Garmin is shite. Get it off your chest here.

Yup i have to agree,

My garmin took me off the A3 which was a simple turn off at x junction and arrive at destination.

To a cross town jungle of roadworks traffic lights and speedcams !! WHY!!!!!!! it wasnt fecking quicker at all!!!!!!

Might relaoad tom tom onto my smartphone

We rode from Soissons to Nampont St Martin on Saturday, both sat navs (Keith's old Garmin, and my Nav VI) set to fastest, and both routed us through the middle of Amiens, despite there being several ring roads. This was a regular occurrence. Why on earth they still haven't worked in an 'avoid town/ city' feature, I've no idea.

Then, on the way home from the tunnel, I missed a turning (combo of being tired, and being distracted by some totty jogging by the side of the road :rolleyes:), the sat Nav then added 40 minutes to the journey, rather than routing me down the next turning. I turned the fucking thing off in the end, and relied on signposts, still beating its estimated arrival time.

Avoid unpaved roads sent us down several unpaved gravel tracks.

Avoid major roads & motorways often put us on dual carriageways, and the occasional motorway.

Curved roads often set us on the straightest main roads, despite there being better, more fun roads (we checked on the map afterwards).

Recalculation is ridiculously slow, often over a minute, therefore missing several potential alternative routes.

Garmin is SHIT.
 
My brand new Nav 6 is complete shite.... First update and "bollocks no maps" so rather than throw a tantrum which is what i really wanted to do I start exploring the units settings. I learnt quite a lot but alas still no detailed maps. Its as though the detail has been turned to minimum.... I confirmed the map is ok by downloading it to base camp. looks good. turn the detail to min and I replicate the nav 6. take the battery out of the Nav to attempt a reset... no luck.
Contact garmin. Eventually get a muppet reply with you need to add and SD card :rolleyes: Complete bollocks says I.. I have over 10GB of space left on the unit. Just to be sure I looked at loading the map again from mapsource (manage maps) that confirmed it would fit with room to spare. In any case the unit tells me the correct map is already loaded and has the green tick by it.
This is the point Garmin pisses me off royaly.... The next reply from them after 3 days is for me to return the unit to my dealer for a refund if thats what I want. No mention of technical help. Every Garmin I have owned (4) has the same issue with updates... i.e. they don't work or take a load of faffing about to get to work. Never again... the routing algorithms are wank unless you want to miss the nice roads and scenery. Yeah yeah i know we can make our own detailed routes etc etc but when I ask for the fastest route from A to B I kinda expect that. But all it does is use the motorways which aren't necessarily the fastest point from A to B. I have proved this when crossing Spain and Portugal. Picked my own route and saved 8 hours...
Am I expecting too much? maybe... but at £600 I expect the twat to update and have accurate information on it.
Now off to find a BMW dealer in Italy that might be able to help....
Sent an email to Balderstons asking about any back up and got a reply within 2 minutes. It was very helpful too.. top people :beerjug:
 
I'll swap my nearly two year old Nav V with your VI if you want. Mine works faultlessly as did my 660 before it. Of course I have had the same map loading issues as others, but with a bit of common and a few reads of others posts all gets sorted. I have always phoned Garmin when I've had issues and their support has been outstanding. Guess if not in the UK phoning is a bit expensive.
 
My Nav 6: I feel cleansed.

So easy to plan, so easy to use.

It integrates with Interphone headsets seamlessly.

Music playing just works.

You can type a destination in and it actually uses the letters you press.

It never takes me up shortcuts through unnavigable bogs or mountain tracks that are hours longer and dangerous to ride on a fully laden, two-up RT when selecting fastest route.

Its so easy to use with my Mac.

I can quickly plan complex routes and get them on the device.

Curvy roads option does NOT take me on hundred mile senseless detours.

It NEVER says Route cannot be calculated.

It never, ever crashes whilst skipping a waypoint.

The screen is durable and is almost impossible to scratch.

Honestly, I feel so cleansed now I use an iPhone 8 with its amazing array of brilliant navigation apps and sold the piece of shite that could do none of the above reliably, namely my Garmin / BMW Nav 6.
 
The writing has been in the wall for sometime now, why buy a dedicated GPS when the new waterproof phones do a better job and come with a host of additional features. I won't be buying another Garmin unit, the 390 I have works but it's not in the same league as the iPhone 6 I use in the car, so as soon as I upgrade to an 8 or above the Garmin is gone.
 
So easy to plan, so easy to use.

It integrates with Interphone headsets seamlessly.

Music playing just works.

You can type a destination in and it actually uses the letters you press.

It never takes me up shortcuts through unnavigable bogs or mountain tracks that are hours longer and dangerous to ride on a fully laden, two-up RT when selecting fastest route.

Its so easy to use with my Mac.

I can quickly plan complex routes and get them on the device.

Curvy roads option does NOT take me on hundred mile senseless detours.

It NEVER says Route cannot be calculated.

It never, ever crashes whilst skipping a waypoint.

The screen is durable and is almost impossible to scratch.

