Sat Nav advice please

[Roryboy]

For many years I've been a paper map man and many years ago I'd be delivery driving in a white van with the 'A to Z' close at hand.

But on the last holiday in France the bride and I had a few difficult moments when our map reading skills deserted us.

At long last I think we should be dragged into the 21st Century and get some sort of electronic help in the shape of a Sat Nav.

But, never owning one or having direct contact with the device, I could do with a bit of help.

I've seen a couple of Satnavs locally and has anyone used one of these or can give a decent reason not to get one or the other ?

 

TomTom VIA 52 5in Traffic Western EU Lifetime Maps

 

Garmin Drive Plus MT-S 5 Inch UK, ROI & EU Maps

 

Any help appreciated.

 

B-)

[StuartO]

I have been using satnav for many years, on both motorcycle tours and in our motorhome. Over the years they have become better and better - although they are not infallible so you do need to read road signs, eg for narrow road warning signs and low bridge warnings. And satnavs do sometimes encourage you to take what it thinks is the shorter route which is actually an unsuitable road so the message is don't switch your eyes or your brain off when using satnav.

 

The basic ones have also got cheaper and cheaper but I would recommend not buying a cheap one - your motorhome cost a substantial sum so make an investment in a quality satnav to go with it. I'm a fan of the Garmin Camper range and buying one of those with a decent sized screen will not disappoint. Doubtless the TomTom equivalent will be pretty good too.

 

 

[vindiboy]

Tom Tom for me every time I have 3 in use at the moment love em .I use ours all over Europe ,with no problems, anywhere, easy to operate and add POIs etc, I have just the basic car ones Tom Tom Start, lifetime maps etc no problem for the Motorhome, I know the length width and height of my van so using common sense I avoid low bridges etc, if the sat nav wants to take me down narrow lanes I just ignore that and it soon re routes easy peazy,

[silverback]

Garmin camper as StuartO says, not been a problem in 6 years

Jonathan

[Keithl]

And another vote for Garmin!

 

I have a Nuvi with a 6" screen (but not camper) and find it great.

It's easy to add and edit POI's using Garmin's POI Loader and the 6" screen makes it easy to read while on the move.

 

Keith.

[colin]

I love paper maps, but for driving a TomTom is a very useful aid, not infallible, but using a bit of common sense should make navigation much easier.

As an example, our main Satnav has (lifetime) traffic, was going into Cambridge a journey we have often made, but needed it to pinpoint a particular house in a road we where unfamiliar with. Started out on our usual route and the satnav wanted to take us the 'wrong way' down A1, I ignored it thinking it would soon reroute along a 'sensible' route, well after a few miles I found out the reason it wanted to go another way, there as a truck broken down which was causing miles of traffic!

[Derek Uzzell]

I think the Garmin Drive Plus MT-S 5" model (although still available) has been superseded by the Drive 52

 

https://www.garmin.com/en-GB/p/669168/pn/010-02036-10

 

There are Garmin sat-nav reviews here:

 

https://www.expertreviews.co.uk/sat-nav/1410618/best-garmin-satnav

 

You might consider paying a bit more and opt for the Garmin DriveSmart 66 that - besides having extra features (eg. wireless updating) - has a larger screen. A 5" screen is fine if the sat-nav can be positioned close to the driver, but that's likely to be trickier with a motorhome than with a car.

 

(I've relied on Garmin sat-navs for 16 years, but I've no practical experience of TomTom products.)

[colin]

I've been using 5" screen TomTom satnavs attached to the windscreen of van for 11 years, no problems with viewing them, but then I do wear varifocal glasses.

[Brian Kirby]

Roryboy - 2021-12-06 11:09 AM

For many years I've been a paper map man and many years ago I'd be delivery driving in a white van with the 'A to Z' close at hand.

But on the last holiday in France the bride and I had a few difficult moments when our map reading skills deserted us.

At long last I think we should be dragged into the 21st Century and get some sort of electronic help in the shape of a Sat Nav.

But, never owning one or having direct contact with the device, I could do with a bit of help.

I've seen a couple of Satnavs locally and has anyone used one of these or can give a decent reason not to get one or the other ?

