on the card. The canned answer was "we do apologize but the cutoff date stands and the price as of 1/1 is $249."

She did admit that there had been "a few" cards with wrong names (sounds like more than a few to me) but essentially blew me off. She did blame the name mixups on MBUSA and said the cards had been mailed "some time ago." I once again stated my dissatisfaction and said I would take my complaint to MBUSA, another Black Hole, I know.

So I went to my dealer today and after discussing it with the parts guy, ordered the disc from him. He showed me on his monitor the disc part number which is used in (PAY ATTENTION HERE, question answered.) the 2008/2009 W204 and the GLK.

It's indeed going to be $249 minus my MBCA discount plus tax but I will use my MBCA/MBUSA Loyalty card to pay for it.

More NJ bad service
 

What in hell is it with these NJ dealers, anyway? I think there have been more horror stories about them than any other state.

A bunch of Joe Pesci clones, perhaps. HEY! You talkin' to me, bud?

The thing that pisses me off is that some bloke somewhere in this fine country probably has a postcard with my name on it. :mad: If you do plan on lodging a complaint with MBUSA, lemme know and I will give them my 2 cents as well.:y

BTW, have you had a lot of "incorrect" roads listed so far? I've only noticed a couple, so I don't plan on updating my maps for a while yet.

i had the same thing sent to me as well: a card notifying me of the update, with an expiration date prior to the date i received it along with someone else's name on the card!