Suppport Thread for the TND 500, TND 700 or future Rand McNally products.

I beg to disagree. TND's computing of ETA is absolutely ridiculous. I don't know how Garmin does it but it is much more accurate without me needing to adjust it manually. It seems like it collects your average speed and takes the legal speed limit into consideration too. Looks like it goes by my average speed when I'm driving under the speed limit (IE 62mph) and if there is speed limit lower than my average speed, it goes by it assuming that I won't drive over the speed limit.
Thanks to that, my garmin 465T is right on the money right from the beginning of, say, 600 miles long trip.

After I bought the tnd700, I wanted to sell my garmin but now I see I'll hold on to it and see if any future update will make tnd better.

I like very much the ease with which I can set up multiple stop trips on my tnd700 but not being able to review the whole route at ANY TIME I WANT/NEED just kills it.

I like how precise are the locations of truck stops and addresses but if I'm making five drops I need to know how far it is from one to the next one and the one after next...
On Garmin I can see it in ONE click!!! Along with overall distance of the whole trip.

I want only one gps on my truck but so far... I have to keep two. This is ridiculous. If RN programmers can't find a way how to implement this crucial feature, I have a suggestion for Rand.
Hire an average programmer from Apple and he'll find a way during a break between TV shows.

Sorry if I got a little riled up but I spent a lot of money (for both units) and it just gets me when a brand new unit doesn't have a feature which comes standard on the much older one. I don't understand. Couldn't RN see how important it is BEFORE they released the unit??

I realize no GPS is (or ever will be) perfect and I'm not trying to say 465T is generally better than TND but in this particular case 465T beats TND hands down.

I want to like TND. I really do. It's a beautiful unit with a lot of potential. It's just not finished yet.

Sorry for long rant.

 

Another suggestion to consider.

If I need to adjust my available HOS, why can't I just push (tap) and hold the apropriate button to add or substract the time I need? Why by all saints do I need to tap each and every 0.25???? Say if I wasn't using the clocks for a while and I have, say, 13 hrs on my 70 available, I have to tap 228 times!!!!!! to bring it down to 13 and then 4 times for my 14. Fortunately no adjustments needed for my 11 in this scenario.
This is not only ridiculous and extremely frustrating. It's inexcusible! Every digital clock can do it and there is no reason why TND shouldn't be able to do it too.

 

And not only that. Say I don't like the route the unit computed for me for a particular drop. I need to correct it by adding one or more VIA(s).

Another example (very simple one): Let's say Thursday I unload in Orlando, Fl and I have a pick up in Bradenton, Fl and I'm taking it to Houston, TX where I need to be Saturday at 1730. It's walmart so they won't take me earlier.
It's around 1200 miles so I need to program in a fuel stop and/or stop for break.
Can I make it on time? How fast do I need to go to make it on time? Is there enough time so I can stop by home? How much?

I know I can also calculate quite easily all this by myself but what is the point of having sofisticated (and expensive) GPS if I'd needed to do it manually?
I'm lazy SOB. That's why I became a truck driver.
And I could also be using free Google maps on my HD2 phone with the same result.

I can hear objections that Google maps aren't made for truckers and can't avoid low bridges etc...
Well I can't really say that I can 100% rely on ANY GPS unit (for trucks or not) to do that as well.
There is quite enough examples of bad routing just in this thread.

 

Oh thank Rand.

 

I can tell you one thing.
I am glad I never called Rand when I was begging for Via points.
If I got that idiot on the phone I would first get his name, then I would probably use some very profane language while describing what I think about his mental capacity.
By that point he would have hung up on me.
But since I have his name and I can get the office address, I would be able to find him and smack whatever is in his head blocking his mental capacity out.
I am sure if I fixed his brain he would thank me later. No way it would hurt.

 

Too bad because I usually run close to the same routes and I can gain at least an hour a day over the TND eta.

 

Hell, I can do that with the Garmin eta if I don't stop for anything. I usually do so it ends up being accurate, though.