Bulletguy Posted July 11, 2017 Share Posted July 11, 2017 Having now used my Garmin Camper 760-LMTD gps throughout this tour i've had a few surprises which Garmin need to address. Just before i left home i downloaded and installed the latest updates. 99.9% of the directions have been perfect but the 0.1% that aren't are glaring errors. On two occasions voice command gives the final location as being "on the right" when in fact it's on the left! Another occasion the voice command was telling me to "turn right at the stop sign" when the display clearly indicated it should be left (fortunately knew that as i was familiar with the road and direction i needed). I wondered if any other Garmin owners have found this 'peculiarity'? Other than this quirk the unit itself is excellent with brilliant display and audio. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlanS Posted July 11, 2017 Share Posted July 11, 2017 We have the Garmin Camper 660 LMTD and have done a few European trips with this and find it very good with few problems. As you say there are a few anomalies and we too find that the voice has 'said' or we though it said "Turn left" when the map or I know we should have turned right ! That was with the female voice but haven't tried it with the male voice - perhaps it is a female thing :-D I must admit that I do check my routes first and don't wholly rely on the satnav and when I know where I am having travelled the route before, then if I know better I take that route and let the SatNav play catch-up. Alan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NINOT Posted July 11, 2017 Share Posted July 11, 2017 I have the same model 760 LMT. I guess none of them are perfect, I suppose it also depends on the area, some are "covered" in more detail or updated more frequently. I was in situation when "turn left" or "turn right" would get me nowhere because it was not possible to turn. If you say you are 99.9% satisfied that is great, I am less than 90% satisfied. The main problem I've had was loosing satellite reception which sometimes happens, the problem with Garmin is that it takes forever to reconnect. I've done a little test and placed a cheap Tom Tom (very basic model) next to Garmin with identical route, when Garmin would loose satellite reception most of the time it would happen with Tom Tom. The difference was that Tom Tom would reconnect within 5-10 sec and Garmin would take forever (about 20-30km of driving) Garmin support advised how to fix this problem, still don't know if it will make any difference, I don't drive that often so I have to wait and see. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bulletguy Posted July 11, 2017 Author Share Posted July 11, 2017 Alan.... I always use the female voice as i find it much more clear (the standard issue one).Maybe it is just "a female thing"!! (lol) Ninot.... TT have upped their game recently and i believe current good spec models are on a par with Garmin. I also have a TT (tho 7 years old model) and directions appear to be faster. However when making turns the 760 Garmin repeats the instruction two or three times as you approach. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crocs Posted July 11, 2017 Share Posted July 11, 2017 On first decent French trip since purchase and am finding Fiat's UConnect great. I know not a popular view but it does all I ask/need. I particularly like the speed limit display which helps keep within current limit, especially in view of the well known Fiat speedo luminoscity. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
starvin marvin Posted July 11, 2017 Share Posted July 11, 2017 Bulletguy - 2017-07-11 5:27 PM Alan.... I always use the female voice as i find it much more clear (the standard issue one).Maybe it is just "a female thing"!! (lol) Ninot.... TT have upped their game recently and i believe current good spec models are on a par with Garmin. I also have a TT (tho 7 years old model) and directions appear to be faster. However when making turns the 760 Garmin repeats the instruction two or three times as you approach. My daughter used to have Ozzie Osbourne on her sat nav. She had to change it as she was laughing too much and couldn't see to drive!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
david lloyd Posted July 11, 2017 Share Posted July 11, 2017 Some years ago I changed from a TomTom satnav on a plan held computer to the latest Garmin Nuvi. The first trip through France, Belgium, Germany and Luxembourg was a bit hair raising. The unit would call out turn directions when I was literally passing the turning - found this out in Ghent at rush hour trying to locate an aire. Then it routed us down very inappropriate, narrow streets in Germany and, finally, when I spotted a low bridge sign in France I stopped, turned around and asked to avoid this part of the route. It took me back to a crossroads we had turned out of but asked us to turn right. A mike further on we entered a village where it asked us to turn right and right again then left. We found ourselves back at the crossroads where we were advised to turn left - and head directly for the same low bridge! When I got home from that trip I returned the item and got a full refund. Bought a TT Go720 which served for the next 7 or 8 years and have just changed that for a TomTom Go Professional which has the facility to use it for car, van, coach or truck routing using your vehicle dimensions. So far am really pleased with it. The Hymer is equipped with a radio/satnav that uses Garmin mapping but I still prefer the TomTom. David Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Charles Posted July 11, 2017 Share Posted July 11, 2017 Bulletguy - 2017-07-11 4:14 PM Having now used my Garmin Camper 760-LMTD gps throughout this tour i've had a few surprises which Garmin need to address. Just before i left home i downloaded and installed the latest updates. 