Suppport Thread for the TND 500, TND 700 or future Rand McNally products.

actually yes it is. very different. i wanna see you use that garmin and navigate new york. or new jersey. as its been stated many times before on here a gps is a TOOL. same as your MAP. here is what i do. program the unit. then if i know its not doing something right i make my own decisions. if you blindly follow a gps then you should not be in a truck to begin with. If you cant look at a street and say "hey my truck will not fit down there" then stop the truck. shut it off. hand the keys to someone else and walk away. please.

my unit has served me very well in navigating a area that im unfamiliar with. ive had to go different routes then it suggested but hey that happens all the time. its also saved me alot of times when my directions from my dispatcher and from the consignee were all messed up since they thought i was coming in a different way.

its a tool. nothing more nothing less. use it as one. use your laptop, google maps, gps, map, local directions, the phone. all tools. use them. nothing is perfect. but with all of the above tools you should be able to get where u are going.

 

Good Morning Mark,

I finally got back in & got a chance to get on line.You may want to have your team begin doing some investigations in regards to the mapping here in NC. Here is what I found.

Using the TND 700, On US route 74, about 30 miles east of Monro NC untill roughly 20 miles west of Wilmington, NC, The map is definately out of date, no questions about it. IT apears to be following the OLD US 74 (Now 74 Alt) instead of the relatively new (about 6 years old) new US /I 74 corridor. Also, the speed zones are way out of date. However, at the same time, using the garmin Nuvi 550, a tom tom, both were were accurate (both of these units are roughly 3 - 5 years old with no mapping updates installed.

Also, the construction info along the I 10 in LA (Paticularly in and around Batton rouge area. diffinately out of date. Also Scale information in LA, MS, & TX. SOme Missing, others not where they say they are.

Will keep you up to date as I find them. Thanks

 

Okay,
My hammer is tool it drives nails and pulls nails.
If it fails either of its tasks it would be useless to a carpenter.

When a gps sends you down the wrong road, say a trailer park, and google sends you down the correct route the tool is useless

When I have to send it back to the manufacture twice since April I question the reliability of the unit.

1300 posts here, how many calls to tech support?

How many people just believe that GPS units lie, and they live with that.

I believe that Rand will improve the unit but at who's cost?

They are already talking about charging for updated maps, but will that provide better routing and faster recalculation?

 

every gps manufacturer charges for map updates. show me one that doesnt. tomtom does. in fact it tells me to buy a new map every time i plug it into my computer. im sure garmin does. im sure all the others do to. it cost money to keep stuff like this up and running. if they have to pay for the map updates they need to recoup some of the cost so they charge us. i dont think 50 bucks a year is gonna break anyone. im not sure the cost but i think that is about what tomtom is charging now. i will gladly pay to keep my unit up and running. its made me more then the $500 i paid for it so its doing its job. i buy a new road atlas when one comes out. i buy a new truckstop guide when one comes out. same principal applies here. all of them r updates and you have to buy them to get them. u wouldn't use a map from 2000 to navigate in 2011 would you? no youd buy a new atlas so it has all the latest roads and interstates.

 

Problem is that the maps on it have errors on them that are 6-7 years old at least. There's no guarantee that the new new maps that we have to buy are going to be any more accurate. And there's really nothing rand can say about that since they do not make the maps.

Yes, there's some of the same problems on other units, but not the same hardware issues. Neither one of my other two gps units freeze up or lag behind like the tnd does, and has since I got it. They're running side by side, so what's the problem?

 

ill agree on the lag issues. i have found turning off the poi helps. but im sure the algorithms for the routing could be improved. coding can always be improved.

one thing i have found with gps units is why do they have to recalculate the ENTIRE route if u miss a turn? why cant they just route back to the original route as fast as possible?

i honestly think having a car feature on the unit is a waste of space. its a truck unit, no need to have car anything on it. if u need a car unit buy a car unit.

maybe adding more ram to the unit would help

 

Just what I thought, a 99 dollar wallmart unit thats 4 years old actually has current maps, but the 400 dollar truck specific unit cant find a road to save its reputation...hmmmm well rand you have been out performed once again.

 

will removing French/Spanish voices and vehicle icons speed up the reaction time of the unit. Tnd 500/t5e;latest updates installed. Thanks.

 

6 months ago I couldn't even spell GPS and now I need to know about Ram, alpha/beta, and how often microsoft updates my computer?
GTF outa here! Yer kidding right? When my computer doesn't work properly they fix it or I buy a new one. I can't believe that Rand fielded the TND expecting us to field test it for them with a smile on our faces.
The TND I had was cute but couldn't navigate from Phoenix, AZ to Kingman, AZ. without routing me through CALIFORNIA!

It's the SIMPLE things that matter to to truckers!
1. Keep me out from under overpasses that I can't fit under.
2. Keep me off of load-zoned roads I shouldn't be on.
3. Recalculate QUICK when I miss or choose not to make a turn.

All the rest of the things the TND does are NOT why any of us bought a gps in the 1st.place.

In all fairness to the guys at Rand and dieselboss, their customer service is FANTASTIC!

Problem is that they are kickin' a dead horse!
For appx. 12,000 miles mounted side-by-side, my nuvi-1200 blew the TND-500 outa the water when it came to simple x-country navigation. How in the worl could I trust the TND to navigate me across Chicago, LA, NYC, or anywhere else?

I don't know if any of the other "truck specific" units are any better than the TND, but at twice the price of a basic car model from walmart, they ain't worth the cost and If Rand want's me to fieldtest one for em,,,they need to give me one for free.

Don't know if this post will be allowed to stand but that's what I think.
Needs more RAM? Yea-right. It needs something alright!

As Forest Gump said,,,"That's all I have to say about that".

 

In many ways, YES! Rand does need to go back to the drawnig board on many things & begin to take to note what other units are able to do out there in comparison to what their (500 & 700) units can do.

There has been many many MANY times, the TND 700 routed me through retricted to trucks through communities, while if it had just stayed straight on one of its other roads, I would have been fine. The thing is failing to see if it matches a hazmat or non hazmat load, the direction of travel (as in some areas, its ok to travel in one direction with a big truck, but not another)

Some of the so called updates it stated that it did, never happend. were they important? some yes, others No. In my opinion, Stop with all of the Eye candy & treats, and focus the attention on the more important things, like directions, the ability to actually move or slide the route to the way one wishes to go, (Much like what Google maps does) the updated & CURRENT truck & weight restrictions & directions; If there is a dangerous curve ahead, GIVE US A #### WARNING Ahead of time.Curves that are on the interstate in places like louisville, ky, NJ, Cincinattie, Chicago, and many other major metropolitan areas where they have curves so sharp, a big truck better be already down to 25 or 15mph BEFORE they get to it or they are screwed & laying on their side, wodering as to how they go that way; a quick to get to manual emergentcy re-route do to a road closure or road block due to an accident etc; Traffic conditions ahead; The ability to add an external speaker so one can actually hear whats being said instead of having to turn everything down just to hear the darn thing.

The 700 has many features that are turned off on the back side, make these features available at the owners discression. With it's high price, the owners should have the privledge to decide as to what's wanted & what is not.

While its nice to have things that sing & dance, lets keep the focus on just what these GPSes are for.