Nuvi 350 - Loves the back roads!

[xtraseller]

At least you had a reply. garmin have lost all my respect recently - as they have a lot of us, I think

After all the effort they have put in with great new units, great interface, innovative design and features lose it all with one feature they were always respected for. Routing

Seems crazy to me

Probably look to buy a new unit to replace my Nuvi 300 if it isn't sorted by the summer

[Lester_Burnham]

[swing]

[crockers]

[oddsock]

[dabby]

[nevetas]

Getting there, bit by bit

[PaulJSmith]

I think the more pople who write in and complain then the more likely they are to get the issue addressed so here was my 4 penneth....

18th April 2007

Dear Sir/Madam


Ref: Gamin Nuvi 610T s/n xxxxxxxx

I have recently purchased a Nuvi 610T with Navteq V9 maps and have discovered some serious issues with its route selection processing.

Despite trying different settings (shortest vs quickest) + avoid unmade roads + “truck” / “car” as a vehicle type it took me down a very dangerous and slow route from Theale in Berkshire to Kingsclere in Hampshire.

According to the AA routeplanner and Microsoft Autoroute 2004 and my own judgement the correct (most efficient) route for this journey is to go down the A4 and A340 via Aldermaston and finally on to the B3051. This journey should take approximately 22 minutes (see attached map print off).

The Nuvi took me down "Wasing Lane" just north of Aldermaston and then across very narrow and dangerous country lanes to "Back Lane" and finally back on to the A3051 just north of "Ashford Hill". This is a totally ludicrous route and is certainly not the quickest in any way shape or form. I realise that back lanes have a theoretical maximum speed of 60mph but most of them (especially the smaller ones) you can never achieve anything like this sort of speed in any safety - ever! The Highway Code states that the maximum speed for any road is the fastest speed you can drive safely and within the speed limit for that particular road. The nuvi route planner seems to take no account of this basic premise.

The system is therefore fundamentally flawed in this respect and such minor lanes should be avoidable via a user setting. The categories perhaps should include "avoid C class roads". In any event if I select "truck" then I would not expect it to try to take me down such a road as it is not physically possible to get larger trucks down the roads it took me down. This is quite honestly a serious safety issue and potentially dangerous. It is also encouraging people to drive down roads that are not designed for volume traffic (little safety furniture in the road / no markings / blind bends with no warning).

Finally, why is the system so out of sync with all the other route planners? They all suggest the same route apart from the Nuvi. I ignored its route on the way back and had a far safer and slightly quicker return journey.

If this is the level of route planning capability of the system then I'm not at all sure I want it. I understand that human interaction is always necessary and judgement is always required but if I have to plan every simple trip to such a degree then it frankly negates the need for having the system in the first place. Even if I were inclined to do this the simple fact that only one "via" point is possible would mean a lot of extra thought and effort to force the Nuvi to take the globally accepted "right route". Perhaps this model is useful in countries with primarily straight and fairly wide roads but for the UK it is close to useless in its current way of working.

I am also copying this letter to Navteq and to BBC watchdog as I would like them both to investigate this.

Yours sincerely

Paul Smith

[nevetas]

[alistairm1]

Very interested in this, as I am planning to buy a new satnav at the expo this weekend and the Nuvi was high on the list.
I have just simulated the Theale to Kingsclere route using my old M|N5 satnav software (with navteq maps) and it has offered a 12-mile route using A4, A340, B3051, crossing the A339 into Kingsclere.
This would seem to give lie to the Garmin explanation that the Navteq maps are to blame (I don't know exactly the dates for the map I am using but it must be 2005 as I haven't upgraded the maps since getting the software).

So, sorry Garmin, the £300 burning a hole in my wallet will not be coming your way, as it's too much money for something you can't trust.

Now, as it's not going to be a Garmin, who is going to get my cash?? [/b]

[swing]

To be fair, a TeleAtlas route only differed for a few miles from the route the Garmin produced when I tried it earlier today, so I think this may just be one of those routes where the map data (from either provider) results in a route that's sub-optimal.
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Please don't be offended if I do not reply to a PM - please ask questions via the forums.

[oddsock]

Have a look at my last post of This thread .

Dave
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TomTom one v1,tomtom one v 3,TT Start20,Garmin Oregon 300,Nuvi 300
Garmin Quest

[PaulJSmith]

Garmin replied to me but the response was as expected. The minor roads are 60MPH yadayada. I explained that this meant that I actually had to spend mre time and effort checking the Nuvi's routing and using a paper map to re-route and as such the unit was "not fit for purpose" as it does not pick the quickest route (according to real life experience).

As a driving aid it is also putting me down unsafe roads in comparison to alternative routes that have exactly the same ETA as safer "A" and "B"
road routes. The road I was driving down was not a "B" road on any of the routplanner maps and as I have "Avoid Unclassified roads" set it is not performing as reasonably expected.

I got nowhere. Tried to talk to the supplier and as the unit is now 6 weeks old they told me I'd have to sue them if I wanted a refund.

Lovely - what a waste of £290

if this is an issue for you then take my advice and AVOID. Go and buy M$ Autoroute 2004 and print off the maps for your journeys. It is £15 and does a better job in my opinion. I do over 30000 miles travelling by car per year and have never had such a miserable time as I have trying to follow the Nuvi's routes. It has made me late for numerous appointments that I have never experienced before when using my own brain to plan the routes. The only benefit I can see is for the last few miles of the journey in an unknown area - for routing over longer distances - forget it.

Rant over - apologies for that!

Cheers,
Paul

[philpugh]

But you've outlined the use of SatNav systems.... they are an AID to navigation - not a replacement for the human brain. Just ignore the route if you believe it to be wrong - it will soon re-route you - probably on a better class of road as the time/distance criteria is met. Any route that goes off major routes onto unclassified in the middle of a journey should be treated as suspect. If you are doing 30K a year (as I used to) you will 'know' the best routes to get you from A(ish) to B(ish) for all but that last few miles - turn it on then!

I agree there could be more flexibility in their routing choices and for the UK roads split into Motorway, A roads, B roads and unclassified. The manufacturers need to know the speed of the roads to work out timings but us users would like a bit more control. The option to ignore unclassified until the end of a route would solve most of the issues expressed here. The shame is that early TomTom navigator releases had a feature that would have avoided this by allowing the user to determine speeds for different categories of road. It was removed because "there was no demand for it / too difficult for users" according to marketing.
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Phil

[Skippy]

I don't believe it's necessarily a Navteq problem either. Surely Garmin set the speed for the unclassified roads, so all they need to do is change the unclassified roads from 60 MPH to 20 MPH and the routing algorithm will automatically treat them correctly.

Maybe there's a lot more to it than this, or maybe other countries don't have the problem so Garmin can't be bothered fixing it. Either way, it's giving Garmin and Sat Nav systems in general a bad name (driver gets stuck in country lane following sat nav directions etc).

Yeah, it's only an aid to navigation and it DOES get it right at least 90% of the time so you start to trust it. Then it pulls some stupid stunt and sends you up the lanes. For cars and bikes it's mostly just a bit of a nuisance but sometimes it can be downright dangerous. :x

I'm a long time Garmin fan but I'm not buying another one until they fix this problem. Come on guys, sort your act out - this problem has been ongoing for years now...
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Gone fishing!

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