Sat Nav advice, please

[Shep1]

Looking to upgrade our TomTom One, because it would be nice to have 'hands free'. Could anyone tell me if any of them have a HGV option for route planning, when we have the van on the back.

Halfords staff could not be 100% sure, and I have not found the TomTom site to be very user friendly.

Hoping for more luck here. Thanks

 

[HomerS1]

Hi,

I recently bought a Garmin 310d (in the Halfords sale). The vehicle can be changed from car to lorry or bus. Don't know how good it is yet as have had little opportunity to use it. Going to South of France on Friday though, so will soon find out. Hope we don't end up in the middle of paris.

Chris

 

[Essexeddie]

Have a Garmin with Lorry,car,bus,taxi and motor bike options.

It makes no difference,it still takes me down the same roads that you would not take a caravan down.

Dont trust them!

With a van on the back use a map as well.

 

[Shep1]

Hi,

I recently bought a Garmin 310d (in the Halfords sale). The vehicle can be changed from car to lorry or bus. Don't know how good it is yet as have had little opportunity to use it. Going to South of France on Friday though, so will soon find out. Hope we don't end up in the middle of paris.

Chris

Thanks for your reply. will wait for any other opinions but have a good trip.

 

[Shep1]

I did hear from a friend, that it made little difference to the calculated route. Usually happy to double check with the map, but thought I would check with the forum.

Thanks

 

[Rod_5041370]

It is important to always enter "Fastest Route" and never "Shortest Route" or you will end up going through farmyards!!

 

[Essexeddie]

It is important to always enter "Fastest Route" and never "Shortest Route" or you will end up going through farmyards!!

Still makes little difference! Tried it.

 

[RiaandJames_374303418]

HGV options only alter average speed calculations.

We now use our Garmin Zumo bike satnav when caravanning, it is programable as you can download your own routes from a laptop and the deluxe version covers all of Europe.

A litle morer pricey but comes with a car fitting kit included and is bluetooth enabled.

Ria

 

[Robert_374242026]

Have TOM TOM 700 and all i do is to put in limited speed and that will help .They do not say about hgv but it adjust your journey time accordingly.

 

[Shep1]

HGV options only alter average speed calculations.

We now use our Garmin Zumo bike satnav when caravanning, it is programable as you can download your own routes from a laptop and the deluxe version covers all of Europe.

A litle morer pricey but comes with a car fitting kit included and is bluetooth enabled.

Ria

Thats interesting. thanks

 

[Shep1]

Have TOM TOM 700 and all i do is to put in limited speed and that will help .They do not say about hgv but it adjust your journey time accordingly.

Much the same as the above post.But thanks for that.

Didn't realise that it only changed the speed calculations.

 

[Shep1]

Thanks to everybody.

Good information here.

It appears I was searching for the impossible.

 

[ben_374315221]

Whilst I quite agree that a HGV or Caravan setting would be great, it would add a lot to the price of the unit or map. The map would have to contain details on every road about width, condition etc, etc. The base maps that the manufactures use to make the routing maps do not contain this imformation at the current time so a whole new map would need to be made. This would cost in the millions, for what unfourtunatley is a limited market.

Don't get me wrong, I would pay more for a unit that did it, but no manufacturer would break even on a option like this.

As has been said, the only way to be sure is to check on a map, look and think about where your about to go, and watch out for tell tale road signs.

Regards,

Ben

 

[Essexeddie]

Why cant we have the technology to say travel by 'A' or 'B' roads. No need to check the widths of roads then as it has already been worked out.

 

[ProfJohnL]

Hello Shep,

As far as I know, the only difference that selecting car/lorry/ walking etc on the current range of sat navs does is to recalculate the time for the journey based on the speed of the mode of transport. It will still use the same routes.

As has been suggested, some Sat navs offer fastest, or shortest options, The fastest option may offer a better solution for towing, but not guranteed.

I tend to agree with Essexeddie, that being offered a choice of road types such as A, B or motorways etc, may be helpful, but enetivitably parts of your journesy would almost certainly necessitate using some of the lower classes of roads.

There is considerable pressure building from local authorities, and the police for these devices to become vehicle size aware when calculating routes, to avoid the juggernaught on a farm track syndrome, but how long before this is a implemented in a commercial unit remains to be seen.

 

[NorfolkMike]

While I am not directly answering your question I tend to the NO SAT NAV option. Why I hear you cry? Because you cannot get such a satisfying argument out of a sat nav.

ttfn

 

[DeliDave]

bought Navman N60 on CC offer and it has been good so far have used it when I know where I am going and it has always picked the biggest roads.Am off to south of France (solo) on Friday and am hoping it will get me there but am taking Michelin book as well

 

[ben_374315221]

Chosing route by classification would be of little help around here (lincolnshire) I know of A roads that are hopeless and B roads that are only B roads because that way the highways agency has to put less money into them, but they are good wide, straight roads with good surfacing. This is why I said that the maps would have to be resurveyed.

I suggest a Tom Tom with Ozzy Ozbournes voice. Might take you a route you'd rather not go, but hearing him count under his breath which turn on a roundabout always makes it worth it.

 

[RogerP]

I've used a PDA TomTom offering and currently have a NAVAN F20 unit.

I have to say I was very pro SatNavs (being a gadget freak) until recently when I got routed firstly down a dead end track no wider that a supermodels waist and had to use a farmers field to turn around in (luckly it was in a motorhome that time)

Then this weekend I was directed down a road that was signed as a dead end and no matter what alternative route I took the SatNav kept telling me to do a u turn and go back down the dead end.

The dead end just happened to be a river and the nearest crossing point was 7 miles in either direction but the SatNav did not recognise this

 

[Stevel]

I too have a Tom Tom. I have spoken to them and there is NO HGV option available. However I have downloaded a low bridge height database that works on the device and is very useful when driving the artic.

 

[Robert_374242026]

Why cant we have the technology to say travel by 'A' or 'B' roads. No need to check the widths of roads then as it has already been worked out.

The TOM TOM menue does state what type of road required,such as avoid motorways ,toll roads ,shortest,etc.

 

[Shep1]

Thanks again for all your posts.

Just got to choose one now.

 

[Steve L]

We have a tiny Garmin i3 which serves it's purpose very well. I can hide it at head height up by the sun visor which I rarely use as I prefer sun glasses and being 6ft 1, the visor gets in the way.

Fuctionality is good too. As suggested previously, if you set the route as truck/bus and fastest you inherently get the widest roads available.

By all means have a map in the car and I'd suggest keep up your map reading practice too. I study form on a road map when looking for a site to visit just to get an idea of where it is in relation to home and also the general types of roads. For instance you may want to do a twenty mile detour if you don't like the mountain roads that are the most direct and despite being only just two cars wide are classsed as A roads.

Lets not forget the most basic thing,that a sat nav is a computer and computers are only as good as the info put in.

You hear quite often these days people saying that the satnav told them to go down the road through the farmyard. But realy, where has common sense gone. You wouldn't put your hand on a raging camp fire to see how hot it is would you!

If there is no speed limit on a country lane thenyour satnav will assume you can achieve 60Mph!!

When we chose our satnav we went for basic functionallity, not bells and whistles, games or a nagging voice tone setting.

By the way when you do go wrong the satnav try's most times to navigate you via the next avaiable turning instead of instructing you to where possible make a "U" turn. That can lead you on a ten mile "U" turn. Again common sense would dictate that you find a nice wide turning point or industrial access to turn in and more often than not one is available within a mile of the got lost point.

Steve L.

 

[giovanni_5060838]

reply to stephen, could you tell me where you

downloaded the bridges from, sounds really usefull.

gio.