Cobra Electronics 7700 PRO GPS

Soo!! I have the blu- tooth Cobra cb in dash and want to mount unit (7750) in visor dash 1 1/2 ft away ok!?

 

After using my 7700 daily for more than 6 months, I've come to the conclusion that the GPS's on the market today were designed with the goal of "just enter the address info and I'll show you how to get there first time, every time." With that goal in mind, the software was written to choose the route for you and the user has very little ability to change the route the machine chooses. (Big mistake, by the way.)

This would be fine, and even desireable... if it actually worked. The technology is certainly there to achieve this goal and accurately select the best route; afterall, the 7700 works using the data it has. The problem is the very poor road database the machine has to use to make its decisions. The database is FULL of bugs and errors, as we've all discovered. For some simple examples, it's impossible to plot a course on I-10 through Lake Charles, LA because the database thinks the main bridge isn't rated for 80,000 lbs. Same thing for I-70 bridge across the Ohio/West Virginia state line. Because the 7700 has to use bad data, it plots a course that can be as much as 100 miles out of route in order to bypass the supposed problem and there is nothing you can do to plot a course over those bridges.

Another problem is that many pickup and delivery points are located on roads that were never rated to handled heavy truck traffic. You know the ones. They have narrow shoulders, no turning room at intersections, the road is beaten to pieces, etc. Most times communities don't upgrade the road infrastructure to the new warehouse a company has built. We have one terminal in the middle of a residential area that requires (obviously) driving through that area on roads never designed to handle that traffic in order to reach it. When I program the address in the 7700, it errors out with "Route calculation failure" and refuses to plot a course to that terminal because of the road weight ratings. As a result, the 7700 is useless in any run that ends at that terminal. And I can't set a new destination to leave that terminal for the same reasons, "Route calculation error", because the starting point is in this area. So, I'm forced to leave the terminal first and find a place to park before the machine will propose a route. (Brian, this needs to be fixed, since pickups and deliveries have to be made under these conditions.)

Finally, many locations are brand new, such as the many new Wal-Mart distribution centers that have popped up. Many times these are so new that their locations simply haven't had time to be incorporated into the maps database. Occasionally, even Google maps, which is usually accurate within 2 years, shows an empty field on the satellite image where the new DC is now located.

Taken together, all these problems cripple the 7700.

None of these problems will go away until the database is made accurate. That should be priority #1 for Cobra. Fixing this issue is the single most important thing that would vastly improve the performance of this machine.

Secondly, the software should be modified to behave more like Google maps. Let the machine suggest a route and then let the user easily modify it to meet their needs, showing a comparison of total miles and time to travel, like Google maps does.

Making these changes would vastly improve the performance of this machine. Until then, it will continue to be a tool that can't be trusted.

 

In the meantime, until Cobra decides to get its act together and correct the problems I outlined in the previous post, here's how I'm coping with the problems we are all having.

I first select the route I want using Google maps (maps.google.com). Just enter "starting address to destination address" and it will plot a great car route for you. It will usually also offer a couple of alternative routes and compare driving time and mileage.

Then, I make sure the Google maps route is a truck route using my good, old reliable paper maps.

Once I've got the route I want, I plug the destination address into the 7700 and let it select its route. Usually it requires modification, because of all the reasons I shared in my previous post, to change the 7700's route to what I selected on Google maps. See my post on "Changing the Selected Route" on page 48 of this thread on how to do this.

Finally, once I'm happy with the route on the 7700 I tell it "go" and I know I can trust what it's telling me from that point forward because I've already reviewed, modified, and approved it. So, the 7700 is a great tool, after the route has been researched and locked in.

From that point on, the 7700 is a great tool. It tells me when I'm approaching important intersections when it's late at night and you can't see the crossroad signs (if they're even there). It tells me about approaching turns in plenty of time, it tells me that I'm on the correct route when route signs aren't posted (very reassuring), etc.

It's a great tool after a good route has been selected, but it can't be trusted blindly before I do the legwork first. If you do trust it blindly, it will take you "over the river and through the woods" and leave you in the lurch as so many of us have discovered.

Hope this helps (and I hope Cobra will use these posts to get their machine(s) fixed and turn them into the tools that they could be).

 

Try and get to Parsons WV with a 72ft truck. You can't according to the 7700. The length restriction in the data base is 70.

I never saw any signs on the road.

I was going to Kingsford charcoal.

 

Not knowing my way around I changed over to a 6000lb van. It wanted me to go a way different way than the company instructions. Once I got the trip programmed I switched back over to a 80K truck 13'6 102" wide and 72ft long.