When The Gps Leads You Astray....., What scrapes have you gotten into from "obeying" your GPS? Options

[John Blue]

Most GPS addresses are wrong by a small amount or in some cases miles off. Good Sam 2010 book now had the (we hope) correct address on most campgrounds. I found a new campground last week and the web page GPS address was off by miles. RV people will be happy to find this place.

[grim509]

So far so good (knock on wood) as far as not being led astray by the GPS. Sometimes I think it gives us some directions that would be better, but no white knuckle moments yet.

For those of you with large travel trailers or motorhomes, it may be worth the investment of getting a "trucker" GPS. I know some of the regular ones have that as an option on the directions setting, but the "trucker" GPS are a whole other item all together. A bit more expensive, but I've been told they're great at keeping you off the narrow, windy, hilly roads some of you have encountered. Most good truck stops will carry these GPS units.

[agood214]

So I felt the need to add a reply... :-)

Of all the places to be off in a map - it was Campingworld in Valencia, California.

I had my Garmin, I had my backup of the printout of the Google maps and was ready to roll.

It's really the "last mile" that gets you I got off the freeway turned and the gps is pushing me up a road that's going into a state park, it got narrow fast - and at some point you have to say - oh this must be the way, then wait a minute.... oh oh... not good in a 34 foot diesel Super C.

Luckily there was a fire turnout after a mile and a seven point turn and I was on my was back down. No cell service , but when I went back down the hill a short bit and was able to call the store they said - oh that happens all the time.

mapquest actually had it right, google for a change was wrong and so was Garmin- and admitted it.

Oh by the way the Trucker GPS like the Garmin 456T has 4 very bad problems currently, as I owned one for a bit to try it out that make it really not useful to RV'ers, honestly I'd love to love it but they have to fix it.

1. It only has truck mode - not RV mode. so it assumes you are a commercial vehicle - that means it's screaming at you all over urban areas as you are a truck.....and not supposed to be there. that's mroe dangerous distracting to me driving potentially, I need the truck routes, low clearance data sharp curves, but hey I'm not a commercial vehicle.

2. The unit does not like trip interruptions or changes in route or it will reboot - this is just a plain bug.

3. No audio output jack - it's too quiet - ever tired hearing something over a diesel ?

4. It's not big enough should be 5 inches or 7 like the older 7200 Streetpilot.

[grim509]

Good points on the trucker GPS. Maybe some others will work? It's a matter of time before an RV GPS setting comes out, hopefully sooner than later.

It's not fun when it routes a detour and there's 5 screaming kids in the back of the van, and you're pulling a pup through a fancy-schmancy neighborhood lol

[lunchbox67]

The expierences that i have had in my GPS days are that if you set it to take you the shortest route you will end up going thru some bad country roads, then if you set it to the fastest route you will go thru the mountians of virginia and down a two lane road using all brakes you have....so i would recommend using a road atlas along with the GPS to map out where you would like to go the GPS will recalculate route and head you on a good path. This same GPS took me to a walmart that had moved 14 years prior to that location that is very frustrating .....

[GrandmaM]

We had an old motorhome and a new GPS about 4 years ago. We were travelling through central Missouri, heading northeast from Kansas City to Carrollton. I had been that way by car earlier in the year and knew that the old iron bridge over the Missouri River in Waverly, MO had been torn down and replaced by a super new bridge, and that the route to get to the new bridge was a wee bit confusing. When I mentioned this to HRH the Driver, he patted me on the hand, and reminded me that we had the latest in technology. Unfortunately, Garmin hadn't heard about the bridge switcheroo, I guess.

I could tell that it was going to be interesting, if not fun when we didn't do a dog leg to get to the new bridge. I cleared my throat, and my husband ignored me. We ended up in a very small parking lot and had a lovely view of the Missouri River, but no bridge. I didn't say "I told you so". I helped him make a tight Y turn, and we traveled in silence for a while. After a twisted route, we crossed the Missouri!

By the way, Waverly is surrounded by peach orchards, and in July and August, you can find the nicest juiciest peaches EVER there. We like the farm stand from Peter's Orchards.

[joez]

The expierences that i have had in my GPS days are that if you set it to take you the shortest route you will end up going thru some bad country roads, then if you set it to the fastest route you will go thru the mountians of virginia and down a two lane road using all brakes you have....so i would recommend using a road atlas along with the GPS to map out where you would like to go the GPS will recalculate route and head you on a good path.

For important routes (i.e. those that may involve narrow roads or mountain switchbacks, etc.) I always preview the route using Streets and Trips. and, if necessary use the closeup views available from Bing or Google Maps to double check turns, etc. Once I have decided on the route I download it to the Garmin so I am not depending on one program. I do not know the Garmin model numbers that are capable of this but there are several. Perhaps this is a bit of overkill, but sometimes peace of mind is important too. Besides I have had enough "road adventures" in my life. I do not need more.

[rgatijnet]

We use two GPS units. I use a Garmin 7200 for my main navigation(big screen, etc) and my wife uses a TomTom 920 to double check the Garmin and to look up RV Parks and restaurants. Even with two units, we still don't always end up with the best route to get to a location. Both units are kept up to date with the latest downloads and both use a different mapping source. I figure that it is just the nature of civilian GPS systems.
What bothers me the most is when the GPS unit says we are on State Rd 315 or we should turn onto State Road 27, and the road signs all say Oak Street or some other name that the GPS doesn't have in it's database.
Another problem is trying to find RV Parks that do not have a specific street address. On the corner of Oak and Elm does no good if the GPS unit only knows those as State roads.
All things considered, We usually put 15,000 miles on our coach each year and we would not trade our GPS units for anything. We still have the road maps but the GPS units do make the driving easier.