US Nav unit - European software?

[andreas]

Hi all,

my dad loved the Sienna so much when he came to visit us in 05, he wanted to buy one in Germany, where he lives. He finally succeeded in doing so through an importer there, and got himself a 2006 Sienna with pretty much all the bells and whistles, including the nav unit. Problem is, the nav unit will not accept the European maps dvd's (he got them to try from his German Toyota dealer, but the system rejects them). His dealer did some research and found out that he'd need a different version of the firmware for this to work. The unit is apparently identical to one that's been distributed in Europe for some other Toyota models.

Question is - how can he get a hold of the European software he needs, and who can load it for him? Has anyone had any experience with that kind of thing? The Toyota dealer there is getting nowhere with the distributors and service organization in Europe, and when I asked a dealer here, they couldn't help me either.

Thanks in advance for anyone who might be able to help,

-Andreas

[Leighcm]

He could probably burn a combination disc...use the firmware from one disc, the map data from the other.

[andreas]

He could probably burn a combination disc...use the firmware from one disc, the map data from the other.

Thanks for the reply; I'm a bit confused, though. Most devices like this have two levels of software - firmware, the stuff that's loaded into the device itself (think of it as something like an operating system) and then the application software (in this case, the maps software that comes on the dvd's). So from my limited understanding of what my dad was told, the US navigation unit wasn't able to use the European maps dvd, and that was supposedly due to the wrong firmware being pre-loaded on the device. If I understand what you're saying correctly, then the dvd's are not just maps software - there's at least some system software component there as well. If that's the case, is that ALL the system software? If so, I'm starting to think that perhaps the units are different from the ones in the European market (as otherwise, just using the Euro dvd's should do the trick). Is that just a lower-level firmware setting (kind of like a region code in movie-dvd hardware)?

When you say hybrid dvd, are you implying that there are some files on his original US maps dvd that he needs to get the nav unit to work, and that the way to do that would be to combine most of the files from the Euro dvd, but to substitute some of them with specific files from the US dvd? And if so, which files are those?

Again, thanks for posting, and I'd love to get a bit more information on this so I can figure this out for him. He's currently using an aftermarket nav unit, which is a bit of a pain as well as being kludgey.

Cheers,

-Andreas

[Leighcm]

Yes, if you were to put the disc in your computer, and look at the files, some are data (maps) files, and some are software. My thought is that you could take the data from a European disc, and the software from a US disc. That way, you'd use the US software.

[andreas]

Yes, if you were to put the disc in your computer, and look at the files, some are data (maps) files, and some are software. My thought is that you could take the data from a European disc, and the software from a US disc. That way, you'd use the US software.

Thanks - that makes sense. How do you distinguish between the two kinds of files - by file extension? If so, which groups of file extensions would represent maps files versus system files?

Thanks for you help on this!

-Andreas

[Leighcm]

I haven't looked at one in a couple years, but I remember a .kwi file is software, not maps.