Truckers and RV GPS???

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DieselJay

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Hi everyone,  I'm sorry to ask this question again, but I can't find the post I put up 2 to 4 weeks ago about this issue.  My question to all  is who puts out the best GPS for RV'ers? We use Garmin's in all our cars and trucks now, so I looked into the Garmin 465T for truckers only because I know This brand and it's performance.  Is this a good model or should I look into another brand?  Also trying to keep the cost down the 465T is going for about 250.00 right now.  So do you have any other suggestions that I should look into?  Thanks
 
You can see your previous post and replies here and you can always find your previous posts from your profile.
 
I bought a 465t when it first came out and love it. It is my 3rd Garmin and I would buy it again. The 465t works well, and differently, in trucks and cars. The truck mode keeps to truck routes and has a data base that compares your configuration to overpass heights, bridge maximum weights and "truck prohibited" roads. When you shift to car mode, those parameters drop out and it works like most other Nuvi's.
 
I've been a Garmin man for years and own two of them right now, but recently got a TomTom XXL550 on a bargain deal I could not pass up. Surprise! I like the TomTom very much and it now has pride of place in my car. It has a number of strengths vs the Garmin, and only a few weaknesses. The only real negative I have found is that the TomTom is slower to find satellites if the car has moved while it was powered off (as when the car is being towed) and it is not as simple to save a new POI or Favorite from the map screen. The biggest plus is that the POI data is much more comprehensive and up to date, and the maps are generally more accurate. A number of smaller differences too, and many of them are probably a matter of preference rather than a real plus or minus in function.
 
Gary, This tom tom is it a rv or truckers GPS or a car GPS?  I do want a rv gps to not have any problems with heights and ect.
 
Are you equating height info with RV?  I added height POI data to mine and it will alert if I am approaching a low overhead, but it doesn't take that into account when trip routing. I also expended its POI database substantially with about 10,000 campground listings as well as things like Diesel fuel locations, rest areas and Walmarts.

But no, TomTom does not make a trucker model  or RV specific model that I am aware of.

Rand McNally has just brought out a new RV GPS.  See for yourself:
http://store.randmcnally.com/tripmaker-rvnd-5510.html?SCCampaign=SEMRVND&gclid=CJHu9urotqkCFUcQNAodWzMD-w
 
Gary,  Yes I'm talking about height and weight.  Gary when I was coming back from Niagara fall about 5 years ago, on the way home we decided  to stop at Howe Caverns in NY.  We got off the highway and were traveling down this back country road for quite a while and we came to a low bridge that my friends 5th wheel was not able to go under, we had to turn around and go back 45min to 1hour and then continue on but it this point the reroute was close to 1 1/2 hours out of the way. So we had only about 20 min to get there, if we had only known about the bridge!!  So yes I want a truckers GPS for this reason and others.  I will be doing over 6000 miles straight  this summer so I'm trying to avoid as many problems as possable, thinking i will get my money's worth out of it on this trip alone.
 
I don't deny that you have to watch for low bridges, but I've traveled 100k miles and only encountered a few, and none that caused more than a 15 minutes delay in re-routing.  Staying off secondary roads is one way to avoid major routing problems - detours are usually fairly easy on larger roads. Checking the road atlas (e.g. Rand McNally's Trucker's Atlas) is another way to avoid problems off the interstate.

But your mileage may vary
 
Another option, not so far mentioned in this thread, is Garmin's new dezl 560, which has trucker and RV modes in a larger screen version than the 465, along with a few other enhancements. I have one on order that should be delivered by the end of this week, so once I get it and check it out, I'll post some comments/impressions.
 
Larry N. said:
Another option, not so far mentioned in this thread, is Garmin's new dezl 560, which has trucker and RV modes in a larger screen version than the 465, along with a few other enhancements.
For that price it better com with lifetime map updates.  Which it does.  But the fine print states " Free Lifetime Map Updates entitle you to receive up to 4 map data updates per year, when and as such updates are made available on the Garmin website, for this specific Garmin product only until this product?s useful life expires or ...."  So who decides when this product's useful life expires?  Not the purchaser.
 
Gary RV Roamer said:
Garmin has always been pretty good about continuing support for older products. Let's hope that continues.

Map update support for the 2610, which was a couple of years older than the 2730, was dropped a little over 2 years ago. That helped push us into the 465t. I guess that is Garmin's goal :'(
 
Gary, so are you saying in your opinion I should just use the Garmen I have now and I should be just fine?  I know what happened to me is a freak thing and it may never happen again.  So that's why I'm asking the people who do the big miles?
 
Gary, so are you saying in your opinion I should just use the Garmen I have now and I should be just fine?

If that's what Gary is saying, I'll have to disagree with him. Having the routing and warnings built in is far superior than relying on POIs. A POI can warn you about a specific place but not say if it is on your route or route you around the bad spot.
 
The warning provided by added POI's can be very useful  BUT you have to understand their functioning and the inherit limitations. Just as with the GPS itself, it has it's limitations and should not be followed blindly. When I set a destination, I often check it before starting out using the methods inherent in the GPS and see if the route chosen makes sense to me.