Honestly, I feel so cleansed now I use an iPhone 8 with its amazing array of brilliant navigation apps and sold the piece of shite that could do none of the above reliably, namely my Garmin / BMW Nav 6.

Not just me then.......




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
You will burn in hell for eternity for daring to speak badly of the Garmin, and should be thoroughly ashamed of yourself.
 
Sorry

I’ll finish that sentence off ‘not just me then.....that thinks these things are rubbish!’

Just got back from a week in France. It sent me down tiny 2nd gear tracks when on windy roads, around in loops when on fastest route, then was painfully slow to re-calculate when I finally gave up and wouldn’t go down said tiny track or around the loop I could clearly see being displayed for me on the screen, all whist constantly inconsistently failing to alert me to any camera zones and failing to connect to my phone.

It also turned itself off as I was negotiating the L’Arc De Triomphe and then failed to let me know the M25 was at total standstill from j3 all the way to the tunnel.

Until I arrived at said standstill of course, when it helpfully alarmed to tell me I was stuck in traffic. Wow no shit Sherlock.

Still, has a nice screen and looks pretty.

(I’m not a fan btw).






Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Sorry

I’ll finish that sentence off ‘not just me then.....that thinks these things are rubbish!’

Just got back from a week in France. It sent me down tiny 2nd gear tracks when on windy roads, around in loops when on fastest route, then was painfully slow to re-calculate when I finally gave up and wouldn’t go down said tiny track or around the loop I could clearly see being displayed for me on the screen, all whist constantly inconsistently failing to alert me to any camera zones and failing to connect to my phone.

It also turned itself off as I was negotiating the L’Arc De Triomphe and then failed to let me know the M25 was at total standstill from j3 all the way to the tunnel.

Until I arrived at said standstill of course, when it helpfully alarmed to tell me I was stuck in traffic. Wow no shit Sherlock.

Still, has a nice screen and looks pretty.

(I’m not a fan btw).






Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Exactly the kind of thing that Constantly happened to me. It’s a thundercunt of a device.
 
We rode from Soissons to Nampont St Martin on Saturday, both sat navs (Keith's old Garmin, and my Nav VI) set to fastest, and both routed us through the middle of Amiens, despite there being several ring roads. This was a regular occurrence. Why on earth they still haven't worked in an 'avoid town/ city' feature, I've no idea.

Then, on the way home from the tunnel, I missed a turning (combo of being tired, and being distracted by some totty jogging by the side of the road :rolleyes:), the sat Nav then added 40 minutes to the journey, rather than routing me down the next turning. I turned the fucking thing off in the end, and relied on signposts, still beating its estimated arrival time.

Avoid unpaved roads sent us down several unpaved gravel tracks.

Avoid major roads & motorways often put us on dual carriageways, and the occasional motorway.

Curved roads often set us on the straightest main roads, despite there being better, more fun roads (we checked on the map afterwards).

Recalculation is ridiculously slow, often over a minute, therefore missing several potential alternative routes.

Garmin is SHIT.
Agreed for the same reasons
 
Never had a serious problem with any of my Garmins so I’ll be sticking with them.
Tom Tom lost me when, in an OS update, they deleted the Itinerary Planner feature from their lower end units.
No warning, no apology. No option to reinstall an older OS. They couldn’t care less.
 
The problem with Garmin is that they have been overtaken by the instant gratification generation ( of people and tech). They are not an intuitive device so are not as simple to use as an iPhone or Twitface etc. etc. and need the user to invest some time to gain understanding to get the best from it.

Shit like the map update issue is typical of companies cutting costs on software releases by making their users beta testers.

My long relationship with Garmin devices means I have a reasonable understanding. My Nav V is the most reliable and robust unit I’ve owned. :thumb
 
I tell myself I love my NAV 6, but only because I've just bought it and I'm trying to avoid the old cognitive dissonance :D

I want it to be brill.

However, the fastest route does seem to send you down some dodgy narrow tracks at 5mph instead of 60mph on a decent A/B road...

While you nav experts are on line - how do I get it to repeat the last instruction like all my cars have done for years? - can't seem to find it in the manual.
 
The problem with Garmin is that they have been overtaken by the instant gratification generation ( of people and tech). They are not an intuitive device so are not as simple to use as an iPhone or Twitface etc. etc. and need the user to invest some time to gain understanding to get the best from it.

Shit like the map update issue is typical of companies cutting costs on software releases by making their users beta testers.

My long relationship with Garmin devices means I have a reasonable understanding. My Nav V is the most reliable and robust unit I’ve owned. :thumb

Garmin have been very poor at changing to meet the new market. They added bells and whistles, but failed to address some basic issues in getting you from A to B, which - let's face it - is the primary role of a GPS device. TomTom have overtaken them in the 'works intuitively straight out of the box' front. The TomTom's screen brightness and contrast is WAY superior to the 660 (the last Garmin I owned).

I've not regretted my move to TomTom - and I know my way around GPS, as I was a very early adopter - when I spent a month's pay on a Streetpilot 3 in 2002... :yikes
 


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