anyone know if you can find a destination via postcode and is it 5 digit or 7 ? i hate the fact that many in-car systems expect you to search for a street name wherea my £99 tom tom has full 7 digit post codes and is very accurate !

I think it will be 5 digit as I've no doubt it will use the same mapping as the Octavia.

Columbus is accurate and the world doesn't revolve around postcodes I can assure you. There are a great many ways to find where you are going with Columbus.

As Stu says, it's 5 digit and that's a total piece of c**p as far as I'm concerned. There is no excuse at all for this, as nearly all satnavs can now do 7 digits.

Being down in Cornwall, some of the places I need to visit don't even have street names, so there is no way to narrow down the area that the 5 digit code gives me. I *REALLY* do need the 7 digit code to navigate successfully to where I want to go. My current Pioneer does this just fine, so why can't the Columbus?

After intense pressure from customers, Ford have recently issued an updated disk for the new Mondeo which provides 7 digit entry. I'm already lobbying hard with Skoda UK to get this addressed, so feel free to contact them and complain.

Bagpuss.

But have you tried navigation with a Columbus?

Don't get me wrong I'm not going to try and tell you the TT isn't a good little device, we have both so I am quite well qualified to compare.

Both have their limitations and each are good and different things.

As Stu says, it's 5 digit and that's a total piece of c**p as far as I'm concerned. There is no excuse at all for this, as nearly all satnavs can now do 7 digits.

Being down in Cornwall, some of the places I need to visit don't even have street names, so there is no way to narrow down the area that the 5 digit code gives me. I *REALLY* do need the 7 digit code to navigate successfully to where I want to go. My current Pioneer does this just fine, so why can't the Columbus?

After intense pressure from customers, Ford have recently issued an updated disk for the new Mondeo which provides 7 digit entry. I'm already lobbying hard with Skoda UK to get this addressed, so feel free to contact them and complain.

Bagpuss.

I have to agree, 5 digit postcodes is seriously lame. My 4.5 year old DVD based Kenwood Nav I've got in my Octavia uses full postcodes properly. I know someone with a brand new BMW 335 convertible with professional nav and I think that's only 5 digit.

Does it cost them more to license the extra accuracy I wonder?

Yes it does cost more, and the licensing of the postcode database is surprisingly strict.

At work we need to pay a license thats based on how many times the post code is used to find a property. Now keep in mind we use them day in day out, so we have to estimate how many times we use a postcode search per annum and pay a fee to the post office for the priviledge.

so you are saying tom tom can afford to pay this but the whole of the VAG cant. i dont belive that. seems silly to pay 22k for a nice new car and still ahve to carry the tom tom around as well ? 7 digit is much quicker as you dont have the mess about looking for the street etc just type it in and go.

VRStu - in waht way i columbus better than tomtom. i cant really think of many limitations of tom tom

The UK postcode database in the UK is not free, Tomtom must be paying a license fee to the postoffice.

Free The Postcode!

Until Tomtom V5, Tomtom was also only 5 digit lookup and on V5 is was very flakey.

But have you tried navigation with a Columbus?

Don't get me wrong I'm not going to try and tell you the TT isn't a good little device, we have both so I am quite well qualified to compare.

Both have their limitations and each are good and different things.

I've got an Octavia L+K pool car at the moment, which has the Columbus navigation. I've also got a TomTom 910 (with Navcore 8 on it), and a Pioneer AVIC-X1 (with latest maps).

For navigation, TomTom beats all the others easily. The maps are much more up to date (the new dual carriageway on the A30 at Indian Queens is actually in the TomTom maps), plus a whole host of other new housing developments. Pioneer are still using maps from 2007, as are VW. The MapShare thing also means that TomTom quickly know when things are wrong in the mapping data. Way more useful than phoning in and reporting a problem with a map.

Don't get me wrong, the Columbus unit is a great piece of kit, and works very well as a combined entertainment/navigation hub. It will always suffer on the navigation side, as VW will never issue map updates as regularly as TomTom, nor will they be as affordable.

The whole postcode thing had got to be down to licensing. TeleAtlas provide the maps for both the MFD2 and my Pioneer, yet the MFD2 gets 5 digit postcode entry and the Pioneer does 7. Likewise, NavTeq provide the maps for both the Ford Mondeo navigation and the Columbus. Ford get 7 digit postcodes and VW get 5.

Personally, I think it's disgraceful that a satnav unit costing £1300 doesn't have 7 digit postcodes. It's especially bad when consider that my £100 TomTom unit does.

Bagpuss.

Also i heard that our (UK) post codes are longer than the post codes on the continent... which iirc are 5 digits...

I've just put in a request to retailer support about the postcode issue. They are going to speak with technical and product marketing.

Not sure if they'll do anything about it, but it's got to be worth a try.

Bagpuss.

My Columbus allows 7 digits on post codes

Man, that's a 7 year thread revival...