TomTom Rider v2 Car Kit & Car Charger

P. N. Biddle

at 10:04 am

Extremely good design for the suction cup mounting – with a little bit of spit it never came off and I can’t imagine that it ever will.

It has a built-in internal-only speaker which isn’t very loud, so you have to be on the ball in complicated driving situations.

Rating: 4 / 5

John Leeson

at 12:14 pm

For anyone with the TomTom Rider V2, this is an excellent accessory to have. Given the higher cost of the TomTom Rider compared to a dedicated car unit, rather than buy a second satnag for the car, use your bike satnag.

The Rider unit on it’s own is a substantial piece of equipment and with it fitted to the in-car adaptor it’s a bulky piece of kit – no way could it be as slimline as a dedicated car unit. In spite of it’s bulk and weight with the Rider attached, the attachment has no problem holding the whole assembly to a car windscreen. Viewed from the driver’s seat, the Rider in it’s in-car mount is no more intrusive to vision than a normal car unit.

I’ve seen comment that it’s too quiet, but with the Rider volume up at 100% it’s certainly more than loud enough.

Thumbs up for it from me.
Rating: 5 / 5

A. D. Clift

at 5:23 pm

I had a Mark One Rider which broke and was replaced by Tomtom. Thjat broke as well and Tomtom replaced it with Mark Two with a car kit as an apology for their poor service.

The Mark One car mount did not provide any audio output from the satnav and it was necessary to open the SD card door in the base of the satnav to plug the car cord in. It worked, it was cheap but it was fiddly to use and it was still necessary to use a bluetooth headset to hear the audio.

The Mark two mount solved all these problems, it has built in audio, the satnav just clicks in (in theory) and the power goes via the bracket contacts so it is no longer necessary to open the SD door and plug in a fiddly mains cable.

It should therefore get five stars but Tomtom have failed miserably with the bracket design. The big screw that is used to lock the vacuum is really awkward to use (why not use a lever like other makers) but the big problem is that the whole bracket is too short. The satnav slides down onto the bracket but Tomtom seem to have forgotton that vertical windscreens went out in about 1955 and with an averagely sloping screen the satnav cannot be fitted as the screen is in the way.

One has to find a position where the mount can be tilted down to fit the satnav and then tilted back into a positioin where it can be seen. The result is eventually the ball joint gets loose and the satnav drops down until it hits the dashboard. The bracket is then repositioned so the satnav can be seen when it is resting on the dash – but now there is no space to tilt it down to remove the satnav. It is now necessary to remove the complete satnav and bracket together – but there is so little space behind the satnav that it is hard to get hold of the screw that releases the vacuum.

If you have a Tomtom Rider Mark two this bracket is the only practical option for car use. As our Rider Two suffered the same fate as the two Mark Ones – they stopped working – we now use Garmin Zumos which come with really good car brackets. A rather expensive but much better long term option.
Rating: 3 / 5