TMC ON A VANTAGE

[awg454]

I have access to an 2007 Volvo S80 which appears to have the same nav system in as my V8 vantage
but it has TMC.
I am keen to see if the disc will work with the V8 but am a bit worried it will install all the Volvo software has anybody tried this as yet.

[landmark]

I know someone who tried the disc from my Vantage in his older Volvo, it upgraded the software and then worked fine (or as fine as it does in the Vantage, which isn't very well).

[razbox]

awg454 said:

I am keen to see if the disc will work.

Let us know if it does so we can all go out and buy one from the Volvo dealer. A director of AM told me:

"Satellite navigation is an area of technology that has developed at an incredible rate over the past few years. This rate of development always puts us, as a car manufacturer, at a disadvantage because we have a 3 year development cycle to engineer an integrated solution. Aston Martin also aims to deliver beautifully styled and dynamically outstanding sportscars. Therefore features such as TMS have been compromised. We are investigating some radical solutions for delivering navigation in the future and I can assure you that your feedback will be shared with the development team working on this area of the car."

Hmmm...

[Murph7355]

razbox said:

...Hmmm...

Indeed.

It'd be a piece of piss to integrate a better system into the car in the timeframes noted.

The reason they didn't is because they were owned by Ford who evidently have a corporate deal with Navteq for whatever reason - probably Navteq sell them the rights for a couple of hundred quid allowing even bigger profits on the option cost.

It'd be nice if one of the first things Aston did was get someone who knows their arse from their elbow where modern electronics requirements are concerned, and chose to adopt systems that were market leading rather than allowing a few quid extra profit to be eeked out.

The most irritating aspects on the car IME are down to poor integration of consumer electronics.

[AstonZagato]

Too right!

However, I think - to be fair for a moment - that Aston are moving in the right direction. '08 cars will have one of the better integrations of iPods in current cars (control of the ipod through the steering wheel buttons, display on the screen). I also think that the Ford sale helps here (though not on cost...) Rather than being part of an organisation that buys by the 100,000, AM will buy buy the 1,000 and so will be able to be much more flexible on what / where / from whom it buys.

Nevertheless, the history is not good - my DB7 Vanatage when new had a lousy Alpine head unit (with cassette) when new...

[landmark]

Hmm, TMS is about buying the licence, the hardware in the Aston has the facility. I also don't understand why they have such a bad unit when my Range Rover has an excellent one, with TMS. Both are/were Ford PAG cars.