99.9% of the directions have been perfect but the 0.1% that aren't are glaring errors. On two occasions voice command gives the final location as being "on the right" when in fact it's on the left! Another occasion the voice command was telling me to "turn right at the stop sign" when the display clearly indicated it should be left (fortunately knew that as i was familiar with the road and direction i needed). I wondered if any other Garmin owners have found this 'peculiarity'? Other than this quirk the unit itself is excellent with brilliant display and audio. Wow, "99.9% of directions perfect" chill out and enjoy. I remember the first Garmin I had in 2003, think it was called the ique 3200 it cost £750 and 50% of the directions were wrong. One of its favourites was "at the junction ahead turn left and right".. I ended up smashing it up in a fit of road sat nav rage. The first big Tomtom one was good in 2005 but at the minute Google Maps navigation app is the best I've used. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Uzzell Posted July 12, 2017 Share Posted July 12, 2017 This Wikipedia link may be of interst https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automotive_navigation_system Inaccuracy and errors in current sat-nav mapping and, consequently, the directions a sat-nav provides are inevitable. I have a Garmin Nuvi 2559LM device (that I keep updated) and - as I’ve said in the past - Garmin sat-navs are evidently not ‘aware’ of the narrow road that leads to a dozen houses that include mine, and I believe that’s similarly true for TomTom devices. Using GPS coordinates to identify the position of my house results in the sat-nav suggesting an off-road trip across a field. I’ve had final-destinations and intermediate waypoints being advised as being “On the left” when they are “On the right” (or vice versa) but I’ve put that down to the accuracy-capability of the device’s software/mapping and/or how I’ve ‘programmed in' the position of the destination/waypoint. My sat-nav has Garmin’s “Real Direction” guidance feature, but I don’t recall ever being advised to do something that obviously conflicts with the mapping (eg. to turn right at a particular landmark/traffic-light/stop-sign when the route being shown on the display clearly shows that a left turn should be taken). But I don’t know how “Real Direction” works, so I don’t know what might cause this to happen. Yesterday I drove on the A40 and M5, and long stretches of both roads had a sat-nav-advised speed limit of 50mph rather than the actual 70mph limit. As both stretches had involved major road works some time ago, it’s reasonable to assume that the 50mph-limit advice relates to when that work was being done and the data were not subsequently updated. I often come across situations abroad where fairly-recent road changes are not reflected on my Garmin device, but this doesn’t usually concern me as I think it’s approaching miraculous that a sat-nav works at all! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aandy Posted July 12, 2017 Share Posted July 12, 2017 I am currently on my third Garmin (all nuvis), which I bought a year ago. All three try to take pointless and unnecessary shortcuts, such as cutting through a housing estate or a series of narrow lanes, when staying on the main road is the obvious choice and adds little or nothing to the journey time or distance (this happens whichever navigation mode is selected), but other than that I never had any problem with the first two. I replaced the first only because a replacement cost about the same as an update, and the second so as to get one with free lifetime updates. The current one seems worse that the others at silly shortcuts, though I obviously can't make a direct comparison, and has thrown up numerous faults similar to those mentioned above. The spoken instructions often contradict what is shown on the screen (so far the screen has always proved to be right); I have been directed onto roads that do not exist and clearly haven't for many years, if ever; and on one occasion, while driving on a main road, it told me to turn into what was clearly a cul-de-sac, make a U turn, then re-join the road I was already on travelling in the same direction. It has even told me to leave the road and continue off-road (despite off-road driving being de-selected) in completely the wrong direction. I've always make a point of knowing roughly where I am going, so as not to rely entirely on the satnav, but it's got to the point where I have to plan a route almost to the same extent as if I didn't have one. After three weeks in France with it last month I was planning to chuck it and buy a TomTom, but some of the comments above suggest that wouldn't be much better. