550 Map Update Problems

[grez]

Trying to load European mapping 2014 (city navigator) onto the sd card in the 550. Garmin express just stop saying the unit does not have enough internal memory with no option to load to an sd card. Tried from mapsource to the sd card on the computer where after 9 hours it says it is there but when I load it to the gps it shuts it off. Garmin help is of no help - they just say use Garmin Express and repeat what didn't work last time. No surprise it doesn't work this time either.

Anybody got any ideas?

 

[Bumpkin]

Download to PC only. Then use MapInstall to put it onto an SD card in a card reader. Zumo 550 is USB 1 and slow to transfer, hence the card reader.

Unlike the 660 there are no 3D buildings or photo-real junction view files to load so you don't miss out doing it this way.

HTH.

 

[grez]

Tried - failed.

Apparently Europe 2014 does not fit on a 4GB card. Resorted to downloading regions and tasking a copy of Europe 2013 as a back up.

 

[Bumpkin]

Whilst officially 4GB is the maximum size SD card I've heard of people using 8GB without issue. Apparently certain brands seem to be more successful though, any 550 owners care to comment on that?

Going with a selected part of Europe is probably the way to go anyway. Though we kid ourselves that having every corner of Europe and European foreign territories is a must have, in the real world we only use just a few countries... well unless you're planning a huge tour... You can always load other missing parts of Europe prior to a trip there if it's not in your original set. MapInstall allows you to be very selective but be careful to include the smaller tiles usually located around larger cities/capitals.

You can also distribute your mapping across the internal memory and an SD card to include all of Europe if you must but it's a bit fiddly.

If going on a trip take a duplicate SD card as a back-up. I've know of two occurrences of an SD card going bad on tour. For the few £ that costs it's a worthwhile precaution.

 

[v8legend]

I've got a zumo 500 (even less internal memory than the 550), and I've got UK and ireland on my zumo, and the rest of Europe on a 4gb sd card.

 

[grez]

Got a reply on the helpline after 2 days and several hours, repeated what I had done before and this time got it all on a 4gb sd card....go figure.

 

[stolzy]

Got a reply on the helpline after 2 days and several hours, repeated what I had done before and this time got it all on a 4gb sd card....go figure.

Garmin are muppets.

I had this problem along with a bunch of others and they sent me (my third) replacment 550 unit. I didn't realise till some way down the road that the replacment unit had no sound system installed. Eventualy they sent me another new unit - hey presto yet another free map update - I have 2014.40 and haven't paid for a map update since 2008.

Not only that, but they never asked for the old unit back, so i have a backup (though without sound).