TomTom VIA 52 5in Traffic Western EU Lifetime Maps

Garmin Drive Plus MT-S 5 Inch UK, ROI & EU Maps

Any help appreciated.

B-)

First, I would say, decide where you think you may go, as whereas you can buy additional maps and install them, the difference in price between getting a sat-nav with limited map coverage and one with full Europe mapping is likely to be less than the same sat-nav with limited coverage and then buying an additional map. If in doubt, go big - unless the price is prohibitive.

 

Second, most people, having once bought a Tom-Tom, will update it with another Tom-Tom, as that is what they have become familiar with. Ditto Garmin. They are essentially similar, but each has its quirks, and once adapted to those I suspect people then find the quirks of a different brand infuriating. I think this is to some extent reflected above.

 

Third, so far as I know, if you want to view the mapping on a decent sized screen only Garmin facilitates this, via two, free, downloadable, programs. If you are a Mac user, that is reduced to one program, called BaseCamp. The other program is MapSource, which is now a legacy program but runs perfectly well on my Windows 10 pro PC. It is prone to occasional crashes, but simply re-starting it has, so far, fixed whatever caused the crash. BaseCamp also runs on PCs. Both can calculate routes, and the routes can then be uploaded to the sat-nav. However, the sat-nav's routing logic is not identical to that of MapSource, so I tend to use the route planning facility ("Trip Planner", in Garmin speak) resident in the device.

 

Why then bother with either? The advantage of doing this is to be able to see, using a combination of Google Maps in satellite view, and/or Google Earth, exactly where a particular point of interest (POI) is. There are many sources of free downloadable POIs on the web (camp sites, supermarkets, filling stations, parking areas, historic buildings, etc.), but their contributors do not always input the coordinates of the vehicular entrance, frequently instead using the coordinates for where they eventually stopped. If this was near the vehicular entrance, and especially if the approach road (often private) has been mapped, fine. But when the coordinates are for a pitch on a campsite, or the parking bay they used at the supermarket, and are remote from the vehicular entrance, or are not near a mapped road, the sat-nav, being a simple machine, just imagines a straight line to that point from the nearest mapped road. A problem then arises when the road nearest to the coordinates is not the road on which the vehicular entrance lies. This can lead to hours of unwanted "fun", especially if the destination is a supermarket car park in a busy foreign town with a one way street system, or is for the car park of a supermarket with a height barrier, or with a multi-story car park with restricted height (often with a parking area with unrestricted height available via a different entrance). So, I check the coordinates of any new POI, and correct them, before loading them to the sat-nav.

 

That, for me, has become the USP of Garmin, which is why I'm now on my third in 16 years.

 

Lifetime map updates are well worthwhile including in the package. But, beware the on-screen speed limit guidance. Limits change and, although the map updates keep the device reasonably up to date, the mapping invariably lags events on the ground, so relying on speed limit indications on the device is not a fail-safe approach. "My sat-nav said so", is no defence in law!!. :-)

 

I have also been guided to a one way street in which the permissible direction of travel had been reversed! So, sat-nav + Mk 1 eyeball is the essential pairing!

 

It is also worth noting that actual road widths are not mapped, although legal restrictions on vehicle width are. We got directed down one road somewhere in France which got narrower as we progressed, to the point at which the olive trees on both sides were just touching the sides of the van as we threaded through. There was no width restriction on the road, so it was perfectly legal to use. Fortunately, no-one came the other way! One lives and learns, and it's all fun - after the event!

[cjrm1]

We have a Garmin Camper sat nav. We have loaded our dimensions, but with a 10% plus factor for height and width. However as Brian says there are no width restrictions picked up on the local roads, so recently when in Spain we were directed up a one-way street but it was a bit too narrow so we had to drive with one wheel on the pavement. Luckily no pedestrians but the cars behind were less than complimentary. So they are useful but they do have limitations. We have a paper map with us as well to make sure we are broadly on the right way as also on occasions the satnav has taken us two sides round a triangle!