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bulletguy Posted July 12, 2017 Author Share Posted July 12, 2017 Charles - 2017-07-11 10:50 PM Bulletguy - 2017-07-11 4:14 PM Having now used my Garmin Camper 760-LMTD gps throughout this tour i've had a few surprises which Garmin need to address. Just before i left home i downloaded and installed the latest updates. 99.9% of the directions have been perfect but the 0.1% that aren't are glaring errors. On two occasions voice command gives the final location as being "on the right" when in fact it's on the left! Another occasion the voice command was telling me to "turn right at the stop sign" when the display clearly indicated it should be left (fortunately knew that as i was familiar with the road and direction i needed). I wondered if any other Garmin owners have found this 'peculiarity'? Other than this quirk the unit itself is excellent with brilliant display and audio. Wow, "99.9% of directions perfect" chill out and enjoy.... Yeah i'm picky!! (lol) Derek Uzzell - 2017-07-12 8:36 AM This Wikipedia link may be of interst https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automotive_navigation_system Inaccuracy and errors in current sat-nav mapping and, consequently, the directions a sat-nav provides are inevitable. I have a Garmin Nuvi 2559LM device (that I keep updated) and - as I’ve said in the past - Garmin sat-navs are evidently not ‘aware’ of the narrow road that leads to a dozen houses that include mine, and I believe that’s similarly true for TomTom devices. Using GPS coordinates to identify the position of my house results in the sat-nav suggesting an off-road trip across a field. I’ve had final-destinations and intermediate waypoints being advised as being “On the left” when they are “On the right” (or vice versa) but I’ve put that down to the accuracy-capability of the device’s software/mapping and/or how I’ve ‘programmed in' the position of the destination/waypoint. My sat-nav has Garmin’s “Real Direction” guidance feature, but I don’t recall ever being advised to do something that obviously conflicts with the mapping (eg. to turn right at a particular landmark/traffic-light/stop-sign when the route being shown on the display clearly shows that a left turn should be taken). But I don’t know how “Real Direction” works, so I don’t know what might cause this to happen. In the case where that occurred (bib) i was on a country road approaching a junction to a major road so fortunately had plenty of time to look at the display. It was a few days ago on a road in Poland and the area i was heading for was clearly road signed anyway. The screen image direction was correct....but the voice command was not. I must admit it's the first time i've seen this happen but doubt it will be the last. Regards new or recently built road sections i can safely say my Garmin has picked all up and directed correctly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Les W Posted July 12, 2017 Share Posted July 12, 2017 Work your own routes out in Mapsource or Basecamp, download to your Garmin unit, never get wrong directions again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Kirby Posted July 12, 2017 Share Posted July 12, 2017 crocs - 2017-07-11 5:53 PM On first decent French trip since purchase and am finding Fiat's UConnect great. I know not a popular view but it does all I ask/need. I particularly like the speed limit display which helps keep within current limit, especially in view of the well known Fiat speedo luminoscity. I would strongly advise against relying on a sat nav to give accurate sped limit information - unless you know it is being updated on a very frequent basis. Using the latest Navteq map update on our Garmin this spring, I was aware that many 70kph limits on approach to towns were missing. The French have been introducing these apace over the past several years, to tease traffic speeds down from 90kph to 50kph, and the mapping simply lags behind the event. The sat-nav should however give a more accurate readout of your actual speed than the speedo, so I'd rely on that and the Mk1 eyeball for staying within speed limits. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KeithR Posted July 12, 2017 Share Posted July 12, 2017 on a recent trip through spain i used my (aged!) garmin and my friend used his recently downloaded sygic. The sygic was superior on that trip, so i downloaded sygic to my mobile and used it in tandem with my garmin for my next trip through france and spain. i much prefered it so on the returrn trip home i just used sygic. it is far easier to download countries you want and far far faster. it also has live traffic. at circa £25 for world mapping i think it is a bargain, and gives me upto date maps for morocco which didnt have on my garmin. far cheaper than a new garmin!!! i have just upgraded my phone and transferring sygic was quick and simple. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Barcobird Posted July 12, 2017 Share Posted July 12, 2017 Getting back to your original question, I have the same sat nav and have also encountered "you are arriving at your destination on the right" when in fact it was on the left ! I also agree they do send you down some silly "shortcuts" to save time, 5 seconds or if on shortest route 5 meters. At the end of the day it's a computer which is falable unlike us humans (lol) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
