The dealership doesn't want to admit it but the reason the service rep new the cost to replace the unit-someone had just had to do it about a week or two before. It's obvious from all the posts on the web that Honda and Acura have had an issue with the Alpine Sat Nav. I expected otherwise after spending so god damn much on this car and paying for the Elite package. What a complete rip off and lack of customer satisfaction. I told them my $200 Garmin which I bought about the same time still works perfectly and all map updates are free.

When I mentioned that the unit was apparently made by Alpine and did they know of any Alpine service the answer was 'No. I explained that this car, which I bought new in May of 09 has roughly 30K miles on it and has been completely babied from day one. They could sell me a replacement unit with new discs at a cost of roughly $4,400.00 plus tax. They could not offer any information about how or where the unit could be replaced. They specifically told me there was no recall or service bulletin for my cars sat nav. They denied any knowledge of any DVD sat nav issues. I drove to the local dealership to speak with the service department. There was a Honda service bulletin addressing the defect. I Googled the problem and found many other Honda and Acura owners with the same issue. As I had the US and Canada DVD's I swapped them out and the same thing happened so I know it isn't the disc. I contacted the local dealership and they said it could be the disc or it could be the reader. A few week before this I smelled an electrical burning smell in the car but I didn't know where it was coming from. I was coming home and about 300 yards from my driveway. Sat Nav binged and displayed message DVD disc error contact your dealer. Between this and the handful of other things that keep popping up.I'm not loving it so much any more. Everything else works fine- stereo, dvd player (for movies), cd player, backup camera, etc., so it's frustrating that there's not a way to just unhook that feature as the black screen doesn't bother me at all. To make matters worse, they told me that eventually the system will create a parasitic drain on the battery and that eventually I will have to have the system replaced. Since I use my phone/Waze for navigation, I asked if it could just be unhooked completely and I was told no. They have to remove it and send the entire unit in for repair/replacement. The dealer told me it would be approximately $3,000 to replace the entire unit. I've read online that this is a common problem, and the fix is crazy expensive. Trust me, the door is not open, it's just a system failure. The Navigation unit on my MDX states 'Disc Door Open' or something to that effect.

Acura mdx navigation dvd player