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I have played with basic GPS units before, so I wanted to get a nice one this time around. I wanted it to be portable so that I could easily take it out of the Z and put it into the wife's car on the occasions we take hers for a long drive.

I reseacrched and decided on the Magellan Roadmate 300. It was in my price range (about $700), which is a lot cheaper than the factory nav unit. It was a little hard to find in Washington. I think they are selling well. I found one at Best Buy.

Then on to the task of figuring out how to mount it. I took a few hours fooling around and came up with a solution. I had to make a few holes in the dash board cubby. I used bits and peices of other cell phone mounts and plastic things I had laying around.

My priorities:

#1 - Easily removable / portable
#2 - Ability to stow it away in the dashboard cubby and close the lid
#3 - Have it sturdy enough to limit bouncing while driving, and able to withstand me pressing ont he screen and buttons.

I was able to make it work. I'm VERY happy with this unit. It is really nice to never, ever be lost. But mostly, it's just a fun gadget! Here's the Magellan Web site: http://www.magellangps.com/en/produc...sp?PRODID=1038

Now on to the pics:

The first one is looking up into the cubby to see the peices that I screwed in to the plastic.

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Here's the pieces that fit together.

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Another angle

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Here you can see how the "arm" attaches to the back of the GPS. I took apart the mount that came with the GPS and attached the piece to the end of a different mounting arm.

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With the arm attached

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The end piece swivels to adjust GPS

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Here it is in place

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Another view. You can see the flip-up antenna on top of the GPS. That antenna has to "see" the open sky. That's another reason it had to mounted up high near the windshield.

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A look from down low on the passenger side. Note that you don't see the screws I used when sitting in the seat - your head is up high enough so that the screws are hidden.

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Here's the angle and view you see when sitting in the driver's seat.

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Last one. Thanks for looking.

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Oops! THis is the real last one. Here it is tuked away in the cubby. Yes, you can close the lid to hide it when you leave your car parked and you're not near it.

LaidbackRacr

iTrader: (4)

you couldn't hardwire for power? You had to run that all the way from the cigarette lighter location? Looks alright but for 700 and its not color, can you load destinations to wherever or does it take some kind of data uplink?

Z-Z

It is a color touchscreen. It comes with a few CD-ROMs with all the map data. You hook it up to your computer and specifiy the areas you want to have detailed maps for. For more explaination on how the unit works, goto the Web site I posted.

I didn't feel like removing the center dash pieces to hard-wire. I haven't ruled it out though. I may go in and do it later. Yes, I ran a long power wire from the cigarette lighter (under the driver's seat - so it doesn't get in the way).