Navigation device repair – is it worth it?

Today, every mobile phone has a transmitter in it. You can use it to navigate to any place at any time. So why have a sat nav in your car or truck when you can do everything with your mobile phone anyway? Is that the right approach? Or does it also have certain advantages if the car has its own navigation system? Should a defective navigation system be replaced at all?

Navigation device in the car – still important

Now that it is common practice for almost every citizen to have a smartphone, it is also clear that a sat nav has often become superfluous. For those who only drive a little, a mobile phone is absolutely sufficient as a travel guide.

But there are also cases where it is better to have one. This would be the case, for example, if you are going on a long journey with your vehicle and are driving through regions where there is little or no network at all. A mobile phone that functions as a navigation system needs a regular connection to mobile data. At least if it is to link the position correctly with a map app such as Google Maps. The map data is reloaded again and again.

A navigation device, on the other hand, also determines the current position via satellite and GPS. However, the map material is not acutely downloaded, but is on a storage medium when it leaves. This means it does not need an internet connection to find its way around.

Even in Germany there are numerous stretches of land where there is no network connection. If a turn-off has to be taken at such a place, the mobile phone will probably not provide correct instructions. The sat nav, on the other hand, will.

Repairing a sat nav – is it still worth it?

Anyone who buys a used car today often gets one that includes a GPS-based navigation system. Depending on how old the model is, it may no longer work. In this case, repairing the sat nav would be a good solution. Good because it is often only minor things that need to be fixed. There are specialised providers who can do this. It is cheaper than buying a new device.

At the very least, we recommend this procedure to all those readers who will be on the road a lot with their vehicle and will be driving to places that are perhaps outside of Germany and have a poor network. It’s simply an extra safeguard against the eventuality that you’re out in the wilderness somewhere and don’t know where to go while the phone can’t find a network. It’s not bad to have a plan B in life for unexpected situations. Unless, of course, you live in a big city and 99% of the time you only drive around within the city limits. Then you can save yourself these costs.