GARMIN - We want your advice and feedback!

How about selling replacement power cords from your website or actually put OE ones in the retail stores you recommend.

Mine burnt up and I have bought 3 now trying to find one that will just charge the unit and not cause it to try and download info because it thinks its connected to a computer.

 

This one would be great. I have a 560lmt which is smart enough to show me the truck speed limit for the road I'm on when I'm in truck mode. But it isn't smart enough to use that truck speed limit when calculating ETA. That's a flaw IMO.

It should calculate ETA based on truck speed limits when in truck mode AND it should also give the user the option to make it calculate ETA based on a default highway speed of the users own choosing. This would allow for better results in trucks that are governed at oddball speeds like 63mph or 57mph.

 

I started with a nuvi-1200 & loved it! Decided to buy the rand TND-500 & hated it! Wen't back to the 1200 til the voice-box quit. (still tracks good tho) Bought the 465-T and it wasn't much better than the TND. Sold that & I bought the nuvi-1300. Like it so much I bought another for a spare. (NIB still)

Only two things I'd add to the 1300 is another dashboard screen that would track mileages seperate from the dashboard already there that I use daily for my logbook info. ie; daily & monthly mileages,averages,etc. 2 identical screens for seperate data.

Also I'd like an "avoidencances" that lets me tell it to track on interstates as much as possible when it computes the route, & avoid secondary roads & highways.

Other than that,,,the 1300 rocks IMHO!

 

How the heck can you use the screen name "twolane" when you want a GPS which keeps you on the big road as much as possible?

I'm the exact opposite...I'll run the 2-lanes all day long if I can, and only run the big road when there just isn't any other practical option.


But anyway....

I recently pulled into an AmBest truckstop in central Illinois and saw their sales ad....Garmin NUVI50LM for $169.99 with free lifetime map updates.

Why the hell should I pay half that to buy the map updates on my 2 year old 465T when the original purchase price of the 465T was more than twice as much?

Yeah....the outrageous cost of the updates is still buggin' me, considering what was paid for the original unit.

 

Theres no answering a question like that in a way that you'd understand.

 

Does the dezl line have the ability to import MapSource routes?

 

What people don't know about the 465T that might solve some of the issues I've seen here:
1. On purchase, connect to the internet, register the unit and download the updated software immediately. Stops the unit from dying in the middle of a route.
2. Once in a while, let it run on batteries until it dies (keep telling it to stay on until it actually dies). Then use the power cord. Again, stops the unit from blanking out on you.
3. Maps are only as good as the information given at the time the map was purchased from the companies GPS makers buy them from. Not every area of every state is overflown by a satellite every month. I can point to a bridge near Columbus, Ohio that's been out for 3 years. Every GPS unit made will route you over that bridge if you are headed to a certain rail yard.
4. Go to http://www.poi-factory.com and download the poi files you want. I have 90% of the rest and truck parking areas in the U.S., all the pilot, t/a, flyJ, town pump, loves, bosselmans, etc., truck stops, and 95% of all the low clearance locations in the U.S. that were put together by truckers and rv'ers. hasn't failed me yet when the 465t has.
5. you can create a route on nRoute or other software on your computer/laptop and export it to your Garmin. It doesn't show up under routes, but when you click new route, there's an option to import route. It picks up the imported file every time, waypoints and all.
6. There are several ways to update NTTS and maps, some of which involve using a laptop/desktop to delete unused/unnecessary language and help files from the garmin to make room for the updates.
7. You can save updates and poi's and favorites on SD cards.
8. YOU ARE STILL THE DRIVER! Don't ever blindly follow a TOOL. That's what a GPS is.... a TOOL. Know it's limitations, and it will serve you well. Don't know the limitations, and hit a low bridge or end up at the bottom of a bridge the hard way.

All that said (and there's more, I'm not just a trucker, I have a B.S. in Computers and spent over 17 years doing tech support for Hewlitt Packard, so I read the manuals and take the time to learn what capabilities devices I use have, and what they don't.

