GARMIN - We want your advice and feedback!

On routing, it seems to be a little oversensitive where part of the road is restricted but you're turning off that road before it becomes restricted. Most of the time it just shows the signs past where you turn but sometimes it will try to avoid the entire road. That's not so bad, but to get away from that road, it'll try to route you down every other road in the area that really is restricted. And it knows they are cause that unavoidable restrictions warning pops up.

An option to route by via points would help. Like points that we can set that auto cancel themselves when we get within a certain distance from them and it moves to the next point. That way we can set a multipoint route that just takes us down the roads we want to go down and avoid it trying to route us 100 miles around because the interstate is technically a little faster.

 

Automatically saved locations are usually caused by the operator tapping the screen...directly on the "car, truck, arrow, etc" indicator. Took me awhile to realize what was causing this issue with mine.

My unit is an older unit, so ignore anything that may not apply.

Suggestions.....

Multiple way points.

Sort by distance or state, when looking up a city name. Don't simply throw a list that has ZERO appearance of having organization.

To emphasize this... if there are two towns with the same name within the same state. They should be on the SAME page of the scroll down list. Not one on one page, then another 5 pages down.

Having the ability to turn off/on Federal parkways, would be nice. I use my GPS in my personal vehicle sometimes. Default being OFF of course.

Having the ability to turn OFF unmaintained (aka dirt roads) would be very nice. I still want to see them....I may actually need to use one.

Updates are nice. But unlike the other drivers, I find anything more than 2 years old irrelevant. And most updates are outdated 6 months or more before you release them.

You can blame this on "new" construction if you want. But I know better. Naming the street I'm looking for "Road" is of no use to me. Especially since that "road" has been in it's current location for 5-8 years.

Make it "smarter". Defining short route versus fastest route is not rocket science. I hate when they are the same....when I know they aren't.

BTW... while I have not purchased a "DEZL" yet. I do want to thank you guys for providing such a good "Truck Stop" list. That single item sold me on it.

 

I also have a 465T and have experienced many of the issues described by others.

Bad data for restricted routes prevents best routing. As already noted repeated warnings for restricted routes can prevent a driver from using the device for what it was intended. This is compounded by overlapping bad restricted routes. Rock Quarries are not located on restricted routes, only a few state highways are restricted. Most are bridges not the highway itself that is restricted, there is no distinction between the 2, the road is simply marked restricted. Most of those old bridges have been replaced because of the new standards in place and Federal money.

Scale locations are not accurate, some are due to moved locations but these moves were completed years and YEARS ago!

When I chose a destination and start the route and I alter it with my own, "recalculating" it will many times (for many miles) attempt to route me back to my point of origin instead of calculating a new route from it's current location. I would often have to delete the destination and reload it to force it to recalculate accurately.

I have now gotten to the point where I plug in my destination but wait until I have gotten close to my destination to start navigation to avoid false warnings and bad routing. I have also found that about 10% of the time it tells you to look on the wrong side of the street for your destination (never figured out why)

Recommending right turns with a long load profile is common in town with very tight corners, sometimes with a power pole right on the corner! Yikes! A simple route change to provide a left turn in these situations would be huge (or 3 left turns). (I am talking about signaled intersections off highways, not side/residential streets, with easy approaches from the other direction by staying on the freeway 1 exit farther)

My Garmin mantra is "You gotta be smarter than the GPS!"

On the plus side it has correctly routed me out of some unknown areas very well, seems to work much better in California & Washington than Oregon. (Whoever did the NW Oregon mapping was on drugs!) And in Fog or Snow even Rain with limited visibility it is a life saver to be able to see the street names. A valuable tool.

