I've basically assumed that they won't be doing "free 3 year" for any existing cars (unless there is lots of complaints about a particular map) because they already sold the cars and less signifcantly already did the "contract" negotiation with the map supplier.
The "free map updates" is another "incentive" when buying a new car, and no doubt a deal has been done with the map supplier for a big payment (possibly up front) for 3 years of "free" maps - I'd imagine done at significantly below what it costs for 3 years of Tom Tom updates (since its for millions of copies of the maps)
The update takes about an hour, and no doubt dealers will be paid a fee for doing the update, i'd imagine below the normal labour rate but it still takes a bay in the service area as the ignition needs to be on (so car needs to be plugged into a charger or running) or you keep having to come back to the car and restart as COMAND turns off after a short while.
Richard
I would not be surprised if this 3 year deal is extended to existing W212 owners if they request it from their supplying dealer.
When the W212 was launched a year or so ago, the map system was considerably out of date and the POI, particularly in respect of hotels and restaurants was complete rubbish. For example, if you wanted to go to Heathrow Terminal 5 or the correct way (north) up the one-way Tottenham Court Road in London, forget it. The hotel list was sadly deficient and contained approx 25% of the information on some of the previous satnav systems, such as the R230SL for example. The restaurant database was even worse as it contained very few eating houses other than McDonalds, Burger King, Pizza Express etc.
The 2 disc update sent out to dealers several weeks ago substantially updated the map parts and some of the POIs. This took about a couple of hours for dealers to install. However very little was done to improve the restaurant and hotel parts.
A further update which I understand takes about 5 hours to install is currently being issued to dealers and I have been told this substantially updates the hotel and restaurant info. Now if this takes that long I assume it is more than just a patch for the deficient POI parts and perhaps more like a completely new set of firmware and data. In short I suspect its probably the same or a similar system as far as the data is concerned to that supplied with the 2010 R230SL. In other words its darned good.
To take the theory a stage further, perhaps they havent yet managed to perfect the database in the way they would wish which is why they are offering a free 3 year programme of updates. Naturally, MB's announcement only refers to 2011 MY cars as they would not wish to draw attention to the sorry situation that all exisitng W212 owners have had to endure over the past year.
My suggestion to existing W212 saloon, estate, coupe and cabriolet owners is to contact their dealers, arrange for the initial update to be done and negotiate a free 3 year continued update service for the trouble and inconvenience they have been caused.
