NAV or Not to NAV

I am trying to finalize my ED deal on the E60. I am in two minds about the Nav. The Nav will cost me an additional $500 over the life of the lease. Once I am in the US I would not need it. The E65 will be our primary driver and it comes with the nav.

The Nav may be useful during the ED. I do not plan to drive too much within Cities; primarily the driving will be from city to city (Munich-> ?? -> Venice-> Rome -> Nice (maybe)). I am not sure how useful the nav will be for point to point driving between cities.

An option is to get Autoroute Europe with the GPS attachment and use my laptop. it should be good enough for the macro-routing I am doing. This option is $100.

Another option is to get a portable car based system and download European maps to it. However European maps are not easy to find or inexpensive either.

From folks who have done ED before and have driven primarily between cities, is the in car dash really worth the $500, if you are not going to use it within the US much?

I plan to do ED every two years so going for the in car nav will be a recurring expense.

Reply » NAV or Not to NAV

Quote:

This makes no sense to me. But to each his own.

Let me see if I understand this corectly.

You are doing ED on a 5 series and plan on doing so every two years.

You own an E63.

The new 5 series is most likely costing you close to 50k. (my guess)

navigation will cost $500 over the life of the lease, or 20 dollars per month?

Since you are doing ED, you will most likely start making lease payments (2 months waiting for car), so two lease payments on a car you can't drive.

My point is you are losing (my guess since I don't know what your lease payment is), about $1500 bucks for two months of leasing, and you are worried about $500 bucks?

Don't understand how it matters when you are flipping cars so fast. The $500 for the nav should be the least of your concerns.

Reply » NAV or Not to NAV

chuck:
I am flipping cars so fast because it is the most cost effective way. If you have been following the folks here, the 24 month ED lease has the lowest monthly payments of all other lease combinations. On the ED, BMWFS will make one of the two payments while you wait. So you are paying about 1 to 1.5 months more. Plus you can always extend the lease by a few months if you have a car on order so the lease will technically be a 27 month lease on the 24 month rate.

You need to factor in the $1000 BMW CCA rebate also into the equation which makes it a no brainer to do the 24 month leases. If the Lufthansa free ticket offer comes back it makes it EVEN better (I am anyway going East this March).

I suggest you go read the the December lease rates thread to see how you can drive an E60 for $350/month. What I have been calling the "Drive a 525 at the price of the Accord plan".

http://www.bimmerfest.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=122408

http://www.bimmerfest.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=122818 lists the story of my E65.

Back to the original question: Is the In Dash Nav a must have for ED routings.

Reply » NAV or Not to NAV

Quote:

chuck:
I am flipping cars so fast because it is the most cost effective way. If you have been following the folks here, the 24 month ED lease has the lowest monthly payments of all other lease combinations.
On the ED, BMWFS will make one of the two payments while you wait. So you are paying about 1 to 1.5 months more. Plus you can always extend the lease by a few months if you have a car on order so the lease will technically be a 27 month lease on the 24 month rate.

You need to factor in the $1000 BMW CCA rebate also into the equation which makes it a no brainer to do the 24 month leases.

I suggest you go read the the December lease rates thread to see how you can drive an E60 for $350/month.
http://www.bimmerfest.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=122408

Back to the original question: Is the In Dash Nav a must have for ED routings.

My point being previously is you are dumping so much money into the 5 and 7 series you have, what difference does $500 bucks make.

It's like saying I am buying a $500,000 home and cannot decide if I want $3,000 air conditioning?

At any rate, don't get the nav, it makes no financial sense.

Reply » NAV or Not to NAV

chuck:
http://www.bmwcca.org/members/AM/BMW...ardProgram.pdf

$1K for 5, $1.5K for 7.

My point is that I DO NOT care whether the car costs $30K or $60K. It is BMWFS who dumps the money. All I care about is the residual/MF which determines my monthly payment.

The NAV adds about 5% to the cost of the lease. So it is not inconsequential. A $3K AC in a $500K house is 0.6%. And I have very limited use for the NAV in the US.

Reply » NAV or Not to NAV

Yup, the rebate is $1000 for the 5er.

I like the NAV, it has another benefit: voice control. I think you should get it, it was useful in Germany and the dead reckoning is great, it makes the system work in tunnels and underground.

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