Experience with City Navigator Europe Maps...

are very well worth it, used mine in France 2X buy one.

G

several times --- works very well.

Used it in Italy, Portugal, Spain, France.

And best of all - It has the SPEED CAMERAS built in.

You shouldn't leave home without one.

They tend to be about 1/2 the price of those from the Garmin site, so somethings not quite right....how are they bootlegged anyway???

Bought the DVD and put only the maps I need for Europe on Nuvi (have an Nuvi 750 and not enought room for the entire maps) and made a sc with all the maps to carry with me.
By having the DVD I was able to put the maps on Mapsource and work with them on the computer and also, put on a SD card.

Can't wait to use them this Fall in Italy, France, and Spain.

Bought it online from Provantage for $104.00

I've not seen, sold or bought any of these, but here's my guess. If from an eBay seller with good feedback, my guess is that they're legit and are being sold by Yanks who bought the European maps on a SD card for a once-in-a-lifetime European vacation and are now back home and offering for sale or auction their genuine-Garmin map-on-SD (which is not linked to a specific GPS unit) to recover some of their purchase price for an item they'll never use again.

Certainly that is true, but some google searching suggests quite an effort towards unlocking strategies. Call me naive, but I bet most of the eBay offerings are bootleg.

Thanks to all for their comments.

i used it and have no further use. Bought it new.

If you read ebay ads - the USUALLY tell you if it's a copy or an original. Also, if a guy is selling 10 of the -- that should give you a clue.

Can't speak to the bootleg or not issue. I can say that if they are the real thing, the Europe maps are great in my experience. I took a two week trip to Ireland and chose to drive around the country. I met many Americans along the way who complained of having to go back to the same pub over and over to ask the owner to give the same directions one more time. I drove around the country like I had lived there for my entire life. All I had to focus on was staying on the left side of the road! I swore several times that I was driving on some dirt road down the middle of some farmer's land, but always ended up at my destination at the arrival time promised by my Nuvi.

I don't think, that maps on cards are not linked to certain gps. They have to be activated as any other sort (download or dvd) and this is what assign them to certain unit.
In my opinion they may come from clearances of older maps from warehouses. In those cases you can buy them really cheap, and this is probably what is being sold. Especially that very often seller doesn't specify version for this map.

Garmin CN Europe maps on microSD cards are not locked like their DVD counterparts. Also, the data cannot be copied from the card to other media.

http://www.garmin.com/garmin/cms/site/us/support/searchsuppo...

Question: Why do I get the message ‘The serial number you have entered has already been registered’ when I try to register my preprogrammed microSD/SD card?
Answer:
If you have purchased a pre-programmed City Navigator microSD/SD card you will not need to register the card. Maps that are preprogrammed onto SD cards are not updatable so they do not need to be registered.
Last modified on: 02/27/2009

These maps are linked (locked) to the card serial number. THAT card must be present for the map to work. So the card can be used in any unit, but the map can't be used from another card (which would have a different serial number) or in a GPS without THAT card present.

Seriously? I would not need to get a separate POI for the traffic enforcement cameras? This covers red light and speed?

Or would I still want to get a separate POI for those to cover new units? Any idea how up-to-date the 2010 version is on that data?

I have purchased maps/updates from ebay vendors several times as they seem to offer lower prices.

But.... I make sure they certify to me that they are "Authorized" Garmin dealers/resellers.

There are several of them on ebay and I have not had any problems with activating/unlocking the maps thru the Garmin unlock site.

But as with anything you buy on ebay.... do your research. Feedback is a huge indicator.

Now-a-days, I refuse to buy from anyone who has less than 20 feedbacks and less than a 99% good rating.

I have been burned before and I am as skeptical as they come now when buying on ebay... but I still do it.

Used the Italy map sd. Worked out really well. Was expensive though.