I thought i would share how i carried out this fitting to you all. I have read many forums on this site regarding the Garmin sat nav unit and how to fit, so i took it upon myself to do the work and let you all know how ive done.

Looking at it, it looks very good and professional. In total, i would say it cost me £200. This is for the sat nav unit itself of £140, £30 pounds for the plastic to be cut and then around £10 for the spray paint.

I actually did at in my lunch hour. It took an hour as before i calculated how i would do it, given the various diagrams off the forum. Can i please say first many thanks for Equip and his posting of the plastic surround on his site - very useful indeed.

I sourced a plastic cutter in the UK - called Barkston Ltd. I emailed themand then spoke to a guy called Colin Thomas. I emailed him teh drawings of the surround and also what i wanted to be acheived and they quoted me £58 for both surrounds, cut in 3mm PVC grey plastic. FOr you all, i would only get the second larger surround cut because this will be the only one you will need. So, it took them about 3 days to deliver and i then sprayed them - Using Halfords primer and matt black paint, i did several coats, after each coat sanding it down so the end result is a smooth finish. Now, you will need to take the car apart.

Taking the car apart is scary, but surprisingly easy to do. I followed someone elses instructions on this forum and, although it looks like a hard job, the units/fascias are all clipped in so easy to take off. THe sat nav fits in the cubby hole box and teh surround covers this unit, then fit all back and hey presto, the surround compliments the dash board very well. I will take photos soon and post them on the forum to show every step i did to fir the unit and the end result.

I will need to have a look at one thing though. As the plastic is 3mm thick, i think it does not let the fascia sit back flush so what i think i need to do is cut hte cubby hole bracket back a bit to allow the fascia dashboard to sit nice and flush. other than that, the end result is good.

Any questions let me know and ill do my best to help

G'Dat Stuey, I'm very glad my postings were of some help - you certainly put the effort into the painting which will be all to the good. Your mask is also more substantial than mine, which is 1mm thick. I think this may give your's a more 'solid' look; if so, I'll be off to the plastic shop again! I look forward to the pictures. Away from the fitting aspects, I've found the Garmin to be very good as a GPS. I came back from Sydney last week, a trip of around 700 miles and, by way of a change from the Princes Highway, took a 'scenic' route through the Snowy Mountain ranges. The surprising thing was that, apart from having no problems with mapping long stretches of gravel roads and forest tracks, it actually got my time of arrival home - as opposed to journey time - correct to within 15 minutes. Now, how it does that I've little idea, but I was impressed.
Thanks for sharing your details.
Cheers, Graham

Thanks Graham

I will post some pictures up soon. The unfortunate thing is i think the mask is too thick - the dash board fascia doesnt quite sit flush with the rest of teh dash board and i think its becasue the thickness of the plastic has created that gap. I dont know what i will do but i think i will have to cut the cubby hole plastic down to size, so it accomdates the extra 3 mm.

I have to admit, the garmin is just brilliant. We went up to the outer reaches of Scotland a couple of months ago and it found the place we were staying with no problem. I had a Tom Tom last time and we got lost. Plus, even when you go off road and through dirt tracks, it still works. Shame that there is no terrain like that where i live, id be out every day.........

Please post when you can Stuey, this is a useful mod now that the Sony Navu is no longer made and the maps are getting out of date. The Ecoroute software now available for the Garmin enabling you to monitor engine parameters and fuel economy etc. also looks interesting.

Xtd5

Hi guys

Finally posted some photos on my gallery. This is the finished product, and also what i have to sort out as a result of fitting the surround. I will take the dash board apart hopefully at the weekend and take a few pics to show what i have done.

 At work
At home

"I can't always believe facts I read on the web" - Charles Dickens

winner by default of the tractor vs caravan race

Forgot to mention, the plastic surround is fitted to the garmin unit with double sided tape and then the garmin unit is attached to the surround by various masking tapes and other (whatever i could find really) . Once the sat nav unit is pushed into the cubby hole, it sits good and when the cubby hole is screwed in with the fascia, the plastic cut surround is fixed against the cubby hole and the fascia so it cannot move around. Liek Egipp mentioned, you will need to prize off the black surround on the sat nav unit with a stanley knife (this is clipped into place and easy to seperate) - there will be some knife marks but when the surround is put over the sat nav unit these cannot be seen.

