Monumentally frustrated with Garmin gps

[sheridany]

I have owned several Garmin gps and had issues with poor routing on occasion but not like today. My marathon is equipped with a Garmin dezel which is really a truck driver version of the Garmin gps. It failed me again today. Prior to departure I checked my route from indio, CA to Phoenix,AZ on Google maps the browser and I purposely wanted to avoid downtown because of a small sporting event going on called the Super Bowl and so I saw a clear path around the south of Phoenix on 202 that would lead me to the park. I printed that out and went and set up the route in the Garmin and it has a featured called “shape a route” which I used to go around the south of Phoenix just like google had laid out. Failure number 1. When I got to the 202 south as my plan called out for Garmin said keep going east on the 10. Okay whatever. Off we go on the 202 south. Failure number 2. It told me to take an unnamed ramp off the freeway and then had me go straight back on the same road. Continue on. Failure number 3. It told me get off an exit to a road that was headed in the right direction but put me on a road with road construction with very tight lane changes and barriers. I mean tight. Speed limit was 15-25 through the lane changes. Ironically this construction doesn’t show up on Google either. Okay finally end up on the main road towards the park. Failure number 4 the park is part of a Indian casino and I am looking at the gsrmin and it has me continue on the main road way past the casino. I came to a stop light that I recognized from my trip planning. Thankfully another rv was making the turn there so I followed. Correct place. I don’t trust that Garmin dezel or Garmin for anything. A friend in the trucking industry recommended getting an atlas and don’t use the gps. I really don’t want to go backwards to paper. I drive solo a lot of times so I can’t rely on another set of eyes necessarily to be a navigator. Maybe shaping the route really screwed it up. I don’t know. I will open a ticket with Garmin Monday and send them my logs. I’ll post their responses. There’s got to be a better way or method to do this for us rv drivers.

 

[Jim]

We have given up on our 890 for serious navigating as it's proven to be unreliable way to many times. I still use it for the cool perks that it offers, but we do our planning and course guidance with RV Trip Wizard. It's a shame, because Garman products were the BEST in my opinion, but these last couple of years have been a deal breaker for me.

 

[MemoriesByTheMile]

I gave up on standalone GPS awhile back, been using phone app based GPS. But we always run a backup.

Biggest downside to the phone app GPS is the smaller size. Been noodling through the idea of using an iPad for this purpose, but it is a bit too big.

Seems odd to me that Garmin has not been able to keep their market leadership position.

 

[Dan_Frisbie]

I have a Garmin 1090 and used Garmin motorcycle GPS units for years.
If I want a specific route, I will usually create it on a computer based map program (Google Maps) then download it to my Garmin. Oftentimes there are a few changes, but I’ve always been able to make it work.
Personally, I think Garmin has the best GPS units on the market.

 

[Rollin Ollen]

I have owned several Garmin gps and had issues with poor routing on occasion but not like today. My marathon is equipped with a Garmin dezel which is really a truck driver version of the Garmin gps. It failed me again today. Prior to departure I checked my route from indio, CA to Phoenix,AZ on Google maps the browser and I purposely wanted to avoid downtown because of a small sporting event going on called the Super Bowl and so I saw a clear path around the south of Phoenix on 202 that would lead me to the park. I printed that out and went and set up the route in the Garmin and it has a featured called “shape a route” which I used to go around the south of Phoenix just like google had laid out. Failure number 1. When I got to the 202 south as my plan called out for Garmin said keep going east on the 10. Okay whatever. Off we go on the 202 south. Failure number 2. It told me to take an unnamed ramp off the freeway and then had me go straight back on the same road. Continue on. Failure number 3. It told me get off an exit to a road that was headed in the right direction but put me on a road with road construction with very tight lane changes and barriers. I mean tight. Speed limit was 15-25 through the lane changes. Ironically this construction doesn’t show up on Google either. Okay finally end up on the main road towards the park. Failure number 4 the park is part of a Indian casino and I am looking at the gsrmin and it has me continue on the main road way past the casino. I came to a stop light that I recognized from my trip planning. Thankfully another rv was making the turn there so I followed. Correct place. I don’t trust that Garmin dezel or Garmin for anything. A friend in the trucking industry recommended getting an atlas and don’t use the gps. I really don’t want to go backwards to paper. I drive solo a lot of times so I can’t rely on another set of eyes necessarily to be a navigator. Maybe shaping the route really screwed it up. I don’t know. I will open a ticket with Garmin Monday and send them my logs. I’ll post their responses. There’s got to be a better way or method to do this for us rv drivers.

