Is it me or is it Garmin?

[arcaguy]

I recently purchased a Garmin 780 for use in my RV. As my RV is put up for the winter I used the GPS in my truck for a trip to the Tampa show last week. I was impressed, but not is a good sort of way. While going to my SIL's house in Nashville it routed me 20 miles past her house then had me turn around and head 20 miles back from where I came from on the same road. I had the vehicle set to a car so there wasn't any height, weight or size issues, or at least shouldn't have been. It kind of did the same thing in getting from the show back to my hotel, it routed me literally around in a circle on one of the highway's in Tampa, but going to the show it did fine. Also when I was going through Knoxville, TN and Finley, OH on the way home it gave me the wrong speed limits through both of those cities. Since what I'm really paying for in a GPS is information with a fancy delivery method it seems that Garmin is not delivering what I purchased. My Apple phone worked flawlessly in both instances when the GPS failed. When I hooked the GPS up to my computer before I left it said it was up to date. Does anyone have any thoughts on why my system would act this way?

[l1v3fr33ord1]

arcaguy-

I have an earlier model of the RV780, the RV760. On occasion it has behaved somewhat similarly to yours.

It may be worth checking the settings. Sometimes the "avoidance" settings can result in circuitous routings.

[Jpiland]

Have you done and update on it. Specialty if it's new and you have never done one. Go into setting and update. Good luck.

[Vibeman]

I have a Garmin RV785 and am not really impressed with it. It does some things pretty well but is lacking in many areas. Maybe I had overly optimistic expectations initially, but it was not cheap so I feel it should be better than it is. With Google Maps as the standard I feel it is lacking in many areas, but especially in the human/machine interface. I feel it should be much more intuitive than it is. I paid for it so I use it, but I never depend on it, I always have a backup.

[crb478]

Its Garmin!

I have 3 different Garmin devices and so far the 770 in my RV has performed the best.

The one in my car once had me exit and turn right in Va, It sent me 2 miles down the road just to have me make a U turn and then drive 2 miles back and turn right into my Hotel!

I can not even think of how many times it sent me to my destination down one set of roads, and back home on different roads.

It will also try to force you to reroute to its route even if you know that you are on a shorter route already. I once went from my Home to Black Mountain, NC. I entered the address mainly to help me find the ending address. I didn't take the route it wanted, and it tried to reroute me the whole two hour trip even as I arrived at the destination! Go Figure Garmin. I think they are to stubborn to admit that they are not the best and to consider working with google maps.

That said I usually have a route laid out and a back up on my phone. The reason I keep a separate GPS or 3 is that I have had my phone gps loose signal and it will not try to reconnect. I have also had a phone that the GPS function was using the battery in the phone faster than I could keep it charged.
I still use paper maps too.

[FloridaFlyer]

The speed limit issue could be as simple as a recent change in speed limit in an area with construction. I see that often on my Garmin Nuvi 2689 units.


Routing issues could have a variety of causes. My Garmin GPS wants to route me down an unused road easement which is gated to prevent through traffic. That is clearly a database error--the unused road easement is marked as road. Not cool!


How'd you like the show? We went to look because we were planning to get a used unit in 3 years or so...and ended up buying a new unit. I remember inflation and figured I'd buy one now while I can afford it.

[arcaguy]

The show was pretty good, I had about a 45 minute conversation with the president of Nexus, very enlightening. As for the Garmin I reported the errors to them an only when I was done did I learn there would be no individual response unless I hadn't bought the thing already. Not what I call good customer service. It screams loud and clear that they don't care about you once they have separated you from your money. Nonetheless I will likely use it.

[Suburbazine]

It's not you, it's Garmin. Their databases are about 2 years behind the curve and their RV profiles can cause you to be rerouted around a false restriction that they've never corrected. My last foray into Garmin routing had me avoiding weight restrictions and commercial restrictions (those crop up around some construction zones) but Garmin never removed the temporary restriction from the road afterwards. I think my last use of a 780 before I chucked it sent me (totally unneccesarily) down an exit ramp that had no good way back onto the interstate. I wound up having a cut a u-turn across a divided highway some 2 miles down to get back. No GPS is perfect but some of them try too hard to make sure every little bit is accounted for.



I switched to Copilot and so far my only gripe is that the routing has no respect for the actual road width when it calls for a U-turn. Garmin at least seemed to make an effort to not have me cut a u-turn in locations that it would be impossible. Copilot pulls off everything else including traffic redirection and live restrictions pretty flawlessly though.

[wildmandmc]

hey on my titan, been rerouted many times, way past where i should of turned.
seems that any re construction screws it all up, even if they make a 2 lane a 4 lane.

[rtaggio]

Owned at least 6 Garmin GPS's in the marine environment over the last 10-12 years and they all performed flawlessly. Purchased the RV-785, and it is I'm my opinion a POS for navigation, but a great dash cam.

Constant "wild goose chase" routings, wrong speed limit warnings, front end collision and lane change warnings are nothing but annoyances. Mapping is old and regardless of how many times you upgrade the software its still old S@#t. Roads (interstates) completed 2-3 years ago not depicted, other roads renamed that still use old name, other times shows vehicle 1 or more miles left or right of road, etc.

It has 3 features I like, Dash cam, School zone warning, and speed limit change (although many times displays wrong info) so at least you know it's different. But these features don't justify the price.

[docj]

We've managed for the past several years with just Google Maps and when I'm in the car, rather than the MH, I wouldn't think of using anything else. It's far better than the Tom Tom based nav system built into our Subaru.

I'm not saying that Google Maps doesn't make some questionable decisions, but, in my experience they aren't like what is being reported here. With Android Auto and Apple Car Play being standard in most newer vehicles, I'm not sure how the standalone GPS business will even survive.

[ernieh]

Originally Posted by rtaggio

Owned at least 6 Garmin GPS's in the marine environment over the last 10-12 years and they all performed flawlessly. Purchased the RV-785, and it is I'm my opinion a POS for navigation, but a great dash cam.

Constant "wild goose chase" routings, wrong speed limit warnings, front end collision and lane change warnings are nothing but annoyances. Mapping is old and regardless of how many times you upgrade the software its still old S@#t. Roads (interstates) completed 2-3 years ago not depicted, other roads renamed that still use old name, other times shows vehicle 1 or more miles left or right of road, etc.

It has 3 features I like, Dash cam, School zone warning, and speed limit change (although many times displays wrong info) so at least you know it's different. But these features don't justify the price.

I assume that you know that you can turn those lane change and other "annoyances" off.

[rtaggio]

Originally Posted by ernieh

I assume that you know that you can turn those lane change and other "annoyances" off.

Yes, well aware and they have been disabled in the first few weeks of use.

[Kjon]

I have noticed that "strange" things happen when long distances to the endpoint are involved regardless of the Garmin GPS model. Now I set shorter intermediate points toward my final destination and it seems to work better.