Integrated GPS Nav for $65

By Bill "BillaVista" Ansell
Photography: Bill Ansell
Copyright 2018 - Bill Ansell
(click any pic to enlarge)

Introduction

I purchased my Spider without the option package that includes the on-board, integrated GPS nav system. However, given the very limited size of the cockpit and the otherwise very attractive layout, I didn't want to add a third-party add-on solution like a garmin or Tom-Tom stuck on the window or dash - particularly since the big 7" screen is right there!

Thus I began to research whether it was possible to add the GPS functionality after-the-fact, despite not having that particular option package. The short answer is, yes you can. Most of what I learned comes from reading Ameridan's excellent article on the 124 Spider Navigation system - he documents a great deal of useful information there, and I highly reccommend you read it.

This aricle will document and explain how I enabled the on-board GPS nav system with a map card I purchased from Amazon for just $65. Apparently the dealer's charge an outrageous amount for the little SD card with the maps on it that enables the system - I have read up to $500+ in several places. Worse - I have heard of them chargin an hour's labour to install it - which is ludicrous as it consists of simply inserting the card in a slot and takes all of 60 seconds.

Purchase of the map card also entitles you to 3 years of free map updates so in this article I include a video tutorial demonstrating the process of updating the maps.

Let's get to it.

This is the card I purchased from Amazon (I note that the price has gone up a little since I bought it - as of this writing it is listed at $88.90 with free shipping).

It arrived in a small plain padded envelope, and inside was this slip of paper:

and the SD card in a little plastic bag stuck on a piece of card.

This is the map card.

The card is an 8GB FAT32 card, with just under 5GB used

There are two folders and one file in the root directory of the card

This is the content of the .txt text file in the root directory

The licence folder has this single file in it.

And this is the contents of the content folder

Alltogether 1783 files on the card. I copied them to my hard drive as a backup. HOWEVER, there are a couple of important things to know regarding backing up, installing, and updating the map card.

Basically, to avoid people just pirating the data on the map card, they employ a system called "VIN locking" which has to be done before you can properly (i.e. functionaly) back up the card and/or update your maps. It works like this:

When you first purchase the card and have not installed it in the car yet, there are two files in the <contents> folder called:

cardnotused.txt.sgn
cardnotused.txt

as seen at left.

The first step in VIN locking your card is to insert it into the slot in the car and power-on the system.

The card slot for the GPS map card is in front of the shifter, just beside the USB ports, covered with a small black cover. Note that the ONLY functionality of this card slot is to hold the GPS map card - it has no other use / functionality (Good thing too - because that cover is a bit of a b$#@ to get off).

Close-up of the slot from the driver's side.

Speaking of which, if your car is brand new and the slot has never been accessed, there will probably be a small plastic tab poking out from behind the cover. It's supposed to make opening the cover the first time much easier. In my experience it doesn't work at all!

Instead, there is a tiny little recess in the middle of the top edge of the cover, as indicated here.

Into this recess you can place a small tool to help pry off the cover. You should probably use a plastic or wooden tool and not a metal screwdriver, lest you scratch the plastic (don't ask how I figured that out!)

You want to pry the cover off from the top, as it is hinged on the bottom with a little flexible hinge. Note that when I shot this pic my card had already been installed, but if you are doing this for the first time the slot will be empty).

Close-up of the hinged cover open with card installed. You can alos see the little recess in the top edge of the cover fairly well in this shot.

To install, you simply place the card into the slot and push it in until it clicks. Make sure that the write-protect lock on the left edge of the card is not engaged (i.e. that the little tab is "up") as the system has to be able to write to the card.

Once you have done this, you can replace the cover, and then power up the system by pressing the START button once. The system will power up and the navigation system will automatically start and fix your position.

Here's a little video of the card being installed (note than in this video, I am actually installing the card not for the first time, which is why I had to select the nav system from the menu. But if this is your initial install the nav system will automaticaly start up on powering-up the system):

You have now completed the first step of VIN locking the card. Let's take the card out and see what has happened.