I share your frustration! I am fortunate that I have my wife as our navigator. We have a Garman RV660. It worked reasonably well until we did our first map update. It has slowly gone down hill with every update since to the point where now we use Google Maps on our phone. We have the Garmin only for speed limit changes, school zones etc. We both have a look at Google Earth when planning the next leg of our trips. We won't go back to paper but will probably look for a TomTom to replace the Garmin.

Safe travels

Darrell

 

[Joe Hogan]

We have found that using a GPS (Tesla Navigation) that is traffic aware can provide routes that "Do not appear" to make sense but in reality they are avoiding a delay, like construction. We had this experience recently in Florida. Taking FL RT 60 West across the State. The GPS kept trying to push me through Orland on I-4/528/I95 routing.

Well I found out that RT 60 was closed in a section where the only other route was a 2 hr Detour. Boy did I feel stupid!! CoPilot was not happy.

 

[Rich W.]

I use a Garmin 890 and google maps on an Ipad mini on a CD slot mount and then put all my major turns on a post-it on the dash. The two routing sources often disagree, but I plan my route and stick to it. When the electronic sources disagree with me and each other, I just tlet them re-calculate and catch up and eventually all is well.

I never use the in-dash OE navigation (Clarion) but I have tried it and other than being out of date, its ok. The CD slot mount held my 11” ipad pro just fine, but the screen was actually too big and I worried about it falling out of the dash, so I use and old mimi which is the same size as the 890.

Either google or apple maps on the ipad will give me traffic updates. I like the 890 because it uses my dimensions and weight to advise on bridge and low clearance issues, as well as warnings about curves and grades. These last two are usually unnecessary but I appreciate the effort. But even with all this, I still use the post-it method if Im making more than 4 or 5 turns because stuff happens and these wonderful devices will occasionally lead me astray.

Back in my Fire Service days in a rapidly growing city, my GPS instructed me to turn where a road had been blocked off (literally) by a sound wall. I knew where I was going but found that interesting. Also my 890 told me not to go over a bridge in Illinois somewhere becaise of the load limit, but when I got there I found a big, new, beautiful bridge and happily continued on my way. So I update my 890 occasionally and so far so good.

 

[jbh]

I've been using Garmin Basecamp to plan routes and transfer them to the RV760 since 2013. Been working fine. I very rarely just tell the device to take me somewhere. One gotcha is that if you set the device to "shortest distance" it may want to navigate you straight across a city on surface streets while "fastest" will usually take the bypass. Also the Garmin can't possibly know about road construction etc.

A phone app that loses signal is fairly useless.

 

[Joe Hogan]

Here is a Support Document from Garmin regarding Rerouting for Traffic Delays:

 

[CaptainGizmo]

Sheridan,

I’ve used Garmins forever, it seems; you name it, I’ve used it for every sport they offer.

I earned my way onto their Beta-test team for the past few RV models. My bug-shooting and critical eye for tech flaws were really put to the test during these beta periods.

I’ve reported and written many posts about Garmins over the years and to say they’re perfect is far from fact. Are they THE BEST “RV GPS”? Absolutely! Should you rely on them solely? NO WAY!

We’ve all been burned by EVERY SINGLE map routing system there is…and yeah yeah, PAPER TOO!!!

Fact is, our road systems are crap and change way too often for ANYTHING to be near 100% accurate.

What to do? Well, punt…actually. You can only do your best and roll with the rest.

Preplan using RVTW.
Preplot that route into Garmin.
Double check in Apple, Google, and even Waze.
Then navigate realtime with Garmin with a secondary internet-based GPS for a backup.

The 1095 is the latest and has Live Traffic. But honestly, the way our roads are changing day by day, the mapping and routing that Garmin uses, I fear, will never be able to keep up.

So, have a plan and be ready to change it. Garmin TS as well as RVTW team are both very responsive and will do what they can to correct whatever they can.

Remember, these routing engines are only as good as their base maps that are licensed. Wish we had something better? But just have to appreciate what we’ve got.

 

[Jim]

 

[Rich W.]

I sailed all over the world with a little old Garmin 176C and small as it was, it worked for chart plotting in the most challenging and convoluted situations (although my eyes were better then).The difference is that maps tell you where to go and charts tell you where not to go. That was 20 years ago and GPS has only gotten better. But the bottom line is the same now as it was then - its just an aid - not the final word. I like multiple sources and find google or apple maps to be a good back up/comparison.