I managed to get the popup satnav housing off Trademe and I plan to replace the screen with a portable GPS unit.

The unit is the newer facelift model with the 7" screen so I will need quite a big unit to fill out the gap the screen leaves.

Any recommendations on a 7" GPS?

The current screen is 15.5 wide by 9.5 high, so the GPS would need to be slightly bigger to fit behind.

Ok I made some progress. I have taken out the stock screen and found the rectangle plastic cover that came with the Toyota Stereo bezel I bought off Nick fits in the space perfectly. That means I can use any size GPS and cut the plastic to fit.

All I need is a GPS that will fully power on and off with ignition and not go into charge mode.

There have been a few threads covering this..

As always I recommend the garmin nuvi 5000, same one i have, actually has a decent sized screen that takes up the whole of the area apart from a very slight gap at the edges, you can see it in my build thread if you want.

thanks looks like a good unit. had a look around online and i cant see any for sale and Garmin list it as discontinued.

I could get one from overseas, but then I would have to buy a NZ map for USD$149. Makes it pricey.

https://buy.garmin.com/shop/shop.do?cID=134&pID=63932
https://buy.garmin.com/shop/shop.do?cID=134&pID=36082

Are the two 5" units on their website currently, little bit smaller than the 5000 but as you said you do have a blanking plate, guess try tom tom and navmans sites as well.

The problem is finding one that fully powers on when 12volts is supplied.

Most of them go into charge mode and have to be powered on with the power button which will be inaccessible. All Tomtoms have this problem, dont know about Navman.

The fact that yours does not have an internal battery is probably the reason it powers on straight away. All the GPS units i have looked at including those newer Garmin ones have batteries in them.

I was under the impression with Garmins that if it is in the cradle mount it will always go to full power straight away.

My sister has a model with a battery but as soon as it hits power on in her car it switches the unit to full functionality, but that is an even old Nuvi 760.

Thats cool, thats all the info I need. Just need to look for a Garmin with cradle mount and i will be set.

Cheers for that.

If you can find one in store ask for a demo model or to check one out :)

One thing you have to watch out for is the casing and whatever you use to hold the gps in place doesnt distort the gps signal. I had issues with mine not picking up signal (and is still not working right)

However I intend to fix this over summer when I can access some more tools. I used the original gps steel casing. Both pieces were steel therefore I think are distorting the signal. I will hopefully resolve by cutting one of the steel top pieces off so it has a clearer path to the sky.

What I am trying to say is make sure you check it picks up signal before bolting it all back in. When you come to that stage......

(I also had a post going a while back if you want to check out how I achieved this if you haven't already.