Rand McNally intelliRoute TND 500

Man I was about to pitch this thing out the window a few minutes ago till I remembered how much it cost. It is so infuriating to have the blasted machine revert back to your current location while your attempting to follow a route on the screen while reading directions given to you. Since it has a BACK button why would they program it to do that?

 

been working on this issue with RM in the next version...

Thanks,
Mark

 

That is another issue. To sum up the issues for me(some major some minor, all on 1472):

- Not enough warning when unit is unplugged, turns off within a few seconds after warning
- Auto dim takes far too long to dim at night when you turn the unit on
- Details when zoomed out are very bad, just state outlines when you have the multi-state zoom, single state doesn't even paint all of the interstates, you have to zoom way too far in just to see surface streets. This makes it very difficult to plan trips.
- needs more steps during zoom
- volume needs more steps as well, 100% volume is heavily distorted
- screen is too bright during the night

- absolutely need to improve multi-stop, it is essentially useless. All it does is "reload" the next stop after you arrive. It does not show you the routing or miles before that. There's no way to modify or even see routing after your first stop. I don't know why they even bothered.
- I find in Canada the resolution is even worse, you have to zoom way in just to find highway indicators. I mean wayyyyy in (1 mile).

- Mileage to destination can be wildly inaccurate until you start moving. One time it said 7 miles when I was 170 away. This can cause many problems if you don't know about it. This absolutely needs to be fixed ASAP. Waiting a few minutes does not fix this.
- Routing in every single Canadian city I've been in has been terrible. Routed me through Winnipeg downtown, routed me around the south side of Regina, and routed me way around Edmonton, almost doubling my miles.

- Sometimes it takes too long to recalculate
- If you drive under a ghost low bridge, screen will freeze but she will still be talking giving directions
- Same thing will happen if the road is a ways from where the GPS thinks it is

- When you're looking at the map, the unit will go back to your current location automatically within a few seconds. This can be extremely aggravating
- Screen can be jittery, if you click on a spot it will go there, instantly flash back to where it was, then finally settle back to where you clicked.
- Sometimes you click buttons and get the sound, but the unit does nothing. This happens randomly.

- Speed limit problem as indicated before, but this is not an essential feature.
- It seems as though weigh scales on the opposite side of a 2 lane highway(say you're going east and the scale is on the north side of the highway) does not trigger a "weigh scale alert".

- There's no way to have your current speed and your ETA on the screen at the same time.
- Unit seems to have some sort of "cheater routing" past a few turns, the indicator just gives a general trail of where it wants you to go, doesn't follow the road at all. Say the road meanders up and down, it will just paint a line absolutely straight across.
- Unit is way too optimistic for ETA on interstates, seems to use a speed well above the speed limit
- Unit is way too pessimistic for ETA in Canada and on non-primary routes. It can add an hour or more per day.

What happened in Regina, SK is there is a ghost low bridge on Ring Road on the north side somewhere west of Mcdonald Ave. Just before Ring Road connects to Hwy 11. Unit routed me around the south side of Regina for no reason, and when I went the north side it gave me warnings about low clearance, but wouldn't say where or what it was, and wouldn't give me alternatives. Then the screen froze but she kept talking.

In Edmonton, AB I was at the Flying J in Broadmoor(north east side). My drop was just northeast of where the whitemud and Hwy 2 meet. The unit routed me west on 16 all the way to 170th, down south from there, and zig zag to my destination. The obvious route was West on 16 to 216 south, then west on the whitemud. One light vs. about 20 the other way, all freeway vs. many lights, and slower speed limits. Why in the heck would I go to 170th?

I've found this GPS to be extremely aggravating and a waste of time. I find I'm looking at the MCRA and streets and trips a lot more now. I never used to with the old Garmin 150 I have. There's almost no possible way to modify routing and to find out the total miles for multi-stop trips. Running in rural Canada on the non-primary highways this is essential, because you need to know how far you can go with your current fuel amount.

RM needs to fix these items very fast, as even the cheap GPS' do these things a lot better. I feel as though they didn't listen to the beta testers, or they released the GPS far too early. There's too many flaws. The lack of proper via points and lack of enough detail zoomed out(anything more than 1 mile setting) are severe drawbacks for me - enough that I am probably going to return it if these are not fixed ASAP. If I cannot modify the routing, yet the routing sucks, what's the point of having a GPS ? Especially when the routing on my old Garmin 150 is far superior, even in Canada!

There are a few items I do like about this unit, like how the menus are smooth and well placed. Other items include the search feature, which is absolutely fantastic, and the address book is very well thought out. POI's are just about perfect, especially the search feature. Other positives are the hardware is incredibly tough and adjustable. Won't fall off your window I guarantee! Free updates (and often updates) are another very good positive.

 

Is yours really too bright? Mine's too dim, dimmer than the gauges, and dimmer than the 465t. Not enough to be unreadable, but enough to look odd compared to everything else on the dash.

From Scott City, Mo to Marquan, Mo the 465t routed me up 55, across 51 and A directly to it for a 48 mile trip. The TND routed me south on 55, west on 63, north on 23, and back east on A to come in the other side for a total of 147 miles. The TND insisted I turn around and follow its much longer route for 20 miles before switching to match the 465t for the remainder of the trip. There were no restrictions in the way this time.

There's also a very large delay when trying to click the map to scroll around and see where I am. The screen freezes after the second click but it will log all clicks. This results in the screen being locked for 20-30 seconds and then jumping all over the place. Then you have no idea where you're looking at due to total lack of detail and you have to start over.

 

Based upon consumers and the Beta Testers, RM is working hard to make this TND close to what the professional driver wants in the way of a Navigation Device.

 

Thanks as always,
Mark

 

Do they not realize that on many 2 lane highways you are required to enter the scale even if it's on the other side?

Great thread. Really been thinking about getting one of these but it seems it will be a long time before it's worth the cost. Many thanks to the guinea pigs

 

I have been using this unit since November. I would agree there are many things that need to be changed, updated, fixed etc but I love the unit. It has gotten me out of a couple tight spots. I of course had to use common sense as well as the GPS but it was invaluable. I made a wrong turn in a snowstorm because a road was closed and ended up on some back country roads. Let me tell you I was grateful to have something in the truck that I used as another tool to get me back to where I should have been.

How many other manufactures are providing support via threads like this? You have to keep in mind that this is really a "support thread" so you are going to see lots up complaints and issues brought up. Yes we do get to debug some items but our input is also being used to develop features. In my opinion time and money well spent.

Thanks,
Steve

 

Yeah, Rand seems to be doing a great job of communicating and working on the issues. In the future I see myself getting one of these.

For now though, my nuvi 250 does a fine job of letting me know where I am. I'm just saying that fit doesn't seem they have gotten to where it's worth the extra few hundred dollars. I did mean it when I said thanks to those who are using it and providing the feedback. With NY, and I'm sure others, looking to only allow truck specific gps's in commercial vehicles I will either need to get one or go without the convenience of a gps soon enough.

 

Yeah, I adjusted the brightness but it does not affect the night setting, daytime only.

I just noticed that mileage bug this morning, showed 5 miles on a 52 mile trip until I started moving. Never saw it do that before but not a big deal.

I leave the unit on because powering it down and back up is annoying with the legal warning that I could care less about and the sleep bugs. It was sitting on over the weekend and was locked up this morning. Restarted fine.

As far as acquiring satellites, I noticed that a while back. It's odd that the 465t does not have to reacquire satellites when coming out of sleep mode, where the TND does. The 465t just pops back on like it was never off, no annoying as hell legal warning, no looking for satellites, no recalculating the entire route again, it's just ready to go.