Use Tomtom XL in the USA?

[Myrna]

We have a Tomtom XL gps unit (with Australian maps). We are going to be in Los Angeles, and will be renting a car. We don't want to pay for gps accessory offered by car rental companies. We would like to buy the USA map (from Tomtom) for use with our Tomtom unit.

Do you think the USA map will work with our Tomtom? Has anyone done this? - ie taking their tomtom to the US for use. We don't want to buy the USA map and find out it would not work with our Tomtom in the US.

Any suggestion is greatly appreciated!

 

[klyons1961]

We have a Tomtom XL gps unit (with Australian maps). We are going to be in Los Angeles, and will be renting a car. We don't want to pay for gps accessory offered by car rental companies. We would like to buy the USA map (from Tomtom) for use with our Tomtom unit.

Do you think the USA map will work with our Tomtom? Has anyone done this? - ie taking their tomtom to the US for use. We don't want to buy the USA map and find out it would not work with our Tomtom in the US.

Any suggestion is greatly appreciated!

Hi Myrna...

I did the opposite last year. I bought a TomTom One XL while I was in the US (it was about half the cost of buying one in Australia and at the time the exchange rate was near enough 1 for 1). I have since returned home to Oz and bought the Australian maps. Loaded the maps and away I went. No issues whatsoever, so... I'm assuming everything will work just fine for you going from here to the US!

Cheers,
Ken

 

[file51]

I have a locally purchased GO730 (similar to the XL) and used it in the U.S. over Xmas both in Seattle and around Los Angeles.

Just be aware that if you get anything other than the Western Region US map you may not have enough core memory in the TomTom unit.

 

[Alanslegal]

How much is it to purchase the map of California? Last time I checked it was around $100.00

So if the cost of hiring a GPS locally is around $15 per day, you would need to hire one for more than 6.67days to make a loss

 

[Myrna]

Thanks, guys, for replying.

Klyons1961: You were lucky that you bought tomtom in the US when the exchange rates were near parity. I don't think there will be many good deals at the current exchange rates. We just bought some USD today to put into our USD bank account with HSBC in NY - I could have cried thinking about October 2008! But, our USD bank account was not opened then - hindsight is wonderful, I suppose.

file51: Yes, we have encountered the memory issue. We bought the standard XL without the extra memory stick. So, if we were to buy the USA map then there would not be enough memory. We would have to take the Australian map off in order to put the USA map on. However, we could just buy the USA Western Region (including California) - almost 800mb for USA map, and 185mb for USA Western Region.

Alanslegal: We looked at tomtom website on the weekend and the prices quoted for downloads were US$80 (or A$85) for USA map and US$60 (or A$70) for Western Region. We would like to have the entire USA map - value for money.

A while ago I remembered seeing an ad for a GPS around $700 which has pre-loaded maps of some 15 countries on the handset. I cannot remember the brand or model of this GPS. This is twice as much as the basic tomtom xl we have.

 

[file51]

TomTom 930 Has AU, US, NZ, EU etc etc maps on the one unit

 

[Myrna]

TomTom 930 Has AU, US, NZ, EU etc etc maps on the one unit

Thanks, file51. You are right.

 

[serfty]

TomTom 930 Has AU, US, NZ, EU etc etc maps on the one unit

At ~$700, it would need to ...

 

[UP4014]

$30 at the map shop, and it works even without batteries and gives me a overview of the area so I know I'm not driving past something interesting.

 

[NM]

$30 at the map shop, and it works even without batteries and gives me a overview of the area so I know I'm not driving past something interesting.

But will it talk non-stop and tell you when you make a wrong turn or go over the speed limit?

Oh, yes, that's right. That is what Mrs NM does when I am driving :shock:.

 

[Myrna]

Just want to update - we did go ahead and buy the TomTom GO 930 (the top of the range for TomTom) for our trip.

We turned it on in London and it worked - we did not have a car in London but were curious to see what the UK map showed. We turned it on in New York and it worked as well - again we did not have a car in NY. We turned it on in Los Angeles and used it to drive from LAX to Orange County and around Orange County. So, we were happy with it. Now we will use it in Australia and take it on our future overseas trips. We will be in South Africa towards the end of this year, so we will buy the SA map and put it on an SD card.

The list price for TomTom GO 930 was about $900, but we spotted an ad for $700 and used it to bargain with DJ. We also got GST back.