I use added POI's as warnings for the approach to State Welcome centres, roadside rest facilities, FJ's,  etc . These are seldom 'critical' but nice to know so that rest stops can be decided in enough time to permit a safe exit and not get caught in the wrong lane.

Another way of using added POI is by looking them up on the menus and setting them as a destination or 'via' point. I seldom use this method myself.
 
Well, I got my dezl 560LMT yesterday afternoon, and I (mostly) like it. Some operating details are rather noticeably different from the way my Streetpilot 2730 works, and it's not nearly as configurable (at least at first glance), but once I figured out a few operating details, it's mostly set up the way I like. The manual (PDF) can be downloaded from the Garmin site.

It has Automobile, Truck, RV and pedestrian modes. In truck and RV modes you can set up profiles for multiple vehicles, and name them yourself, and they're pretty straightforward, including dimensions and weights (axle max and vehicle max) -- you can choose whether to enter weights in tons or pounds (and another choice, don't recall what- kilograms?). Units are also selectable in many other areas, of course. So I've set up a profile for my Bounder with Toad and without Toad (I was surprised my Wrangler is just a hair over 12 feet long, measured by tape).

I was able to connect the dezl 560 to the Mapsource program I'd been using with my 2730, and I was able to easily dump all the routes and waypoints I'd been using into the 560 -- nice. Once I discovered that "more data" in one of the settings menus meant to display data fields on screen, then I had all I really needed. Altitude and speed are among the default data fields, both when following a route and when not doing so (I'd been concerned about how to get altitude). It's also great that when the dezl has speed limits available for your current location, it shows it beside your current speed in the data field, with actual speed turning red if you exceed that. BUT, if the GPS speed limit is wrong (you saw a sign saying different), touch the speed limit display and plus and minus arrows allow you to change the speed limit in 5 mph increments (it only changes the limit in your current direction). On my residential street, the 560 has no speed limit listed, but there's a plus sign displayed that let me set one. Nice.

The default voice is the same "Jill" voice that my 2730 uses, and it gives directions in a familiar way, but includes a written display (one line across the top) for some of the info, also, even well in advance of a turn. Driving a set route on the interstates last night was interesting (I used Automobile mode in my F-150). Southbound on I-25, approaching the ramp leading off to I-270, I suddenly got a loud DING, and when I looked at the GPS, there was a "photo-realistic" display showing which set of lanes to stay in for my desired route. There were a couple of other spots where I encountered that, also, but not at all road splits.

A very pleasant surprise when I was on my way home from my meeting, was that I didn't get a "recalculating: turn left on ... or make a U turn" when I didn't follow the directions. She ("Jill") wanted me to turn right, then onto a ramp to get on 6th Ave. eastbound, but I turned left on Kipling St., and the recalculation was silent, but almost immediately showed a new route in accordance with my turn, and she thereafter followed exactly my preferred route (not a stored route). Nice.

Since the 560 has a bluetooth mode, I enabled blue tooth on my cell phone, "paired" the two units, and was able to read my phone's address book on the dezl, and place a call, either type in number or select from the phone book. I didn't do this on the road, just from the garage, but talked briefly with my wife after calling "Home." DW said I sounded a little "hollow" -- not a surprise, given that it was about three feet between my mouth and the dezl. DW sounded good. This was all with the phone still in its case on my belt.

I've not yet driven my Bounder since getting the dezl, so haven't tried the RV mode. Pedestrian mode is also soon to be tried.

The friction mount is essentially the same as that on my 2730, and I really like it a lot. Also, while it's sitting in my F-150 and plugged in, I don't have to go through "I agree" screens every time, even get an almost instant power up.

All in all, I'm pleased with it so far. As I learn more, and as I get more experience with it, I'll update.
 
Congrats on the 560. It seems that the 560 has a few more bells and whistles than the 465t. Be careful with the speed limit readout. It is based on cars and not on truck or RV reduced speeds. I had a similar transition problem from the 26xx/27xx series but eventually you get used to it. Even 2 years after purchase I am still learning things about it.
 
Thanks, Bernie. It claims to display those truck speed limits when in the truck mode, if they are different from cars, but I don't plan to trust that until I see it. My major dependency on the displayed speed limit will be when it's been a long time since I saw a sign (this happens all too often on the road), or when there hasn't been one yet since I turned onto the current road. Thanks for the caution, though. I'll eventually find out how that actually pans out.

I suppose that I should have mentioned the one thing I dislike the most about the 560 -- documentation, or rather the lack of it. Of course that's likely common to all electronics (and many other things) today, but it makes it tougher to figure out all the various uses. Apparently it's just too expensive to create decent documentation (that is, a manual that actually tells you everything about every mode, laid out in a logical manner, and written in decent English). I still recall a lot of my first stereo equipment, which even included circuit diagrams and circuit descriptions, as well as information about every conceivable way of setting it up. My TRS-80 and Amiga came with real, honest to goodness documentation, rather than just a brief overview.

But all that seems to be our entire society, not just Garmin (thanks, Microsoft, for starting this -- at least they were my first encounter).
 

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