747 Posted July 13, 2017 Share Posted July 13, 2017 I have the Garmin 760 and have learned to use a Road Atlas before a trip. It works well most of the time but when it cocks up, it really cocks up. :D I have tried 3 times to get to the Falkirk Wheel car park but it is in the Garmin Bermuda Triangle. 8-) Nowadays Satnavs just give a choice of 'Fastest Route' or 'Shortest Route'. I believe this is the reason for most hiccups. My first Satnav (Navman) gave more choice and had a slider for each category to set the importance. It had the odd software glitch but performed better overall ... and that was about 15 years ago. I tried using Garmin Basecamp, what a pain in the backside it is to use .... unless you are a computer nerd. I wish they would make it user friendly. A better option was the Dutch website 'Tyre' but now you have to pay for it. :-( Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Les W Posted July 13, 2017 Share Posted July 13, 2017 Try Mapsource, still a bit of a faff, but easier than Basecamp. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
colin Posted July 13, 2017 Share Posted July 13, 2017 Inappropriate routing seems to go with all systems to an extent, but voice telling you to turn in opposite direction to map is not acceptable Imo. With TT the worst we get along these lines is it saying to 'turn right' when it means 'bear right' and visa versa, caught me out in approach to Versailles. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bulletguy Posted July 13, 2017 Author Share Posted July 13, 2017 colin - 2017-07-13 11:18 AM Inappropriate routing seems to go with all systems to an extent, but voice telling you to turn in opposite direction to map is not acceptable Imo. With TT the worst we get along these lines is it saying to 'turn right' when it means 'bear right' and visa versa, caught me out in approach to Versailles. Entirely agree Colin. I was lucky in that i was familiar with the area i was in, already knew which turn i'd be making, plus good road signage, but i'd dread to imagine the consequences had i been on a fast or very busy road with no time to glance at the satnav. The only other "bad experience" i had some years back was negotiating a busy feeder road to a section of Autobahn in Germany when suddenly the gps (a TT750) "locked up" and lost signal. I had to go with what i thought then pull off at the first service area and reset the unit to get it back up running again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DJA Posted July 13, 2017 Share Posted July 13, 2017 I have a Garmin 660 LMTD with the latest Maps and Software and I have to say if I was to judge its ability on what it recommends in the immediate area where we live I would never use it at all. Here are a couple of examples all of which are in RV mode and are repeated in Basecamp.. 1 If I test it with a route from 1 Lark Feld, Hartley to 9 Pescot Avenue New Barn it is fine until it suggests using The Drive in New Barn. Even Google have not travelled along it to photograph it but the views of either end will tell you why it is not a good idea. It is not the way to go by car either. 2 If I ask it to do a route from Meopham Green to 9 Pescot Avenue it asks me to drive past the B260 junction and then turn left in 20yrds into the Service road infront of a Row of shops before asking me to exit at the end of it and return to the junction and take the B260. These are not the only silly things the GPS and Basecamp do where we live, which is not at 9 Pescot Avenue. I know I would not need it in my own area but if thats who it does here what is it going to do elsewhere where I don't know the area at all. Whilst I like a lot about how the Garmin works I cannot really recommend it because of the silly things it does on what should be simple routing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Kirby Posted July 13, 2017 Share Posted July 13, 2017 747 - 2017-07-13 10:14 AM......................I have tried 3 times to get to the Falkirk Wheel car park but it is in the Garmin Bermuda Triangle. 8-) ....................... Try entering these coordinates in your Garmin: N56.00038 W3.83999 There are three car parks along the road, this is the nearest to the wheel. The road is in the mapping and should show on your device - unless your maps are very out of date. :-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Kirby Posted July 13, 2017 Share Posted July 13, 2017 DJA - 2017-07-13 1:40 PM......................1 If I test it with a route from 1 Lark Feld, Hartley to 9 Pescot Avenue New Barn it is fine until it suggests using The Drive in New Barn. Even Google have not travelled along it to photograph it but the views of either end will tell you why it is not a good idea. It is not the way to go by car either. 2 If I ask it to do a route from Meopham Green to 9 Pescot Avenue it asks me to drive past the B260 junction and then turn left in 20yrds into the Service road infront of a Row of shops before asking me to exit at the end of it and return to the junction and take the B260............................ I can confirm both these faults on the current mapping using MapSource. They are mapping faults and it appears someone at Navteq has mapped The Drive as a through road whereas the road is signed as for residents only, and it looks as though the turn to the B260 to Longfield has been mapped as a no left turn (possibly roadworks when the mapping was executed?). If you reverse the route it merely turns right from Longfield Rd to Wrotham Rd, as one would expect. The Garmin can only follow the roads as Navteq have mapped them. You can notify Garmin of mapping errors via their website and they should get rectified on later issues of the maps. However, I wouldn't worry unduly. We have used Garmin sat-navs (2 to date, a Nuvi 760LMT and a 2485LMT) and although they do silly things at times they are generally reliable. It is always worth looking at a decent road map of any area you will visit/pass through, and relate the Garmin route to that and, if you don't like the look of its chosen route, stick in a waypoint or two to "school" it. They are clever bits of technology, but they are also dumb machines and are the victims of their program logic and the maps installed. Despite the odd irritating glitch, we've used ours widely across western, and parts of eastern, Europe over the past 10 years, and have had only a few problems - usually when I didn't follow my own advice and check where it thought we should go before setting off. It'll get you there - just don't place blind faith in its routing abilities. You've got the advantage of a far more subtle and sophisticated brain, and eyes, than any sat-nav! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
747 Posted July 13, 2017 Share Posted July 13, 2017 Brian Kirby - 2017-07-13 5:46 PM 747 - 2017-07-13 10:14 AM......................I have tried 3 times to get to the Falkirk Wheel car park but it is in the Garmin Bermuda Triangle. 8-) ....................... Try entering these coordinates in your Garmin: N56.00038 W3.83999 There are three car parks along the road, this is the nearest to the wheel. The road is in the mapping and should show on your device - unless your maps are very out of date. :-) Brian, I have even used Google Earth to find the coordinates AND IT STILL GOT IT WRONG. :D On one occasion it took me up a very narrow road which was very steep with lots of cars coming the other way. From memory, I was using a Postcode obtained from the Falkirk Wheel website and it took me to a car park out in the country. As it happened, we overnighted there and had a lovely meal in the nearby Restaurant. Now I have a brilliant wildcamping spot that I don't intend to share with anyone, stuff the Wheel. :D :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tonyg3nwl Posted July 13, 2017 Share Posted July 13, 2017 Hi folks, just been reading through this thread ? I have had experiences with several make of sat nag devices, starting with the old Garmin Quest, then tomtom , then snooper ventura, and currently garmin camper 6 in device, and for good measure , have loaded the freebie copilot onto my 10 in tablet. Added to this, we have bookmaps of various vintages, and some inch ordnance survey maps. The worst problem that I found with satnav is having set up a route with waypoints, and discovering for various reasons, road works etc, being unable to actually hit the waypoint, and being constantly nagged to turn back at next junction, to insist that you pass the defined waypoint. It doesn seem sufficiently clever to realise that you are getting nearer to the next point , so might be taking a small short cut. I like the garmin devices because you can add your own poi easily from a csv format datafile. I have created a file from the Britstops book but am not permitted to share it for copyright reasons, so please dont ask. I have added files for caravan club, camping club, national trust, to both the garmin camper, and to copilot, and hope to add France passion, and Aires files as well, x Again for my own use because of copyright concerns. Mapping accuracy will never be 100 percent accuracy, even if you buy the very latest maps, .. roads are being altered continually, and it takes time for maps to catch up. The best navigation device is your own brain, with assistance from experience., satnavs are a useful addition, but not totally idiot proof. Tonyg3nwl Ps, where can I find the handbook for the garmin mapsource and basecamp programms, base camp is a real struggle to me. Tony Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Barcobird Posted July 13, 2017 Share Posted July 13, 2017 Don't know if I am missing something but my sat nav is set to coordinate format h ddd.ddddd Datum WGS-84 I have entered co-ordinates all over Europe and only once not been able to find a way point. Tonight I have entered co-ordinates from a website for a place called Alcoutim which is on the Portuguese side of the river Guadiana about 30 kilometers from Vila Real de San Antonio on the Algarve coast. Their co-ordinates N.37•2830 W 07•2829 which seems to be a digit short has sent me to place somewhere in Spain ! Am I doing something fundamentally wrong (?) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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