No, should work fine. I've had euro Mk4 navs delivered to my door, fitted them to a car in NZ, and they worked fine.

You should do the following:
1. Correct your position to the nearest street junction
2. Leave ign on until almanac has been downloaded
3. Go for a drive

Nav should reset to your posiiton OK

Jochen

nonono, you should stay still for at least half an hour to download the almanac. if you drive you'll just give more effort to the gps to fix itself.

- Go outside to a place with fully clear sky (e.g. to the camp), if possible in a day without clouds.
- leave the car's key in position 1 and the navigation turned on
- have a pic-nic with your wife/girlfriend/etc

All GPS's will go crazy and will need ~30 minutes to download the almanac when they are moved more than 400Km

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My BMW: Photos

So I was forced into having the child restraints "upgraded" to local road-safety standards before I was allowed to take delivery of the vehicle. But what the moron at the government-certified garage did was to drill three holes in the rear parcel shelf, and to bolt three large, ugly black metal lugs to the inside.

But the problem (and those of you who have done a Nav retrofit will spot this one coming) is that in addition to drilling through both rear speakers, he also drilled through the GPS aerial unit, which is also in the rear parcel shelf.

I am absolutely fuming mad! In addition to having a car that looks like now looks like a cheap Chrismas tree, my Nav is also broken.

So I'm in for a new parcel shelf, two new speakers, a new GPS aerial, the proper BMW child restraints, and probably a good few hours of labour...

Ouch ((((((((

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My BMW: Photos

Why have you imported an X5 from the UK? How did you go with all the official paperwork? How much duty did you have to pay? Was it worth it? It's been several years since I imported a Lotus Elan from Hong Kong, it was a real hassle then. Would like to think that things have become easier, and I believe that the duty on 4WDs is fairly low.
Thanks Colin.

It's a 330ci, not an X5. Depreciation is faster in Europe than Oz, making it worthwhile for a car that's 1+ years old (apart from the above aggrevation, that is).

Import duty into Australia on 4wds like the X3 and X5 is only 5% while other vehicles are 10%. So an X3 for example, is cheaper in Australia than a 3 series wagon/estate, while the converse is true in most other parts of the world.

There are other duties and costs too though, including GST (10%), luxury car tax (if the vehicle exceeds the threashold), Blue Slip (roadworthy certificate), stamp duty, road tax, customs and quarantine inspection, shipping & handling, etc. Many shippers have a spreadsheet you can put your numbers into to see if you will come out on top. You can pay someone to do all this, but then your numbers don't look as good afterwards.

One the scams that appears to be running at the moment is to charge a fee for steam cleaning, ostensibly to meet quaratine regulations. Problem is, in my case 1) the vehicle was already prestinely clean and 2) they didn't do anything to the car despite the $200 bill!

Bad luck about the antenna and speakers, I'd demand brand new components fitted by the local authorised BMW agent. Make sure those wharfies pay big time for their stuff ups!

What morons - I'd be fuming too... I'd have demanded proper BMW restraints, not holes drilled!!

Negotiations have started - they're denying touching the GPS of course.

Would you mind confirming for me what the attached images say about the status of the Nav?

i.e.

• is the almanac not downloading because no satellites are visible, or vice versa?
• Are there 8 satellites visible, or none?
• Any other observations

Thanks

Attached Images

  

S/N is zero, so it means it's not listening to anything. The sat just thinks that at this particular time it should be listening to those satelites to get the almanac. It really looks like there's no antenna

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My BMW: Photos