Depending on the brand of media, burning utility, and how good the laser is in your NAV drive, you may experience problems with burned copies. I used to make a copy of the original map disc (which I kept in its case in my house) and ran the copy in the car. In hot or cold weather, it woudn't read at all and the NAV would lock up. The rest of the time, it would throw "Please wait..." messages on the screen fairly regularly. None of these happened with the original map disc.

You can get discounts of up to 25% (or possibly larger) at some dealer parts counters if you have a BMWCCA membership card.

I'd suggest purchasing the initial US disc that way, or perhaps someone here has an original 2008 disc they'll sell to you for less, since it is a year out-of-date. Then you can experiment with copies at your leisure. If you're like most of us, there are some errors along routes you drive frequently - you can call NAVTEQ up and ask them if the corrections for those errors are in the next disc, and tell them you aren't interested in updates unless they fix the problems that matter to you.

Thanks for the info. I think I have been pretty lucky with the copy that I have since I've used it for almost 5 years and I haven't had any issues. I guess my next question should be does anyone have a 2008 disk that you can sell me for discount! thanks