Originally Posted by Reverend Sam

I stuck my Garmin to the factory nav unit using a suction cup and left it there for a few hours. When I unstuck it there was an ugly circle embedded in the LCD. It was like the suction cup had sucked the juice out of the pixels. It disappeared after a few days, but I didn't want to ruin the factory nav unit so I never stuck the suction cup to it again.

Originally Posted by Frog

I think we all know that the OE satnav in our XKs is as ugly as it is useless.

The three gauges look a lot nicer, IMHO, but although I have bought a brand new set, they are proving problematic to install for various reasons (new elm veneer part required, different wiring harness, etc.)

I therefore decided to go for an aftermarket satnav while I figure out how to go about things.

I went for a Tomtom Via 125 Europe:



When it arrived this morning, it seemed a lot slimmer than I had expected. I went down to the Jag to see where I could fit it (I was thinking somewhere on the windscreen). A now blindingly obvious solution hit me - stick it on top of the OEM screen

Yes, it does protrude, but the install took less than 10 minutes, including routing the power cable round to the cigar lighter through the armrest. In fact, I think it looks so reasonable I might even ditch the 3-gauge project and leave it like that.



With a bit of fiddling (and after removing the top part of the armrest), it is possible to thread the cable through into the ashtray area for near invisible install.



And here's a photo of one of my most useful tools that I made myself: a narrow plastic kitchen spatula with a V cut out of it using a grinder. Great for working on interior trim or, in this case, poking the cable up into the centre console.



OK, so it's not perfect, but it was cheap and easy to do and it's 10 times better than the ancient OE setup. Sticking a new satnav on top of the old screen seems like an obvious solution to me now, but I honestly hadn't thought of it until the TomTom arrived today and I saw how thin it was.