Zumo 340LM Routing

I've done restore to default settings, and hard reset. On Garmin's recommendation I've re-installed the maps and all the updates are installed. I've checked and double checked avoidances and settings. The Traffic Trends feature is turned off, and I also clear the travel history after any long trip which Travel Trends uses for it's predictions.

I generally use MotoGoLoco for route planning and put in mumerous waypoints to try and prevent Mr Garmin from taking me away from my preferred route. MotoGoLoco which uses Google Maps generally predicts the most obvious route which looks pretty logical on the screen. But, more often than not Mr Garmin will beg to differ if there's a shitty alternative available, and in place like Wales there is usually a handy farm track near every good A road he'd prefer to use.

I'm just back from the Yorkshire Dales, North Pennines and the Lakes, and I went to great lengths to add plenty of waypoints and everything ran fairly smoothly, but closer to home where I know the roads I don't add in extra waypoints and you can see that the Zumo just wants you to divert down lanes that simply aren't the quickest / most obvious route, as in the pictures I posted above, so it does start to diminish trust in the unit.

I'm just of for a 300 mile trip to Hampshire and back with my wife, so it'll be interesting to see how we fare this time out.


Im out in Belgium and France at present and my 340 will cheerfully take me off at the first turn of a roundabout on a service road that parallels the A road , only to drop me back on the A road about 300 m further on!

Having said that it also finds some cracking routes, so I shant complain. So far Im 2000 miles into a trip and it gets me outside my accommodation every night��
 
Im out in Belgium and France at present and my 340 will cheerfully take me off at the first turn of a roundabout on a service road that parallels the A road , only to drop me back on the A road about 300 m further on!

My 345 did that a few times in France and Belgium when I was there a couple of weeks ago, my first time with a satnav. Because I have not had this happen in the UK I wondered about the classification of French roads in the Garmin software but it seems folks have been having the same problem here. That being said when near to towns it found hotels and restaurants okay so on balance the benefits outweighed the negatives. A couple of others in our group had iPhones in holders which worked well and were much faster at calculating routes, on the minus side the screens didn't work well in sunshine.
 
could people who are having a problem like or the same as the op problem please post what firmware they have installed on there zumo 340 unit please.
 
Joe,

This thread covers a lot of the first principles and whilst it is aimed more at the use of Basecamp there is a lot of good stuff in here. I know it is written from the perspective of a 595 user but I think most of the principles apply the current generation of Garmin products. One of videos (can't remember which one!:blast) spends some time on settings and particularly custom settings.

http://www.ukgser.com/forums/showthread.php/422021-Running-a-route-on-the-Nav-V-590-The-latest-generation-Garmin-devices?highlight=Basecamp
 
I find the fact that you have 2 units displaying the same/similar issue along with your friends most strange, having googled this and drawn pretty much a blank, and would have expected to find others with if not the same but similar issues even stranger.QUOTE]
Yep, strange, and I have Googled it and been through Garmin's help pages also, hence my post to see if others have expeienced the issue.
 
Joe your firmware/software number should read something like 3.50 or 4.00 or similar.have you connected to express and viewed software version.

The GPS Firmware is 6.17.10

8ye65I.jpg


The software version is 4.20

4Gxmid.jpg
 
The debate regards MotoGoLoco, Mapsource, Basecamp is interesting but is a bit of a red herring as doesn't really answer the original question, as in the example I posted earlier, in a simple A to B route, the unit simply does not choose the fastest route on many occasions. Where the blue line down a 70 mph dual carriageway is abandoned for the convoluted red route through villages. A better ride perhaps, but not the quickest route that was asked for.

La3507.jpg
 
It feels as if it has got to be settings on the unit but you have done all the obvious checks. Have you tried the Zumo Forum too?
 
My Zumo 350 versions are exactly the same as Joes. Same firmware, same GPS, same Bluetooth, same text and audio versions.
 
Exactly the same has recently happened to me Joe :mad: took me all the back roads off A50. Weird thing is, I plugged in the wife's older version and this took me a completely ( and correctly ) route...weird approaching a junction and the two Garmins were indicating turning in opposite directions...both must have been on the rags or having some sort of domestic !! Told my friend this and his Garmin did the same when visiting the old Scriminger works. Bit shite TBH and I wouldn't recommend a 340LM.
 
my 350lm has started to act like this since I updated a couple of months back, perhaps its gamins way of trying to make us upgrade to the latest overpriced units
 
I spent six weeks communicating back and forth with Garmin by phone and email. I sent them pictures, routes, descriptions, serial numbers, etc, etc. I deleted and reloaded maps, did factory re-sets, uploaded various updates et, etc, but in the end they told me they had no idea what the problem was and told me that if I bought a new Garmin at full up retail price from them they would give me a trade in refund of 25% on my old units. I basically told them that was a shit deal as eBay was full of discounting retailers and I could easily better that by buying from them and selling my current units.

What I cannot understand is why my daughter's older unit works fine and these later ones are crap. A simple algorithm change would sort the issue, where any road outside of a built up area that is not an numbered A or B road is re-classified from a 60 mph road to a 30 mph road. I could do this manually on Autoroute 20 years ago before I had a sat nav and did paper routes, so why can't a company as big as Garmin manage it.

A friend has recently joined a large cycling club (I know :blast), and apparently those with Garmin units on their push bikes regularly moan about similar issues. I've been looking at Tom Tom, but even after playing with the settings the menus just seem to sensitive and clunky to use, which may be a familiarity thing, but I'm not convinced. I'd like to go and try another manufacturers unit, but Garmin and Tom Tom seem to have the motorcycle market sewn up between them.
 
A couple of thoughts come to mind. Firstly, do BaseCamp and Mapsource give the same strange routes?. If so, I'd be suspicious of Garmin's method of route calculation. Secondly, what happens if you try OpenStreetMap instead of Garmin's maps. Teh reason for speculating is that Garmin maps include speed limits, not all of which are correct, and OSM doesn't and I wondered if they were used in the calculations.
 
A couple of thoughts come to mind. Firstly, do BaseCamp and Mapsource give the same strange routes?. If so, I'd be suspicious of Garmin's method of route calculation. Secondly, what happens if you try OpenStreetMap instead of Garmin's maps. Teh reason for speculating is that Garmin maps include speed limits, not all of which are correct, and OSM doesn't and I wondered if they were used in the calculations.

All that is fine but we buy a GPS to get us to our location ( even just putting in the post code should be 100% sufficient )... cannot imagine many folk having to resort to Mapsource etc etc. The 340LM installation is simply not good enough from a company like Garmin :(
 
well feck me,just noticed this post.mine does exactly the same,i thought it was my crap technology skills.oh how the lads all laughed[not]when I was leading recently coming back from a rally in wales,everyone pissed wet thru and cold and mine decided to take us all for about 15 miles on a nice little trail.would probably been quite nice if it had been a dry and warm day,but everyone just wanted to get home.
 
I have a 340lm and seems to route direct routes if you put it on the car mode profile. Even the screen avatar changes to a car.:nenau
 
OK...mounted my old car Garmin and set the mode ( top left of the screen when you boot the GPS up...touch the motorcycle logo and in the menu select car - job done :thumb2 ) on the 340....seemed to get me around Liverpool identical to each other. As Mzokk say's, probably taking us on a recommended Garmin 'motorcycle' road route when all we want is to get there !!
 


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