Garmin 660 pro trucker?

He's probably downloaded a bunch of poi's for truckers onto it. Considering their base routing is flawed and was designed by some idiot who couldn't think beyond the edge of his undeserved desk, it's probably a ripoff.

 

I just went check his ebay ad out. Apparently, he downloaded a bunch of free POIs from the Internet into refurbished Garmin 660s and now is trying to sell those devices as being trucking specific. The problem with most of those free POI downloads from the Internet is the majority of them are incorrect.

As for as his truck routing goes, he correctly states that Garmin leases their truck specific routing algorithm from Alk Technologies, the makers of the PC Miler 430, which is junk, just read all the reviews, and then he says he uses the Navteq routing instead, which he says is a lot better, and I agree.

With the Navteq routing, you can set it to take only major roads and most of the time it will take only major roads that are okay for trucks. I do the same thing with Streets & Trips, which also uses Navteq maps and routing which I also set to take only major roads and most of the time it's okay for trucks.

However, let's get this straight, it is not true truck routing. It is pseudo truck routing and you still need to verify your routes are restricted route and low clearance free beforehand, unless you like playing Russian Roulette with your trucking career.

Man the number of posts I read on this forum and other forums like this one where drivers blindly trust and follow their supposed trucking specific routing GPS device into restricted routes or to a low overhead is mind boggling. I never drive a route unless I first closely review it to make sure there are no surprises and also check it for restricted routes and low clearances, and this is another reason why I like the large panoramic maps you get with Streets & Trips.

Another thing I always do is turn off automatic rerouting because if there is no true truck routing available, then again you are playing Russian Roulette with your driving career by blindly following a device, which is something I absolutely refuse to do because after all I am the captain of my ship.

Thus, anyone can do the same thing this guy is doing for a fraction of what he is charging. Just buy a refurbished Garmin 660, set it to route on major roads and download and install a ton of freebie POIs off the Internet that are never close to being accurate.

 

Another thing I thought was hilarious with that ebay ad was all of those screen shots showing low clearance warnings. Uhm...if his so-called truck specific Garmin 660 is so good, then why the hell are all those low clearance warnings popping up? If the device was doing its job as advertised, there would be no need for those low clearance warnings to be popping up to begin with. I mean the trick is not to route down roads that contain low clearances to begin with.

And what good does it do to download and install low clearance warnings in any event? First of all, most of them will inevitably be inaccurate, so you can't trust them in any event. Not to mention that I never pass under any overhead obstruction unless I read the sign first and make sure it is high enough beforehand, and if I am on a road containing a low clearance that isn't high enough to accommodate my truck anyway, it automatically means that I failed to do my job.

Hence, the last thing I would want to happen is for me to be going down a road and to see one of those low clearance warnings popping up and it wouldn't matter in any event as the only thing I will trust will be the actual low clearance signs itself in any event.

 

Yeah, the gps would have to avoid turning down the road with the low clearance in the first place to be effective. Those poi's do not change the routing.

 

I have a 465t and it's got some problems. They now have highways marked as no trucks allowed in places and it cannot route you around them properly. If you get off on the restricted route it will drop the routing, then pop up a full screen warning about it that covers the map. If you hit ok it pops up another one, covering the map again. It just renders itself completely useless.

It also has no problem routing you through a cemetery that it knows is a cemetery. Garmin apparently has no respect for the dead.

I'm waiting to see if the rand macnally one that's coming out is any better.

 

That is not as far fetched as it sounds. Streets & Trips 2010, which I just downloaded from Microsoft's website, now exports to Garmin and other GPS devices capable of handling gpx files. Thus, you will now be able to plan all your trips in Streets & Trips.

In the past, many people planned their trips in Garmin's Mapsource product for laptops. However, the story on Garmin's Mapsource product is it is very laborious to use, hard to learn, and it just doesn't have nearly the capability that Streets & Trips does. Hence, people were still using Streets & Trips to plan their trips on, and then using several free utilities to export their routes from Streets & Trips and then convert them to gpx files so that they could be imported into Garmin gpx capable GPS devices. With the new Streets & Trips that was just released, that laborious process can now be eliminated and skipped altogether.

 

This is one of the best-written posts on trucker GPS issues I have ever read.
Thank you.
-Ted