First, if we open the <contents> folder, we can see that the two files

cardnotused.txt.sgn
cardnotused.txt

have been deleted.

In addition, if we open the <license> folder we see that an encrypted file

device.nng (containing individual data such as your initial GPS fix and VIN number) has been written there.

The map card is now “VIN-half-locked”.

You must now drive the car with the card installed for a minimum of 100km (62 miles) to complete the VIN locking process. Ameridan provides the following CAUTION:

CAUTION – if the card is inserted into any other vehicle before the 62 mile lock-in, the card will VIN lock to that vehicle instead

Once the card has been fully VIN locked to your car, you can once again remove it to either make a backup and/or update the maps.

Let\s take a look at how to do that:

The first thing you need to do is install the "Map Update Toolbox" software on your computer. To get started, go to this link and enter your system type (i.e. "With 7" Touchscreen Radio") and click <submit>. You will be taken to a page from which you can download the software and the "How To Guide" in .pdf format.

The rest of the process I cover in this video tutorial: (Note that the download took about 30 minutes and the installation to the card another 20 minutes. Also, for some reason, the backup funtionality wasn't working for me in the Toolbox software, but I haven't troubleshot that yet. The How To Guide tells you how the backup functionality is supposed to work).

You'll want to watch this video in 1080p quality and full-screen so that everything is legible.

As of this writing, the latest map update was dated "February 2018".

Once your card has been updated and / or backed up, you can simply remove it from your computer and re-install it in your car. Because I'm a curious type, I had a look at the card after the update and before putting it back in the car, and what I found was:

Some file changes to the <license> folder

Total number of files has actually decreased from 1783 to 1661.

Total data size has increased from 4.69 GB to 5.50 GB, still comfortably under the 8GB max of the card.

Perhaps quite oddly, the

cardnotused.txt.sgn
cardnotused.txt

files are back in the <content> folder with a date/time stamp matching the time of the update. Not sure why, but in any case, it didn't affect the system on re-installing the card in the car as can be seen in the following video. Note how when the system is started (by pressing the START button) the Nav system loads automatically, just as it does the very first time you put the card in the car).

Perhaps quite oddly, the

cardnotused.txt.sgn
cardnotused.txt

Update #1:

After driving the car for a while after the map update, I re-checked the card and found that the

cardnotused.txt.sgn
cardnotused.txt

files were once again deleted from the <content> folder. It's almost as if the card needs to VIN-lock again, after the map update.

Update #2:

Due to very unfortunate circumstance beyone my control and no fault of my own, I had to return my original car. When I got the new car, I suspected that the Nav card I had purchased would now be useless. Nevertheless, I tried a couple of things and here's what happened:

I put the nav card in the new car. All I got was a message saying "Invalid SD Card".
I formatted a new 8gb FAT-32 card, and copied to it the original files from the nav card, exactly as they were when I first bought the card, before it had ever been inserted in a car. I got the same "Invalid SD Card" message. Since the new car couldn;t have known about the old car, and the files were as original, and I know the car isn;t secretly communicating to a mother-ship somehow, it must mean there is some kind of internal check between the files on the card and some sort of non-user-accesible serial number on the card itself, so I
Deleted all the files from the purchased Nav card, and replaced them with the files it had on it when it was new and unused. I then inserted in the car and booted the system by putting the car in ACC mode, just like my very first install, and:
- At first, nothing. No message. Nothing happened. So I:
- Pressed the "Nav" button, and I got the "Your car is not equipped with Navigation" message, exactly as you get if there is no card installed. Strange. So, on a whim, I ejected the card with the system still powered up (not something I would normally do, but I figured I had nothing much to loose at this point) and then clicked it back in place. I got an immediate "Loading Navigation" message and within seconds the Nav system had loaded and was showing my accurate position. How strange, and lucky.

I suspect that it's very unlikely I'll be able to do another update with this card after it has VIN-locked to the new car, if it even VIN-locks. But it seems to be working for now and will be good enough until I can afford another brand new card.

More updates to follow...

Perhaps quite oddly, the

cardnotused.txt.sgn
cardnotused.txt

Total:

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