The Garmin backroad problem... how bad is it really?

[missing_user]

Can you give us a location so that I may try it with my iQue and 60CSX?
Thanks.

[mhb]

Clearly the algorithm used by Garmin (and others) is flawed in this respect but for them to acknowledge this in any way would surely open them up to all manner of liability claims. No doubt they must be quietly working to obviate the problem but the time this seems to be taking would seem to indicate a much deeper problem than we seem to be assuming.

[swing]

[mwfox]

Is the reason Garmin don't do anything about the routing problem - to keep the gap between their cheaper units and the expensive ones, which I believe you can avoid such back roads?

[Lester_Burnham]

I suspect in terms of them doing anything about it, it would be quite a significant change in their routing algorithms across the board.

My understanding was that there was a time when their routing algorithms used to take speed and class of road into consideration. But a while back, there was a fundamental change such that the speed rating of the road was simply taken into consideration.

Given that it's probably a cornerstone to presumably quite an amount of complex code, it's no trivial change to go back - especially when you could just sweep it under the carpet as a trivial issue that affects limited situations.

[Teessider66]

I am surprised at a few of the responses here. Surely a reliable sat nav is one that wil supply a rasonable solution to a route problem. Having to prepare the routes and program them into the unit because the uit cannot do it surely defeats a lot of the benefit of having a sat nav.

I was keen on the 660T, but now am not so sure

[philpugh]

Don't worry about it. Nearly all sat nav units have their little quirks when planning routes. I agree with you that if you need to sit down a plan a route to go a specific way - you probably don't need a satnav in the first place.

As you will see pointed out here quite often - satnavs are an AID to navigation - NOT a definitive answer. If the route you are being taken down looks wrong - then ignore it and you will be presented with an alternative.

My 660 has done this a couple of times in the last year - I just find it amusing - then ignore it. The annoyance is that it's a fairly trivial thing to fix.
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Phil

[pja8]

Peoples experiences are what they are but from my viewpoint using a Nuvi 350. This year I have driven to Alicante and for 2 weeks used the sat nav to get to places in and around that area. Then over the last few days we went to Paris.

During the trip to Spain we stayed in France off the beaten track and the Nuvi was spot on all the time. I did not refer to maps or be concerned once with its directions. Without the Nuvi I doubt I would have wanted to do the trip as it made life so easy from the traveling view point. What always amazed me was the accuracy of the arrival times, its ability to find faster routes whilst going around complex areas such as Barcelona, on the hoaf, it did not just stick to its first calculated route, it would re analyse when it was nearer to a local built up area.

I give the unit 10/10 as simple as that, because that is my experience.

[Robin2]

Last summer we stayed with our caravan in the Vale of Glamorgan. When driving around (without the caravan) we had my TomTom, but we also tried to use my wife's i3. The i3 took us down some very minor roads (broken tarmac, grass in the middle of the road) but when planning the same route TomTom always took us on decent roads. We had selected Quickest route (not Shortest), Avoid unpaved roads, and we used Truck as the vehicle type. Some of the roads the i3 selected would have been impassable for a truck - they were barely wide enough for a car
Robin
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TomTom One v3 Europe, Navcore 7.903, Western Europe 835.2420
TomTom Go 720 Europe, Navcore 8.351, Western Europe 855.2884
Satmap Active 10
Plus a lot of other PDA GPS kit, seldom used

[philpugh]

[missing_user]

[Reap]

Hmmm, interesting subject.
I bought my first SatNav a short while ago. My first journey was from Teignmouth Devon to Derby. Within half a mile of the start it took me up a VERY narrow lane. I was in a LWB Transit which was just okay but a lorry would be in a spot of bother. I have done this journey many times and the logical route is not much different but is a higher classification road (Yellow on the garmin). I decided to take the advice of the GPS out of interest in case there was a quicker route. It was not.

I have just been experimenting in simulator mode (Garmin 660fm) and setting to lorry mode makes no difference, faster or shorter route still takes you up the unclassified road.

However what does make a difference is setting it to BUS, with this setting it takes me on a totally different route avoiding all the unclassified roads, or thats how it seems so far. I shall try some other routes.

Garmin have the settings Fastest, Shortest or Off Road when what they really need is Fastest, Shortest or MOST LOGICAL route. Hopefully they will work on their maps a bit more and have an 'avoid unclassified roads option or something.

[garethjjones]

I have an original quest - and a motorhome.

I rely on the quest when I'm driving alone, but find that when we're in Europe I have a co-pilot to interprate the directions on an Atlas (one of those things with pages!). Invariably the gps is right, but it does need you to be aware of your height/weight/width. We've had a few scary momnets in backstreets in France and Italy whilst trying to find Campsites/Aires.

Truck or Bus mode is preferred when planning routes!

regards

G

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