Best GPS on Roehl Truck

well for what its worth a very good friend of mine let me use his rand mcnally 710
for a few months. Its a nice unit lots of bells and whistles, but at the same time a lot of programing issues and down loading new files from rand which always seems to have a corupt file, which renders the unit useless.

I also ran a six year old garmin nuvi along side the 710, I was amazed how well the garmin did, now mind you the garmin is not a truck specific unit, but if you use the
garmin as a tool along with your fuel route that roehl gives you for each dispatch,
And your rand mcnally atlas and you will do fine.

For my money I would buy a new garmin nuvi with life time maps there on sale now at wally world for 128.00 dollars for a five inch screen

 

Get a Rand McNally, anything else is just a toy!


I've had my 700 since they first came out like 2 years ago i LOVE it.




American Trucker

 

I have had my 500 Rand McNally for over a year. Check for updates every couple of weeks if I get home. Truck related features are a big plus over using one made for a car. As childerscarl said, it is still important to check your atlas as even the truck gps can have errors in programing.

 

Hey has anyone heard if roehl is going to turn on the gps system thats in the new quallcom mcp 2000 / electronic logging unit ?

 

Heard that they are supposed to, but you know how that goes.

 

I'm not a Roehl driver.
Heck, I'm not even sure how to pronounce it.

I use the RM 510, and it has it's good and bad points.

It does not always find the best route, but it does help very much if I miss a turn.

I find it is about a 50-50 chance that the RM will give a better route than my assigned fuel route.
If it is more to my liking I will call in and request the route the RM suggests.

My biggest dislike about it is, it does not always have the correct speed limit for the road I'm on.
But then, speed limits change from time to time.
It also has some funky routing that involves u-turns, usually to a truck stop that has a left turn before the u-turn is necessary.

My biggest like about it is, it gives a pretty accurate ETA time - in the correct time zone of the delivery.

I have it set to allow 'a little more time' because I am a slow Swift. So with my speeds it gives a little more time than I actually need - on the order of 1 minute per hour. (I think I have it set to average around 60 MPH, and I usually set my cruise to 61)
It also calculates things like traffic lights and construction zones.

I can look at the ETA it provides and know almost exactly how much time I have for 10's and other breaks - once I factor in my current time zone and the one of delivery.
That alone makes it worth the price.

So far I have not had a problem with downloading updates.
And usually problems of corrupt downloaded files are the fault of the host computer - not with the server.
There may be malware present that is corrupting those files.

 

fyi roehl pronouced rail, its spelled just like like it sounds !

 

use a pc miler.... want a RM 700... the new log system has a GPS built in but it was having some issues and is being redone... supposed to roll out this spring

 

I use a RM 710 that I bought in April 2011. It's due for the major update, an $80 purchase. I'm holding off on that for now. I found out the hard way in MA, it doesn't have all the low bridges loaded in! I was able to get turned around (legally) fine. Otherwise it works fine for me. I look at the Roehl route, then the Atlas to make sure the route is good (continuity and restrictions), then set the GPS. I follow Roehls routing the best I can. I also learned to call the shipper and consignee to verify the location and best way in to their places as road conditions, recent road restrictions, gate changes and construction will alter what Roehl and the GPS will give you.

That said, it had helped me many times and helped me increase my productivity. The one thing I do not like about it is that it doesn't always know the road I'm on is truck approved and deems that is not "legal". It will then erase the route after giving a warning. It's rare, but it happens.