I'm off to Lithuania in June and would be pleased if anyone help with some queries about Columbus:-

1) The maps on the hard drive are Western Europe and go as far as Poland. Eastern Europe DVD's are available on EBay and I've read in the handbook that you can use a temporary disc, but don't overwrite the maps on the hard drive! I don't want to buy the latest version as they are too expensive, so will an earlier version work OK? I would guess it would? I know it won't be up to date, but I'm familiar with most of the roads we'll be using and main roads are no problem. However, last year I got lost in Vilnius, Lithuania and Hrodna, Belarus and just want a DVD that'll point me in the right direction.

2) Does Columbus show speed limits when you're abroad and, if so, are they in mph or kph?

3) I've tried entering the GPS location for our overnight stays en route, but they are coming up as being located in mid-Atlantic! Does anyone have any idea what I'm doing wrong?

Thanks to anyone who can help!

Edited for spelling error!

I'm off to Lithuania in June and would be pleased if anyone help with some queries about Columbus:-

1) The maps on the hard drive are Western Europe and go as far as Poland. Eastern Europe DVD's are available on EBay and I've read in the handbook that you can use a temporary disc, but don't overwrite the maps on the hard drive!

Yes, when you put the map disk in it asks you if you want to copy to HDD or just use on disc.

I don't want to buy the latest version as they are too expensive, so will an earlier version work OK?

Probably, just the data will be out of date.

2) Does Columbus show speed limits when you're abroad and, if so, are they in mph or kph?

Don't know, would depend on the map version.

3) I've tried entering the GPS location for our overnight says en route, but they are coming up as being located in mid-Atlantic! Does anyone have any idea what I'm doing wrong?

Are you sure you're entering your logitudinal co-ordinates with the right direction (East or West)? I say this because as an antipodean, I often have to enter latitudes as negative-something-north as a lot of systems don't seem to believe that there is anything south of the equator. They are of course mostly correct about this.

Edited 8 May, 201313 yr by wokwon

3) I've tried entering the GPS location for our overnight says en route, but they are coming up as being located in mid-Atlantic! Does anyone have any idea what I'm doing wrong?

Sounds like your longitude point might be being entered as west rather than east.

Thanks for the answers above. I'll try again at the weekend to enter the GPS locations and make sure I'm not being a complete muppet and putting them in the wrong way round!

I've tried entering the GPS locations again and have found out why I went wrong. I didn't change the latitude locations to east, so they went west from Greenwich meridian to the mid-Atlantic!

An update to my original post as I'm in Lithuania at present.

I bought a DVD on Ebay for eastern Europe and it works fine. It's a bit annoying that you have to ask Columbus to use the DVD and not download onto the hard drive every time you start though. The DVD is an earlier version and I didn't expect it to be bang up to date. The worst bit is that it does say the maps are only partial, but I didn't expect them to be so incomplete. I'm staying in Klaipeda, which is a city of about 200,000 people, and it only shows a couple of roads in the whole city!

I found that the maps on both the hard drive and the DVD show speed limits in kph, but they are not always up to date, so you can't rely solely on them.

The journey here was 1,550 miles and the MFD shows an average of 49.5 mpg. It is hot with temperatures of 30C+, so the air con and ventilated seats are most welcome. We weren't sure is we were going to be able to make the journey as SWMBO broke here wrist shortly before leaving and we had to visit the hospital in Abergavenny on our way to Dover to have the plaster cast changed!