BMW F45 sat nav update

Which sat nav does the F45 Active Tourer or F46 Gran Tourer have?

BMW’s front-wheel-drive-based family MPV stayed in production from about 2014 until about 2021 (it was facelifted in about 2018), and during those years the navigation was changed on both the Navigation Professional and the Business side. Depending on how your car was specified and when it was built, it can have any one of five set-ups, and each comes with its own map and activation method:

You will notice there are no years in the table. That is deliberate: the units changed at several points rather than at one clean break, so the year on the logbook is not a safe basis for ordering. Use the table to understand the possibilities, then let the VIN check above confirm which one is in your car.

Three changes in one model: telling the units apart

It helps to picture the Active Tourer's navigation as two lines that each moved on during production. On the Professional line, early cars may have NBT with the NEXT maps, and later cars have NBT EVO with the EVO maps. NBT EVO then changed again inside itself: some cars may run ID4 software, which is activated with a typed code, while later ones run ID5/ID6 and take their activation from an FSC file on the USB stick. On the Business line, earlier cars have EntryNav with the ROUTE maps and later ones have EntryNav2, also called ENAVEVO, with the WAY maps.

The practical upshot is that the switch from typed code to FSC file did not happen at the same moment for every car. A Professional car and a Business car of a similar age can be on opposite sides of that line, so what worked for a friend’s Active Tourer is no guide to yours.

• Early Professional cars may have NBT: NEXT, code entered on screen
• Later Professional cars have NBT EVO: EVO, code on ID4 or file on ID5/ID6
• Earlier Business cars have EntryNav: ROUTE, code entered on screen
• Later Business cars have EntryNav2 (ENAVEVO): WAY, file on the stick

Business vs Professional navigation in the Active Tourer and Gran Tourer

On the F45 and F46, knowing whether you have Business or Professional navigation only gets you halfway, because each tier has an older unit and a newer one. With Navigation Professional, an NBT car takes the NEXT maps at £39.99 and an NBT EVO car takes the EVO maps at £59.99. With Business navigation, an EntryNav car takes the ROUTE maps at £39.99 and an EntryNav2 car takes the WAY maps at £59.99.

Each package is built for one unit and will not work on the others. So if you are pricing up a used Active Tourer or Gran Tourer for the family, the navigation option on the spec sheet gives you the tier, and the VIN check gives you the exact unit and the cost of bringing its maps up to date.

How to update the maps in your Active Tourer or Gran Tourer

The NEXT and ROUTE maps come as East or West Europe; you install one, and each includes the main roads of the other. EVO and WAY are single Europe-wide packages with no region to choose. Typed-code units come with a Lifetime FSC code where your unit supports it. If your car reads an FSC file, put it on the stick exactly as the guide shows and leave its name unchanged. Keep the car parked safely until the install finishes. To see how these prices compare with a dealer update, read BMW sat nav update cost in the UK.

Apple CarPlay in the Active Tourer and Gran Tourer

The F45 Active Tourer and F46 Gran Tourer are missing from our list of cars that suit USB CarPlay activation, and we will not promise that it can be enabled in yours. Do not be misled by the shared 2 Series name: the 2017 to 2020 2 Series Coupé and Convertible (F22/F23) appear on it, but the Active Tourer and Gran Tourer do not. Where CarPlay is a priority, have compatibility checked by VIN before anything else. To find out what your car offers today, read does my BMW have Apple CarPlay?; the Apple CarPlay activation page explains the USB process for the models that qualify.

Related models: the X1 F48 and the 2 Series Coupé

The Active Tourer shares its platform with the X1 F48, and the two have similar navigation units, so the BMW X1 F48 sat nav update guide makes useful background reading. The 2 Series Coupé and Convertible are a different matter: despite the name, they use another platform entirely and get a page of their own, BMW F22 sat nav update. Whichever 2 Series you drive, the VIN check works from the car itself rather than the badge.