Jump to content

Cobra Snooper Traffic Management System - rubbish performance most of the time


Matrix Meanderer

Recommended Posts

Having paid close on £300 for a new Cobra Snooper C8500 sat nav with built in traffic management system at the NEC show last February I had high hopes of good performance in use on our busy accident prone roads. My previous trusty Snooper S6000 had performed very well all round so I paid the king's ransom and bought the C8500.

 

Six months down the line I can only describe the traffic alerts system as poor and intermittent. Despite sending the unit back to "technical support" for repair (there was none) the basic problem remains. The unit seems incapable of changing reception wavelengths when moving around the UK. Sometimes we have a perfect signal and see all the traffic alerts, other times, such as yesterday, the system does not even find the TMC alerts. For example, driving up from Yeovil to Bury St Edmunds we had to navigate the A303, M4 , M25 and M11. The system was active until we reached the M4 and then shut down around Reading. We were unaware of a a major incident on the M40 where we diverted to avoid the worst of the M25 (from experience)! So we then lost nearly one hour avoiding the unrecognised M40 problem that had been going on since early morning. This is just the latest in a series of non existent alerts that have given me more grey hairs from this unit.

 

I have an extra long windscreen aerial attached to this device so no reception problems.

 

My question to other Forum readers is: Is it just my C8500 that has a rubbish TMC or does your traffic management alert system work well, all the time?

 

As usual trying to get any answer from Cobra/Snooper is a task that can take days so I thought Forum members might have some insights.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My Snooper S7000 is now 6 yrs old and is giving problems so I had considered replacing it with one of the following:- C8500, Aguri or the Garmin Truckmate but they all seem to be problematic so I'm at a loss.Perusal of the blogs seem to suggest that the Garmin offers the least problems!! May I say that the Snooper was a disaster for the first couple of years, settled down for a couple but the last year has been a disaster so it has to go!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I recently bought a Garmin Drive Assist 50 with traffic & the traffic information is utterly useless, so you are not alone in cursing.these devices which can be more of a hindrance than help. My son has a Tomtom & that seems to be much better.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think they over-claim. First, a hold up has to exist before it can be reported/recorded. This inevitably means that it has been present for some time before you would arrive at that spot. So, not infrequently, by the time you arrive, the hold-up has dissipated! Or, you get to a hold-up just as it begins, but before it has been reported/recorded, so become ensnared.

 

Because many drivers are on familiar routes, and many hold-ups arise in the same places, those who know the road will divert at the first sign of trouble, increasing, and so slowing, traffic down any alternative routes. So, if you accept the suggested diversion route, you are likely to run into the hold-up caused by the early diverters - possibly taking longer than had you ignored the warning, or just sat it out.

 

That is my impression, but, as one can only follow one route at a time, one never knows what the alternative might have presented, so I can't prove it! :-S

Link to comment
Share on other sites

We have a TomTom GO 730 that as a sat nav has worked perfectly over many years and countries from the Nordkapp to Gibraltar, and even gave us a lat and long position in Morocco (but no roads of course in Africa!)!

 

However the trafffic management system was useless, as it is equally useless on my car's built in sat nav. and the aerial has long since been lost!

 

The double trouble seemed to be that the info was out of date by the time it got to us and the detours suggested were often long and arduous and in most cases don't save any time in the long run but do cause other issues especially in a coachbuilt van.

 

Now we just take it as it comes and if we consider a detour is justified we use the Atlas to find one, and maybe the sat nav to help us keep on it, whilst we are sat waiting for whatever the hold up is.

 

The joy of TomTom is that you can enter a town or village as a destination without a specific address, and change it when you want the next one, which you can't with the car that requires a full address every time and that makes changing routes and using that sat nav very tiresome. The expensive car sat Nav also has some strange and often dubious ideas on routes and on balance we much prefer the TomTom.

 

If we were still motorhoming I would carry on using my 7 year old TomTom as it's accuracy for finding towns and villages or Aires etc anywhere in most of Europe can't be faulted and has never led me astray!

 

PS - It's for sale if anybody wants it as we no longer need it!

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Interesting comments thanks.

 

We have two other traffic alert systems in my own car and in my wife's car, two different car makes.

 

Both of these are based on the Garmin software and over the last three years have both been infinitely quicker in reporting traffic issues on routes.

 

Not sure where that leaves me but you would have thought for £300 Snooper/Cobra could have included some more reliable software. Its the same software in all their sat navs so I wonder how the truckers get on with it.

 

Still waiting for Snooper Sales person to get back to me with a further opinion.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...