My Ultra came with the 6.5. I gave the 6.5 a chance but it wasn't cutting it.
I mounted my Nuvi to the left mirror bracket, much better.
Surprisingly it doesn't vibrate like I thought it would.

 

I'm going to give the 6.5 a chance before I decide to mount my 665 to the handlebar.

To be honest - it took me a long time to figure out how to plan routes correctly with my Zumo. What I mean by correctly is how to get it to go the way I wanted to, not the way the unit thought was best. I still never got it to do that 100% of the time. I think the real convenience was being able to sit in my living room, hooked up to my laptop running Basecamp, & just playing with it until I got it to work. I can remember spending over an hour on the phone with a Garmin tech 1 evening trying to determine why I wasn't able to import & save a route created in Basecamp.

Well, I can't park my Ultra in the living room (at least when my wife is at home ), so I'm stuck sitting in the garage with a laptop & the bike hooked up to a Battery Tender while I play with Ride Planner & USB sticks. This is going to take some time! I can't yet say for certain, but I believe that when I'm out somewhere & hit "Home", the 6.5 will get me there. Maybe not the exact route I prefer, but I will get to my destination & for the most part, that is what I use a GPS for. I'll keep the 665 fully charged & with me as a back-up; I can put it into a vest pocket & use my phone ear pods in an emergency.

If the 6.5 really turns out to be a disaster, I'll hook up my 665 into the system & for that this tread will be very helpful - thank you to all for the information contained here!

 

Basecamp has some quirks for sure, but recently I did an update and it was worse. BC claimed my 1,600 mile trip to Florida was 3,700 miles one-way. It had me going back and forth between waypoints numerous times.
I uninstalled it, edited the registry to remove all instances I could find (there were quite a few) and reloaded it.
It worked far better after that, then a couple of days later, another update was released.

I had far less trouble with Mapsource, but it doesn't have some of the nice features BC has.

 

That's what I love about a built in system. It's always there when you need it (hitting HOME). The 6.5 works as well as any GPS in point to point navigating. It responds great to voice input and can be controlled with the handlebar joysticks (I haven't touched the screen since I bought the bike).

What people have issue with is planning exact twisty routes. I never use it that way, so have no issue at all with the 6.5. It's a small, very vocal, group that is always dismissing the 6.5 for that reason. It's as good as any system in any of my cars.

 

If you're not having problems, that's great.

I respectfully disagree.
In my case, the 6.5 GPS doesn't know North from South, East or West, the compass is always wrong, no matter how it's been set-up. It simply doesn't work and it will give a wrong direction 80% of the time.

Every GPS unit I've owned would make an occasional mistake, but it could usually* be trusted to get you where you wanted to go. That isn't the case with the 6.5 on my bike.

*FWIW, after updating a cage GPS unit, we took a trip to SW Florida. The GPS took us to an empty field, no where near the college we were supposed to be at. I contacted their customer service, they told me the problem was the new maps that were in the update, it had problems and I would have to contact the third party that provided the map.
They refused to refund the $149.00 map update cost. The credit card company disagreed with them and that was the end of that.

And yes I am vocal about it, too many issues with a product that costs what these bikes cost, too many dealers handing out BS excuses and too many riders willing to go along with the problems.

The dealer will have it for a week to go over all the electronic problems this Ultra has.
We'll see how that goes.

Ride Safe,

 

I believe you are confusing the Heading Indicator with a Compass. The pointer shows your current heading. i.e. if you're heading north it will point UP(12:00). South; DOWN(6:00), East; RIGHT(3:00), West; LEFT(9:00), etc.

 

Oh how I wish it was that simple.
When I head North (which isn't hard, there's a lake there) it shows I'm going East.
When I head South it shows West.

On my first ride once the snow and salt were gone, I picked an HD dealer and headed West, I traveled on a road just South of the lake. At the road coming up where I should turn right, the unit told me to turn left... into the lake. Good thing there was no road there. I'd be writing this from Canada.

Now I suspect this type of a problem is an isolated case and not as widespread as the AVC and the volume joystick not working. But none-the-less it is a problem and it seems the locals don't have an answer and the MoCo simply doesn't give a damn, they're too busy selling more.

As far the volume issues, for a tech to tell me the problem was I didn't do the .4 upgrade properly? He did the re-flash, it lasted 200 miles and everything was crap again.
After a different tech did a reflash to turn on the Aux # 3 input, the AVC started working. Sorry these are problems within the infotainment and software system.

 

So that red/white arrow is a heading indicator and NOT a compass????

Damn, I've been complaining for weeks that the compass was screwed up. Why do you need a heading indicator instead of a compass.

Now the question is, is the red part showing your heading or the white part.

 

I'm not sure, but I think this heading indicator works when you have the GPS set so the direction you are heading is always pointing "up". You can also set the GPS up so that the direction you are heading is always the compass points - so going west, the vehicle icon on the screen heads to the left, going south it heads down, etc.

 

I never ride with "North Up"

I ride with "Heading Up" that way I always know at a glance if I need to turn right or left at a moments notice.