[Charles]

Google navigation for me, I've been using dedicated sat navs since 2003 and Google maps/navigation is years ahead of them all. For instance, try looking for points of interest with user reviews opening hours, photos, street view and satellite view on a tomtom or garmin.. Actually don't bother you'll be pretty disappointed :-D

[Tracker]

For many years we too used an old TomTom.

It was years out of date but it never let us down and was easy to set with postcode in the UK or Lat & Long in mainland Europe from the Nordkapp to Gibraltar (and even in Morocco - no maps but Lat and Long still worked and all I had to do was find the right roads!).

We never updated the maps and sometimes we found ourselves on a new road which was an open field on the sat nav but the new road always rejoined the old sooner or later and never caused any issues as common sense prevailed.

That said we did find ourselves in some odd places from time to time but never so odd we could not get out - how good is your reversing!!

It didn't have all that fancy blah blah about points of interest and how to find a filling station or cash machine - that we would never have used anyway - but it did show speed in kph, albeit a bit delayed being reactive which was handy with an mph speedo with small kph after thoughts) and it never failed to take us where we needed to go as long as the inputs were correct!

Two choices then - keep it cheap and simple or make it complicated and expensive - whichever you prefer?

[Derek Uzzell]

The pros-and-cons of vehicle navigation using a smartphone or sat-nav are explored in these online entries

 

https://tinyurl.com/zzhads35

 

(Navigation via smartphone has never appealed to me, but each to their own.)

 

I've used a Garmin nuvi 2559LM for several years. The model still appears on the Garmin website

 

https://www.garmin.com/en-GB/p/148400

 

but I think it's actually not marketed anymore by Garmin. For replacing it nowadays (for motorhome use) I'd opt for the larger-screen Garmin DriveSmart 66 device.

 

https://www.garmin.com/en-GB/p/148400

 

In Roryboy's case it needs to said that - when moving from 'paper map navigation' to using a sat-nav - there will be a learning curve and this may be steep to begin with. Even the most basic modern sat-nav will be feature-laden and some of those features may be of no interest to many drivers or actually be a distraction.

 

Me, I want a sat-nav's maps to be as up-to-date as possible (Why would anyone want otherwise?) and for software/map updating to be free and straightforward. I want a display that's easy to read and voice instructions that are clear. I want the capability to store multiple 'routes'. And that's about it...

 

My nuvi 2559LM meets those requirements, though I've still had to remind myself sometimes how to get the best out of it and it doesn't stop me making mistakes (like recently taking the wrong exit from a roundabout when wanting to join the M5). But a sat-nav has been a godsend for me as my wife's map-reading skills are lamentable.

 

[vindiboy]

when I bought my now van 8 years ago it had a radio cd player etc of course, there was a button on it to press for sat nav, when pressed a large screen slid out and up, this was the sat nav screen, reversing camera as well, the maps on the sat nav were naff so I had the lot taken out, had a new radio fitted and used my Tom Tom as usual, 5 inch screen stuck to the windscreen, much easier and old school,I was paid £800 by the radio fitters and got my new radio thrown in as part of the deal, I always have the sat nav set to fastest route avoid toll roads and all camera, speed limits etc activated, and sound warnings too, I find that when following a route when on main roads the sat nav will tell me to turn on to a minor road, this is usually a deemed a short cut ,cutting off a triangle of road , bringing me back to the main road further along, I am wise to this now and ignore the instruction as it is seldom much of a time or distance saving. Setting shortest route is not a good idea as it will take me on some pretty hairy routes and is often NOT the quickest route anyway.

[Deneb]

vindiboy - 2021-12-07 1:47 PM

 

I find that when following a route when on main roads the sat nav will tell me to turn on to a minor road, this is usually a deemed a short cut ,cutting off a triangle of road , bringing me back to the main road further along, I am wise to this now and ignore the instruction as it is seldom much of a time or distance saving.

 

On Garmin units, this happens if the preference for No U-Turns is enabled. Map plotting then avoids almost any route involving a turn of greater than 90 degrees and will deviate onto minor roads and sometimes single track lanes to avoid the "turn". Disabling the No U-Turn setting restores sensibility.

 

I don't know if TomTom has something similar? We had TomTom devices at work and I could never get on with them as well as Garmin.