Help on upcoming car purchase

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Roomy, with a nice cross breeze. Brakes need new shoes.
My current vehicle isn't much better than this. But it's paid for and ok as a daily driver.

 
The only thing my Touareg disables is the video in motion. Otherwise, it just pops up a warning about inputting an address while driving. Having it disable completely would be annoying since you can have a passenger doing the work.


GPS stuff was pretty easy to do with the voice commands. It would be annoying not being able to have a passenger punch stuff in, but as long as people are going to be that stupid then I'd say that's the price everybody pays until they can come up with a way to limit use to a non-driving person.

 
My '03 TL does not restrict Navi input to a stationary position only. Still works great. Last update DVD made by Acura was 2013 so, for now, it's fairly current.

My aftermarket Kenwood double-din DVD/nav in my '99 Maxima works while moving too but only because I wired it as such. The instructions say to ground it to the e-brake (so it only works when the e-brake is pulled). I grounded it to the chassis. Last update disk I could buy is 2008. My house was built in '05 so at least it shows up.

The OEM navi on my '01.5 S4 works while the car is in motion but it is the most primitive nav dinosaur you'll ever see. No touchscreen, it's all done by buttons and knobs and joystick in the center console. Monochrome. No map/graphics, it's all 100% text-based (with a few symbols like right/left arrows). Small screen in the gauge cluster between the tachometer and speedometer. Entry is painstakingly tedious. I still have the '01 disk - so my neighborhood isn't even in there.

 
^ how much do those update disks run you? I found they are quite pricey for the Infiniti variety.

 
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^ how much do those update disks run you? I found they are quite pricey for the Infinity variety.
This can be very true. The reason I have the latest Acura disk is because they were selling it for $100 shipped (the last generation of my TL was '03, Acura supports updates for 10 years after the last model year, Acura discounted the last year disk).

The reason I have the last update disk (2008) for my (2005) aftermarket Kenwood DVD/Nav unit is because *cough* *cough* <I might have used a torrent site to get it> *cough* *cough*. These sell for close to $300.

The reason I have never updated the S4 is because it costs several hundred (and would only get me to like 2003, and the system is a dino).

Have you tried ebay?

 
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None of my cars have navigation. I just use my phone.


^That. I thought it was borderline criminal when they put a navigation system in my car and then wanted me to pay to make it work right. Ford was really bad about updates with the MySync system because it controlled everything so it wasn't just navigation updates. It was kind of neat to hit the button and ask the car to tell you where the cheapest gas was and have a list show up on the screen, but now that I have my plain ol' truck I can do the same thing with my phone. Google Maps works just as well as the Explorer's ever did plus it takes traffic into account and I know it'll always be up-to-date. One of these days I may upgrade the stereo to something with CarPlay once Apple gets that sorted out a little more.

 
Test drove the Mercedes this week. I really like how it drives. The "base" GLA250 is definitely spirited enough to be a fun daily driver without dropping the $60k they want for the AMG version.

 
Test drove the Mercedes this week. I really like how it drives. The "base" GLA250 is definitely spirited enough to be a fun daily driver without dropping the $60k they want for the AMG version.


I'm going to put that on the list of cars to check out too. I would love the AMG, but that is too much cash for a daily driver.

 
This makes me curious- what price do you guys consider reasonable for a car?


I think reasonable is relative just like what we consider to be rich. I don't really want to spend more than 25K on my next car since it will just be used to go to and from work, but we spent almost twice that on our Touareg.

Dex, that would be a tough choice for me. I really like the blue, but I would like it to be more of a navy color.

 
I don't like dark colors on cars because they are hard to keep clean/looking good. Grey is the exception. I'm ok with the grey, it's actually the only other color that is available that I like.

As far as how much is considered reasonable, it depends. If it's something I plan on keeping for a while and that I expect to be durable, then I don't mind dropping $40k. But if it's just a beater simply just to get to/from somewhere, then I won't spend as much.

 
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