Garmin GPS truck routing

I have a garmin in my truck it is a great tool to have but you have to double-check it.It is really useful in setting my eta and navigating in traffic it is also good when there are no street signs.Companies don't like them because they will show you in a minute how bad the company is shorting you on actual miles.There is a program for laptops that is truck specific It is called copilot 10 but it is not cheap but it should be tax deductible.

 

It's interesting to read this thread because to the best of my knowledge no unit sold here in Australia has a truck-specific programme setting. We have many brands over here, like Navman, Garmin, Tom Tom etc, but they are all basically designed for car use, and we truck drivers have to make do with the same units, which don't list specific truck routes, truck stops, low bridges, etc. There is always talk of one coming onto the market, but I've never seen one or know anyone who has seen one yet.

 

I have a Garmin 276C in my truck.

The 276C is a marine unit, but it's small enough and has battery power so I can put it in my pocket.

The disadvantage of a unit like this is it doesn't come with software other than a very basic base map. You have to purchase what you want from Garmin/Mapsource.

The advantage is, you can put about whatever you want in it. I used to fish tournaments quite a bit and still fish a lot. I have Inland Lakes maps that gives me topo maps of about every lake east of the Mississippi. It's real handy on lakes like Okeechobee. The first trip I had it on we ran about 10 miles from the ramp to a mustard can tied to a clump of grass that we were aiming for. The trick was, it was so foggy you couldn't see the bow of the boat much less have driven there any other way.

I've also got topo maps in it for hunting and the like.

Road wise, I've got a now discontinued program that was called Street Maps in it. The new one is city Navigator. It works real well for my job that requires finding residences. It's got streets on it that paper maps would never list.

I've never noticed it having anything on it about restricted routes or low clearances and the like. Someone probably make a program for that, not sure.

Mine's got a 512 mb card in it and it holds the road maps from Southern Ohio to below Clewiston, Fla, East to the coast across Virginia, W Va. West to Alabama, Miss, all of Kentucky and Tennessee, and all of Eastern Kentucky and most of East Tennessee, some of Western NC topo maps.

My wife has one of the car versions, and while her street maps are pretty much as good as mine, hers is more of a cartoon looking thing. Mine is pretty simple and looks like a map with a pointer on it.

To give an idea of how good it is, last year I met a guy 5 miles down a gravel road on the Ocmulgee River in Ga. The unit had every turn on it for that pig path of a road and even listed the hunting camp I was headed to.

GPSNow.com is the best online retailer I've dealt with. I bought the unit from them and have returned a few times to buy new software updates, and a new battery.

One issue with a GPS is if you ever get into an accident, the darn thing will have recorded your exact speed at the time of the wreck. It would be a good idea with any GPS to make it inoperable or loose it in the shuffle so some lawyer doesn't get ahold of it.

Skipper

 

Some garmins do, some don't. I know that some, possibly all of the nuvi models don't. There is information about this at the garmin site, but I don't think we can post links to it, so I am not going to take the risk.

I have a nuvi200, and it doesn't have truck routes.

 

Garmin devices that allow you to select a truck do the same thing as selecting faster time on all other units. They do not actually contain any information regarding weight limits, clearance, haz mat, etc. The only thing it does is route you on the highway whenever at all possible.
With that being said, they have released a new model of Nuvi that does contain information from NTTS for the lower 48 states. The name of the model is the Nuvi 465T. I have not been able to find it from a dealer yet but it should be available anytime now because it was realesed about two weeks ago. The link below is where I found information about it on Garmins website.

 

I can't see the link.

 

Sorry but I guess this forum does not allow posting of links. Just go to Garmins website and select "on the road" then select trucking.

 

You can go to the gps store com and put that part number in the search and it will come up

 

I have a Garmin 650, Truck feature is not to be relied on! I use it as a guide! I still get maps from my company, I dont even tell them I have it! So if I go there way and something happens, I can sy you guys told me to go that way! They do have some Gps's out there for Tractor trailers..not cheap though!