660 Quirks

[cookie]

another quirk-


no Invert Route facility. astonishing

i'm beginning to think that the 660 is just another basic garmin numpty unit with a few with pointless add-ons like media player, phone linking (sometimes) etc. to attract the masses

 

[Funrider]

Friend of mine has one and it does come up with some very interesting routes when compared to my 2720. Doing shortest distance from our home in whitstable to santa pod it sends him via Dover? and on the quickest route refuses to send him up the M1, instead coming off the m25 earlier and up through towns. It even calculated one through central london, very strange.

Sounds strange, I expect he's ticked loads of "avoid" boxes without realising.

 

[Roger Chatterton]

another quirk-


no Invert Route facility. astonishing

i'm beginning to think that the 660 is just another basic garmin numpty unit with a few with pointless add-ons like media player, phone linking (sometimes) etc. to attract the masses

But Cookie, the one obvious advantage is that it makes me appreciate good old maps even more. Must have taken me 10 x longer yesterday to try to organise a simple route with waypoints, than it would have done to pick points from a map, and write them onto a till-roll for my trusty RoadBook.
And yes, I think Garmin have a way to go yet - Bad software makes me go berserk ....maybe should have gone Tom Tom after all.

 

[cookie]

But Cookie, the one obvious advantage is that it makes me appreciate good old maps even more. Must have taken me 10 x longer yesterday to try to organise a simple route with waypoints, than it would have done to pick points from a map, and write them onto a till-roll for my trusty RoadBook.
And yes, I think Garmin have a way to go yet - Bad software makes me go berserk ....maybe should have gone Tom Tom after all.

i'll get the hang of it soon. i'm not new to this and felt i knew my way round this sat nav biz pretty well, but the combination of different set ups on the 660 from my old units and the utterly mind bending transition from mapsource to roadtrip is doing my head in


on the latter point, i suspect garmin don't really GAF about their computer software as i suspect only a tiny minority of their customers use it. it would certainly explain why mapsource is stuck at windows 95 and roadtrip is such a mess

 

[illustratedman]

Sounds strange, I expect he's ticked loads of "avoid" boxes without realising.

Nope i had a look at the settings just had u turns and carpool lanes avoided.

 

[Funrider]

Nope i had a look at the settings just had u turns and carpool lanes avoided.

If you can give me a couple of postcodes, both ends, I'll see what my 660 does

 

[tuckerhauser]

yeah 660 has some quirks all right
had it set up to avoid toll roads yet it sent me down every toll motorway in france
listening to the media player the 660 would lock up when i instruction was spoken

better than my tomtom rider which broke everytime i went to europe but garmin has a way to go with firmware and software updates

 

[illustratedman]

Route

Postcode ct5 3 (clover rise) to santa pod raceway. Be very interested to see what it does, my sp2720 takes me off at jn21a on the m25 and up the m1, which is the best way, his 660 takes him all round the houses from jn 22 and of course the totally weird dover route when recalculated as shortest distance? santa pod is in as a poi.

 

[markie_wales]

Nope i had a look at the settings just had u turns and carpool lanes avoided.

IM

Also worth checking what "mode" the 660 is in when you :

a) check avoidances / preferences etc, and
b) when it is in the car and doing the routing.

My Bike and Car settings are different (deliberately).

cheers

Markie

 

[chapsworth]

I was using mine the other night - quickest route from Little Chart to Ash. I know the roads and couldn't work out why it wanted to send me down one road - I ignored it, the 660 immediately recalculated a new route that was some 6 miles shorter and two minutes quicker. Very odd I thought.

Simon

 

[Funrider]

Postcode ct5 3 (clover rise) to santa pod raceway. Be very interested to see what it does, my sp2720 takes me off at jn21a on the m25 and up the m1, which is the best way, his 660 takes him all round the houses from jn 22 and of course the totally weird dover route when recalculated as shortest distance? santa pod is in as a poi.

I think your friend needs to check what setting he has changed, or send his 660 back

Here are my results for your trip on my 660:

Fastest Route, 134 miles 2 hr 16 mins, goes via M2 to start.
Shortest Route,123 miles 2 hr 47 mins, goes via London Road to start.
Avoid Hyways, 121 miles 3 hr 9 mins, ditto London Rd, but then goes through the middle of London to avoid motorways.