XTD5, yes, the ecoroute does work well. It tells you all about how efficent you are at driving, braking, accelarating, etc. Infact, the whole unit has some great features. I tend to use it not just for GPS but also traffic updates, etc. My old Tom Tom was nothing compared to this........

G'day Stuey, Excellent paint job, your prep work has really paid off. Two things, the 1mm thick mask fits with no clearance problems and lies flush with the Garmin 'inner' screen. The other thing is that cutting the box to take up the the 3mm mask thickness may mean that the box and the rubber mat won't fit properly when (if) you take the Garmin out when you sell the vehicle. Just thoughts!
Very glad the Garmin is living up to expectations. Regarding the ecoroute feature, are you aware of the ecoroute HD unit which plugs into the onboard diagnostic socket and links with the 1490T via Bluetooth? It gives lots of vehicle information plus instant fuel consumption figures plus fault diagnostic codes. I'll post a couple of screen shots in my gallery to explain better.
Good luck with the final fit.
Cheers, Graham.

Heya Stuey,

I see from your pics that you had your bluetooth phone connected. How have you found it for reliability? What phone are you using?

I have never had a good result from the bluetooth in my unit, which is very annoying. I tried my HTC Hero and my gf's Nokia E71 both with bad results (calls not coming through sat nav, connection not dropping when sat nav turned off etc etc). As a sat nav it works great though.

Cheers,
Whytey 1st time FL2 owner. 2007 SE i6 in Tambora Flame.

I hope that when i sell this car id keep the sat nav unit in. In this country, to fit the after market sat nav costs in the region of £500-£700 so hopefully i can sell this car with a feature added. Or, i can live with it i suppose, it doesnt look bad in all honesty infact its not really noticeable. But for me, im one of those people that if you see it and you know its there, you cant get it out of your head, so watch this space ill let you know what i do to rectify it.

What is this HD unit? I like the sound of that. Looking forward to some photos of this egipp, where does it plug into then? Where is this onbaord diagnostic plug?

Hey DJwhyte

I have an iphone and the unit connects to the phone as soon as i enter the car. The unfortunate thing is that the phonebook is never always on the unit. Sometimes, for some reason i cant understand, the phonebook on my phone appears and thats great, but most of the time its never on there. I still have to use my phone to find the numbers and call but when it goes through the sat nav unit the sound is reaonable. I forgot to drill a hole in the surround where the unit's microphone is but surprisingly, i put the volume up to 80%, i can hear very well, and also (even though i am shouting a bit) i can hear and be heard well enough.

I've ordered the 1695 garmin and will have a go at fitting this weekend!

It's slightly wider so will see how I get on!

Does the eco route show the turbo bost? 

Hi Stuey, For reasons best known to Telstra (our BT), my iMac, and the website, I'm unable to load pics to my gallery; been trying for the past couple of days, but no joy. However, if you go to Garmin UK and then search for 'ecoroute HD' you'll get all the details; click on 'more images' and it will show you various screen shots. The OBD socket is just under the dashboard, to the right of the steering column -on RHD Freelanders- and is the socket the Land Rover mechanic plugs his diagnostic tool into; it is standard on most modern cars. You plug the ecoroute HD device into it and it gives, via Bluetooth, a read out on the 1490T of any fault codes, as well as representations of various instruments such as battery condition (the reason I bought it!), fuel pressure, engine load, engine air intake temperature, coolant temperature and so on. To be honest, without a detailed Freelander specification, I'm not sure what some of this information is telling me, but if it did show a fault code you would, by checking it against the fault code listing, know exactly what has gone wrong - at least a starting point with the dealership! It's nice to know the engine is running as it should by the absence of fault codes. It's a read only device, you can't reset the fault code, the dealer has to do that. As far as the information it shows goes, that is determined by the car itself. My i6 petrol model does not have a turbo so gives no reading, but I don't know whether the diesel version would.
Hope that helps, Cheers, Graham.