What would I like to see? It says take an exit, and auto zooms in and out, and shows lane choice. Great. How about advance notice of the exit speed? What default truck profile is built in? Fix the exit A, exit B problem, where it says take exit A, but it's really exit B. Happens in states where A and B don't conform to the norm. Simple quality control issue, but one of those must check every one, not just a sampling.
Truck speed when it's different than car speed.
Stop using memory to learn how I drive from point A to B without telling me about it and giving me the option to turn that feature off. It uses that information to estimate how long it will take me next time I run that route. Which is useless in another truck, a car or motorcycle, or if the weather or road conditions are different. Memory could be better used.
Let me choose the average speed to use when calculating a route.
If you are going to offer bluetooth, make sure your phone compatibility list is huge. I can join mine to the phone even though it isn't on the compatibility list, but it would be nice to be able to find device drivers to enable it better.
I don't use the bluetooth feature really, because the speaker and microphone are nowhere near loud enough to carry on a conversation over the noise of the truck, unless I hold the 465 a foot from my face.
And if you have a contact name HOME on your phone, it overwrites the HOME address setting on the 465t. Not good to be routed to a phone number it is trying to read as an address.
A lot of this is left hand not talking to the right hand stuff, as far as programmers are concerned. They are told to make it do this and that in small, disconnected packages, and if 3 of them use the variable X, and the final editor doesn't pick it up or test the packages once they are consolidated, you're going to have problems when it hits the streets. Don't feel bad, Microsoft doesn't seem to care that they have the public fix their bad software. At least you are here asking, which says a lot about Garmin for allowing it.
One thing you CAN do immediately? Educate the public. While my background in the military and tech support lets me know exactly how the maps get from satellite to map to GPS unit, not everyone knows that information.
How about expaining the process on your web site, since it involves every unit you make, whether a trucker unit or a mobile TenX (which I also own).
From how often a particular place is overflown (complete with the sat-track maps), to the declassification process, to the map overlay and street naming processes, finally to the verification process, whether it's the google process of driving the roads with cameras, or tiny little nanobots that draw the restricted route flags in places that have never been restricted.
Traffic jam notification is fair, but usually the jam is gone when I get to it, so it's rarely correct within 10 minutes. Would like to see a way to pull up a weather radar map though. Subscription, like the traffic info is, so I could opt into and out of it if I want to.
Having to delete favorites in two areas to make sure they disappear is cumbersome, by the way, but given the way your unit boots and uses the temp file renaming process, I don't know of a really quick fix that would let you recover if you didn't know the back door. Ask your programmers to brainstorm it. Even given an Are You Sure button, people (including me) will still hit the wrong button once in a while, and then spend hours rebuiliding files while staring in the mirror at that bald patch that had hair a few minutes ago, lol.
I'll leave you with one last item. Border crossings only show up in Community when using the Near City option. I can't pull up Community and select border crossings if I just want to go to that crossing from where I am. I have to tell the unit what town it is near. It isn't the only option that hides unless called specifically, but for me that's annoying when I know the crossing point and I have to take 3 steps to add it to a route instead of 1.

Educated clients make happier clients. They sell YOUR PRODUCT to others for you. And, they know what you have to offer that your competitors aren't offering. CUSTOMER SERVICE!

Thanks again for asking for input.

 

I noticed the favorites show up when you're on the regular screen, but disappear when you go to the map screen to scroll around and....look at favorites. I know you can't have 300+ favs showing on the map screen all the time but you could have them show up at closer zoom levels.

Speaking of home location, there doesn't seem to be an option to delete the home location. You can set a new one but it just renames the old one home01, home02, etc. So yeah, I have "homes" scattered all over the place.

There's also quite a few random places where the exit or turn is coming up and the unit is showing left but says right, or vice versa. She also says the distance in meters every once in a great while and only once but I have it set to the british sounding voice so it kinda makes sense. I think she's just messing with me.