Greece, mainly Athens sat nav experience

[Dino D]

Hi Chaps. This might be a long shot but I thought I'd give it a try...

I have recently moved over to Athens and will need to get sat nav (and a completely new set of driving skills too judging by the way things are done here!!)

Does anyone have any experience of Sat Nav systems here? I am mainly going to be in Athens so its performance in the urban environment is very NB.

(I can't read much Greek so going on Greek Forums is out the question for a while)

Thanks.

[Flat in Fifth]

In terms of personal experience in Greece, can't be of much help sorry.

What I do know is that digitised map coverage in greece is not good.

Navteq have only just brought out a digitised map of Athens, but it depends which system you use as to what is available.

You can get Athens maps for certain in car systems eg Alfa Brera is one that I know of for sure. Not my system though. No coverage in Greece yet.

Garmin certainly advertise that on their City Navigator, city Navigator NT and MetroGuide maps cover Athens. Not cheap though ~$300

Links on this page
For each of the above products there is a product compatibility checker so you can figure out if the maps will work in your kit.

Not much help, I know, sorry.

[Dino D]

Cheers Flat In Fifth.

The link is very useful. I was in a store today (the Greek subsidiary of Dixons in fact) and had a look at Garmin and Mio. The Mio seems to most popular because of price. I will dig around the Garmin site some more.

[Denis O]

Dino,
Sorry for the complete hijack of this thread but is it possible to put up some web site addresses of used car dealers in Athens. I want to buy a Greek plated car and don't want to pay Island prices and can't find any suitable sites via search engines.

[Dino D]

Denis O said:

Dino,
Sorry for the complete hijack of this thread but is it possible to put up some web site addresses of used car dealers in Athens. I want to buy a Greek plated car and don't want to pay Island prices and can't find any suitable sites via search engines.

hello Denis. To ask it bluntly-why you wanna do that???
In the main, the smaller Greek used cars are in really shite shape...I know as I spent the best part of Jan trying to find something decent to spend e6k on. I ended buying a Clio privately. Also, they are damn sight more expensive than UK cars. I assume you want a car for you are over here and avoid the hassle of importing it yourself?

The web addresses of dealers are really hard to find on the net.I had a couple of mags with used car dealers in them. I just threw all the books away (they had some web addresses on them) Can you speak/read Greek? If so use Google Greece as that might yield results. www.google.gr

There is no Autotrader here and only the more expensive dealers tend to advertise in the magazines. Private buys seem to be a bit better. What sort of car is that you are after? I am quite familiair with the prices now and will be able to give you a good idea of prices as I looked at the prices of everything from e30 M3's to Lambo Gallardo Roadsters (e269k please...a bit on the high side compared to UK me thinks...)

I assume you are not in Greece/Athens at the moment? I would suggest the best thing to do is look at some private cars and drive around the main areas for used car dealers. I can get you the names of areas we went to.

[Dino D]

I just found this link.
www.car.gr/dealers

All the numbers that start with 210 are in Athens and possibly surAtting areas in Attica.

[Denis O]

Dino,

Most helpful. 'er indoors speak a bit of Greek so can help me out with the links when she gets home.

I'm actually after a 4x4, ideally a 300tdi SWB Defender but they appear to be like hens teeth anywhere in Greece, especially the islands. I'm building a house on Kerkyra and don't want to go through the hassle and expense of importing a UK car so in order to stay legal and not have customs nick the car I thought it best to have a Greek plated car from the get go.

I've looked at a couple of 2nd hand dealers on the island and they think they are selling gold bars. ie. a crappy 5 year old Jeep Wrangler 2.5 with 58,000kms for €24,000 Euro. Hence I thought Athens or other mainland areas might be cheaper.

Thanks for your help.

[Dino D]

I'd steer clear of a Landy in Greece.

Any car that is vaguely special here is treated like a gold bar and to maintain it will be a major hassle.

Toyota is fairly popular and they are always going to be reliable.

The price you quote for a Wrangler is high but to give you some perspective: I sold my mint 2002 BMW 330i Sport in UK for GBP10k. The same money will buy me a cleanish 1998 (older generation) 318is or maybe a 320!!! Prices here a re crazy, especially if the car has 'full extra'. They even have the cheeck to try and charge more for heavily modified cars. I saw many small modified hatches that had obviously been ragged, yet they wanted to charge me even more because it had a sports filter, lowered suspension, fat exhaust etc...

I needed the cash from my car for our business so I had to sell it. If I could have, I would have brought it over and possibly sold it for a profit or just kept it. Even with the import duties, it would have been cheaper than buying a greek 330i. I have heard many horror stories about people having imported cars impounded. However, this seems to mainly happen to the Greeks who bring cars over to dodge import duties. A genuine foreigner with the correct paperwork should be ok. However, this is Greece so be warned!

Let me know if you need any other help-I'm always glad to hear from any english speakers!