Need Help With GPS

I'm not going to say the current Garmin are the best. They all have their quirks and routing idiosyncrasies. But I am personally partial to the Garmin after having tried earlier models of the Cobra, PC Miller and 2 RM units,.. both of which went bad on me like yours did.

I started out with the Garmin 560. The plastic screen will show its age after a year or so. I now have the 570 with glass screen and its been a wonderful GPS so far. I bought it when they first came out,.. no defects to report.

Hurst

 

Garmin

Yeah they are flaky with somethings but truth is good customer service, and the product is actually designed and made by a company that makes nav units for the airlines industry and the military.

 

My 5yr old garmin560 is still going good
Itll freeze up once in a while but not very often

 

Rand McNally will stop working in AL when you leave there it will start working again the same thing with people net don't know why that is how it is

 

I guess everyone has their preferences and opinions. I have had RM GPS since they first come on the market. The very first model they come out with what seems like forever ago I use it today still in my pickup and have had no issues. They are like any electronic device you have to update them every now and then. I have bought every model RM has put out and have not had an issue with either one of them. The only reason I keep buying a different model every time they change is because I am one that has to have the latest and the greatest. I have heard several complaints from drivers about RM GPS units. I guess I just have been lucky because I have never had an issue with none of them

 

The main issue I have with RM,.. besides the freezing up and eventually bricking itself was how slow it was to first calculate any kind of route over 1000 mi,. and then if it had to recalculate for any reason during the trip it would often lock up until you reset it or keep thinking about calculating but never recover.

For short trips in your personal vehicle,.. 20 - 100 miles its perfect.

Garmin will calculate faster than any of the truck specific GPS I have tried. It will recalculate in seconds.

The only real issue I have with the Garmin is when on local routes it will sometimes choose a really dumb route that will take you out of the way. In larger cities they did not update its data base for roads that have been cleared for trucks over 10 tons. Its particularly bothersome in Chicago and will want to route you 8 - 10 miles to avoid a street it thinks is banned for trucks. Another quirk is when exiting to fuel. I've had mine recalculate and want to go back 4 - 5 mi in the same direction I came from in order to avoid going over or under a bridge to the obvious correct merge ramp. There is also a place in Oklahaoma where if you are not paying attention, it will tell you to turn up a road for about 3 - 4 miles just to have you turn around and head back to the road you just turned off of. It got me the first time. You learn very quickly not to blindly follow any of these GPS.

Hurst

 

Like this? I use my Samsung tablet and google maps. I have a trucker atlas, my phone and an old Garmin in the glove box if everything else fails. Google maps does 95% of what I need and the atlas and common sense does the rest. Been using it for the year and a half I have been driving.

 

LOL

Yes,. I have seen some craziness like that a bunch of times.

The craziest mine did to me was when in Michigan,. I was done and just did a quick city input to get me on to 94 heading back thru Chicago,.. I needed to be over in Manitowoc to pick up some crane stuff.

I happened to glance at the distance and time and it made no sense. When I zoomed out to look at the overall route,.. it was showing a route crossing over Lake Michigan. I'm guessing there is a ferry,.. thats the only logical reason I can come up with. Sort of like the Ferry route in Galveston, Tx. I killed the route and then manually set the points I wanted it to take me to as it kept wanting to send me and my truck with the fishes. I didnt think to take a picture of the route,.. but it was crazy. Suicidal GPS

Hurst

 

WHAT HE SAID..!!!

Can't tell you how many times i got screwed by my GPS. I now run 2 different brands. The Garmin Diesel (760 I think) is easier to program and the Rand seems to give me better routs a lot of the time. I first program the Garmin and ALWAYS select "routes" to see where it wants me to go. If it looks screwed up I then see what the Rand has to say.

The Garmin (About 50% of the time) gives 2 routes but the way they show them it is often really hard to see what the difference between the 2 routes is. The Rand always gives me 2 choices and makes it much easier to see the differences and those 2 routes are seldom the same as any route from the Garmin.

To be honest the best routing seems to come from the built in app on my Android phone! Almost always gives 3 different routes and very clearly shows them and the differences in the options. I just wish somebody would use that software in a dash GPS unit!