In some situations there are multiple turns available and it will be telling you to turn, in these situations you can't just listen to the unit you have to also be actively tracking your location on the map or you will make the wrong turn. For these situations the unit should announce to make the SECOND turn. I have frequently made the wrong turn (turning early) because of this issue. Ex: The unit warns your turn is approaching sometime under a mile, it then announces to turn (when it should announce turn at the second turn)(apparently triggered by distance without consideration for immediate speed or multiple turns)

It seems that there should be some method for feedback from users so these issues can be resolved, multiple updates have not addressed any of them (only added new streets). I realize there may be some kind of contractual issues here as Garmin doesn't make the maps, they are purchased from another entity. That contract should be changed to force the updates that get reported to feedback be implemented. The map company is not revisiting/repairing old data, only adding new streets. In that aspect I feel like I have been ripped off paying for lifetime updates and getting the same bad data over and over. When can we expect a complete revisiting of the mapping I have been getting the same bad data for three years, some of the data is in error for over 10 years! Will my unit's "lifetime" expire?

Now playing Joe Bonamassa - I Don't Live Anywhere "The Road is my Home"

 

I would love to be able to program a GPS from my office that is in a truck 200 miles away.
It should if at all possible not require. input from the GPS side.
Something like a remote log in.

 

You cheap..........

Buy a couple of laptops....and a GPS program, plus wireless. Then have at it hero.

Be sure you set yourself up to access the other PC remotely.

Makes me wonder if the person on the other end, would even understand what was programmed if you feel the need for this kind of access.

 

I operate trucks in Africa in an area larger than the US.
At least 50 different languages and cultures.
There are reasons that may be apparent from your perspective.
It would be a great help if I was able to program remotely.

 

Hi Jon,
I've been using a Dezl 560LMT for several months now. I'm pretty happy with it overall but there are a few things I'd like to see.

The ability to put compass headings somewhere on the map screen would be nice. I like to know what direction I'm going.

The ability to set and forget zoom level would also be nice. I've owned previous Garmin models where the zoom could be set to automatic or you could set it to a specific value and it stay there. On the 560 as far as I can tell, it resets to automatic zoom whenever you power off. That's annoying. I want the zoom to stay where I put it and remember it.

A couple of things on the logbook. It doesn't seem to know about the 16 hour exception rule. I sometimes make use of this rule and its annoying for the GPS to keep telling me I violated HOS rules when I didn't.

Also the ability to edit log entries would be nice. Every once in a while, I'll forget to set my profile to 'off duty' at the end of the day. So the next morning, the GPS thinks I've been on duty not driving since the night before or all weekend depending on the day. So for that whole day, the GPS throws up HOS violation tags because it thinks I'm driving beyond 14 hours on duty there is no way to go back and fix it.

Love the unit otherwise, but those things I'd like to see fixed.

 

I operate in the real world.....where it takes money.

And they do have something to help you do this. It's called QualComm.

Dunno if you can get it in such a large place as Africa. But my bet is, NO U.S. company (outside of QualComm) is going to design a stand alone GPS system for you and your drivers.

 

I have a 465T. Been using it for close to two years now. I have a few issues with it.

Warning popups when going donw a restricted road. I dont need 20 of them poping up that I gota spend 10 secounds pushing ignore to see the map. Generaly driving in these area's is already hard enough, lets not make it harder.

Truck speed limit. In several states the speed limit for trucks is lower then the limit for cars. This is a truck GPS, it should show truck speeds in these area's. (I think this also might help in route planning when going over long distances.)

Display changes. I used a tom tom before, and I loved how I could change the display on the front for the info I wanted. For instance the garmin shows your arrival time. Well this means nothing when you have a 40 hour drive ahead of you. I would much rather have milliage on there. I know its just a push away to see it, but I am lazy and dont want to. I would love it if I could decide the UI. Maybe on your site have several different types avail.

self detoured route changes, Pit stops. I dont factor in my breaks to my GPS. I just stop when I feel like it. And this causes some problems for the garmin. When I am returning to the interstate it will somtimes have me go past the interstate make a U turn and then come back and make a right onto the interstate. (granted I ignore this and just make the left when I get to it). But these erratic route changes need to be looked at.

Now I have not looked at any recent updates, but the stuff in mine reguarding truck stops is horrible. Non of the major places are listed.

Traffic. I ended up turning allow alternate route off for traffic becouse of the places it was trying to send me. some of the stuff was pretty bad. So I think the whole what route to send trucks on during traffic needs to be looked at too. Also the delay time is kinda wacky too. It shows way to little. So a more accurate delay time would be nice.