QUALCOMM***

Yes.

But I prefer my RM 510.

 

Yes, it has navigation, and they recommend that you use their navigation and their routing. When you are dispatched it will load the fuel stops as well as the final destination, so on long hauls you plug in the next stop.

My experience with their navigation system has been less than perfect. Several times over the last couple of months it will lose communication, sometimes at critical points.

The voice instructions don't always jive with the visual map display. For example the map will show you go straight and the voice command will say turn left, with the voice still on the last turn or looking to the next turn. You really need to stay on your toes with this system.

It also does not let you know which lane or lanes you need to be in as you approach freeway interchanges, which is something I miss from my last nav system.

Beware of asking it to reroute if you take a rest stop at a truck stop along the way. If you aren't paying attention it will route you past the turn to get on the freeway and have you meander around residential neighborhoods with impossible turns to get back to where you started.

It will sometimes route you to a customer address to a spot which is difficult to impossible to enter for a truck. I almost always use Google Maps and Street View to double check customer addresses to make sure I'm being routed to the truck entrance.

Most recently it routed me on a road through a national park, which was restricted. I had to make several calls and send several messages to get permission to go on a different route that was legal.

Don't trust the navigation system. You have to use it, but stay on your toes with your Rand McNally maps, Google Maps and Street View, and general good sense of direction.

 

It aint perfect .
That's why you use OTHER tools ( maps , route sent , mac 23 ( ? ) written directions .
That one is very useful as it will have instructions on where the gate is and mite even
have feedback from other drivers .

 

it was my experience that most of the time it could be trusted. but i still write down directions as a backup. also, use common sense as well.

 

I dont have too many issues but once in awhile I do

When im sent a preplan I always load up both destinations on my Google maps and check it out

 

Long time back we had a driver from my terminal follow the GPS exactly the way that it said. He had a accident. If he would have also used MAC 23 then the directions would have had him come in a different way to the customer and he would have not been in that situation. I had a student one time that I told do not follow the GPS into a customer. There are signs directing him to the docks. What did he do, follow the GPS and got into a situation which I made him get out of. On the way out, I pointed to the sign, and he actually said that he did not see it. Large white sign, 4x5 foot. For the most part, it is a good tool. One thing that I recommend, when you get the route, hit preview and look at it and compare to your atlas. The one thing wrong with the GPS, it does not update that much, and new detours, it will not know

 

I've found that the Qualcom GPS directions frequently know the "secret" way into a customer that simply putting the address into my Garmin does not provide.

That said I trust the Qualcom's GPS about as far as I can throw my loaded truck & trailer. The maps are seriously out of date and the Qualcom shuts down far too often or just quits, frequently when you need it most.

Because of my Ironbutt (Google it) experience I like to run 2 GPS units at the same time. I compare the Qualcom's directions to my Garmin and the decide which to follow. More than 75% of the time they match, but when they do not I figure out why and adjust according. Most of the time I leave the Qualcom in the "follow me" mode so I can tell at a glance which way I'm headed and have a big digital speedo to glance at.

 

One point and something that I almost found out the hard way, many times the GPS has the correct customer to go to, where MAC 23 does not. We have a lot of customers that have moved and MAC 23 has not been updated. Had one a few months ago, MAC 23 had them one place, and they had moved 7 miles. Found out that they moved almost 7 years ago. We also have drivers that will not use the GPS, look at the load, MAC 23, and take off, only to find, customer no longer there. Have to admit, the GPS is a lot better since the upgrade, with truck stops in the location search, scales, hotels, and the fact that now along with street name to turn on, also the route number.