jim_rockford

I have a used Sept 06 535d which was listed as having "Media Package" on the options list. I understood that this had the Professional navigation pack, which I also understood to be the 'top' navigation system available factory-fitted, as it were.

Anyway, in the handbook there is a screen showing "Route via" which is an option I could really do with, yet it just isn't there on my vehicle.

If I supposedly have the Media Package, should I have this option, and if I should - is there an update I can get, or is it just absent from the firmware and that's that - like it or lump it?

Thanks for your help.

jonno_

Jim - I'm interested in this too.
Only just got my car, so still learning i-drive and media pack bits.
Will have a play and see if I can fathom it over the w/end

BMDiesel

My car is a 2005 (european) with the business ( = non-map, just arrows and one DVD player in the center console) navigation. It does have a 'via' option but not in the way most navigation systems do: it offers you to choose from 'junction names' that it seems to think are reasonable alternatives for you to get to your destination.

Pretty hopeless over here as junction names are usually taken from some tiny village and I have no idea where those junctions are. Also pretty pointless as it cannot simply take a new destination (or more) from the same destination input as the initial destination (pick a country, city, street etc via i-drive button)

When I use the system I seem to recognise a lot of my old Pioneer ANH-P9R which in turn was based on the Becker single DIN unit. Same voices, same feeling. However, that system DID accept a new full destination as a 'via' point. Be it only one.

Also very annoying about the nav is the navigation through the menu's and its habit to pop up traffic info that takes very long to go away by itself and does not contain useful information. If you have the voice on, it also keeps blabbing that it is recalculating the route because blah blah blah long story. Same as the Becker/Pioneer used to do.

So, how to use it:
pick your intermediate target ( I mean enter your destination)
let it calculate
pick your other intermediate target
let it calculate
pick your final destination
let it calculate
now from the recently entered destinations, pick the first one and let it calculate
go to the arrow screen (all the way down, rattle left, push)
drive happily along
when you want music, hold the i-drive button down (not push) and it shorts directly to music (same for phone: up or climate: left) and when you want navi again: keep right. If you don't do that and hit 'menu' first, you'll have to go through the whole lot to get back to your arrow screen.
to pick a different destination, just pick one from the recent destinations list. While driving, this is much easier (and safer) than having to enter it all all over.

Total ETA time is not calculated but that was not all that correct anyway if you were to have some traffic jams en route (and who doesn't these days). But you can quickly let it calculate one of the recent destinations to have an idea of ETA from where you are.

something weird: if you get a red triangle as 'traffic on your route' warning, and then you click it to look. sometimes after reading it and returning to the arrow screen it's not red any more as if it's off your route suddenly.....

Also experienced a couple of times: if you go to your traffic info list immediately after starting, it freezes and does not update itself via radio any more. This happened to me a couple of times. It has to read the DVD to decode the RDS-TMC messages and will not do that at that moment / screen view. very strange.

In the end I have to conclude: the Business version is not worth the money. Even though it's integrated and any other handheld is not. Better spend some of the money on a nicely built in cradle for the handheld (updates, faster, more accurate, beter maps, speed traps etc) than on a factory navigation unit. Only thing you'll miss is the mute function of any sound source (music, phone) for navigation 'orders' but I turn that off anyway so that won't bother me.

The Professional version may be better, no experience with that.