Quite neat really, the three options. None went anywhere near Dover onyack

 

[Funrider]

I was using mine the other night - quickest route from Little Chart to Ash. I know the roads and couldn't work out why it wanted to send me down one road - I ignored it, the 660 immediately recalculated a new route that was some 6 miles shorter and two minutes quicker. Very odd I thought.

Simon

Next time it would be interesting to try it's first suggestion, as I've found some lovely roads that way, that I hardly knew existed.

Coming to the free BBQ this Wednesday evening Simon ?

 

[Roger Chatterton]

Some good Zumo news, for me anyhow. Phone , Nokia E71, now seems to pair OK, but now it also pairs my Contacts, which it did not do before.
This success seems to be down to my changing settings on my 'phone, in the PS Sync menu; changing the option from v1.1, to 1.2. This seems to have done the trick, and contacts now display in the 'phone menu on the Zumo. Let's hope it lasts.
The Scala headset also pairs up OK, but not had chance to try any of the above on the 'bike, as I get 'bike back tomorrow. Yippeeee -3 weeks without my bike has been very depressing.

 

[nedflanders]

Some good Zumo news, for me anyhow. Phone , Nokia E71, now seems to pair OK, but now it also pairs my Contacts, which it did not do before.
This success seems to be down to my changing settings on my 'phone, in the PS Sync menu; changing the option from v1.1, to 1.2. This seems to have done the trick, and contacts now display in the 'phone menu on the Zumo. Let's hope it lasts.
The Scala headset also pairs up OK, but not had chance to try any of the above on the 'bike, as I get 'bike back tomorrow. Yippeeee -3 weeks without my bike has been very depressing.

In what menu can you change that? Got a Nokia that doesn't pair properly so would be interested to know

Edit: just found it, already on 1.2

 

[sneakym8]

Paid for my 660 in february and couldnt wait to recieve it, ive been using tomtom for last 4 years, I didnt get it for my Isle of Man trip in June (disapointed) but it was waiting for me on my return and in plenty of time for my trip to the south of France and through the Pyrenees Mountains before returning up the west coast and through normandy back to Calais ( 4 week trip).
All i can say about my Garmin zumo 660 is , "What a disapointment" I had avoid toll roads ticked and that worked fine and it was set for the fastest route. Every route it calculated would take me off major roads and would take me down virtualy impossible unclasified roads , round back streets of towns just to bring me back on the major road 10 minutes down the road after a 45 minute detour. It would miss 40 miles of dual carrige way to take me up 'C' class roads to cut a corner off the route which if i travelled 2 more miles on the major road i would of been on dual carrigeway all the way.
the most frustrating trip i have ever had.
One route was calculated at 2 hrs 10 min (it took 4hrs 30min) we were 10kilometers from a motorway (not toll) and my destination was 3k off the same motorway it took me 4hrs to get to the motorway , at this point the penny dropped and i never trusted it again (the map came out), never had this problem with tomtom!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

anyone else having this problem ?
sorry about the long post.!!

 

[Funrider]

...the most frustrating trip i have ever had...

Well I've had quite a bit of experience of navigation in France using a 550 without your problem. I can't see that the basic navigation rules of the 660 would be much different.

My guess would be your problem was with the "toll road" setting.

I would have thought you would have tried turning that off, before giving up and reverting to paper maps ?

 

[sneakym8]

I did write to Garmin about it and they said the zumo 660 planned the route using the length of the road and the speed limit only,
It did not take into account of the complexity of the road or the classification of the road, so if it could cut a corner off a major road but had to travel through 5 small villages and ten farmyards to do it, "It would do it as long as it was 10 meters shorter" !!!

Which explains the problem as most of the small back roads in France are national speed limits.
Again I did not have this problem with tomtom , I think somewhere in the tomtom you can set a preference for major roads (I may be wrong, I'll check this).

 

[Malcvtr]

I rode to Antibes earlier in the month and on the way back, between Troyes and Reims, the 660 did the same to me - sent me on a lovely little road which I had practically to myself. See pic Not an entirely bad result, but if I'd been in a hurry, it might have annoyed me!

 

[sneakym8]

its nice to be off the beaten track some times it makes for a nice change .
We are heading off to the peak district this next weekend , I would like to think the weather was going to be as nice as it is in that picture.

 

[gasman]

This used to happen to me with my 2610, and it also happens in rural wales. So I don't think it's a problem with the 660 specifically. Tomtom mapping may be better.
I found it quite fun when on holiday in France - several times ended up on unpaved roads..