THSCC Forums

Ahhh I knew the SNL reference but I didn't know why you were using it. That explains a lot.

It's a good thing David started bringing that thing along on our big auto-x road trips 'cause when he didn't have it, he was constantly telling me to turn off at the wrong exit and such. Worst...Navigator...Ever!

On top of that, he always tell me to fill the car up with gas right before we get to the site. I'm not sure why I bring him along.

Jim

Hey if anyone wants a cheap option, I have an older Garmin StreetPilot III that I'll sell for $50. It's older, a little bug, and calculates slowly but works fine. Comes with all the accessories in the kit.

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Mike Whitney
whit32@gmail.com, 919-454-5445
V10, V8, V8t, I6, I6, V6, F4t, I4, I4, I4, I4, I2, 1, 1

I have a Nuvi 350, and I'm pretty satisfied with it. Per your situation of getting rerouted back to the detour, I have a potential solution. The first thing I did was to turn off "U-turns" when I got mine. My reasoning was this - My boss's car has built in nav, and one trip in to DC where we weren't exactly sure where we were going, his nav system had us do a bunch of u-turns. In downtown DC traffic, that's beyond irritating and bordering on dangerous.

With my Garmin set not to suggest U-turns, it does a pretty solid job of figuring out decent workarounds when I've thrown detour challenges at it.

As for your situations of being routed on skinny two lanes, the "Use interstates/highways" option might have been of some help there. I've also used the "avoid interstate/highway" option to skirt massive traffic jams on I-495 a few times, and it's been very helpful.

The only real screw up the device has ever had was in eastern NC, when we were hacking our way from Greenville to Elizabeth City. It suggested a right turn squarely in the middle of a cotton field. As we passed it, it recalculated and did not lead us wrong for the rest of the trip.

The Nuvi's are not perfect devices, but changing a few options has gotten rid of 99% of my personal irritations with it. I have zero experience with MS Maps and Streets, so I have no point of comparison.

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Tom Freeman
'98 M3/4/5 | '93 Spec3 325i | '12 TSX sport wagon | '03 Tahoe
Team Silver Bullets '91 240SX

Tom, great information! I've ordered the 350 from Amazon, so should be here next week just in time for the trip to Williamsburg. I'll report back my satisfaction rating on this thing once I've had a chance to use. This information you reported is great and hopefully Charles can adjust and use the 350 to better satisfaction.

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Rodney

'08 Bullitt mustang, CAM 7
Autox VP '09-'10, President '11-'12, interim President 2nd half of ‘14
proud recipient of the Bowie Grey service award '12
Now just a guy driving a mustang....

Don't forget the tractor tires I ordered!

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Not spectacular just decent.
I'm not sure what I'm driving.
Maybe an ITR in DS.
Or half-assed STX prepped 330.

A little late to chime in. I have a Garmin Nuvi 200w. For what I use it for it is perfect. It does have voice for the directions, but just when to turn not the name of the road etc. to turn on. I like the bigger screen the W has too. <shrug>

Jane, you poor ignorent slut, if I recall. (Spratte, I thought you were to young to remember that) My daughter named ours' Jenny, Jenny the GPS. I'm like Jim (I have a Garmin Street Pilot C330) I don't know how much I want to spend to update so mine doesn't have the latest roads, you have to turn the sound off on 540 because she goes nuts wanting you to find a road. I'snt one of you computer geeks smart enough to find someway around the update charges? Mine has saved me hours a couple of times when the interstate was backed up and I hit the detour button. That combined with dialing 511 (i think) which gives updates on the roads in the state you are in at the time is a real lifesaver.

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2002 MCS, 2003 MCS Track Rat, 2003 Generic White Yukon, 2003 BMWk1200rs, 1973 CB350F, 02 996. 08 Cayenne Turbo
http://www.clinehallagency.com

I almost forgot about those! The good news is that I managed to sell them to my neighbor who is putting together a street mod Expedition.

OK, to let David off the hook, I actually did all those things. But, being the car owner, I was exercising my right to blame everything on the co-driver!

Jim

Cline, you owe me 2 hours of my life!!! I've spent that time looking at old SNL videos on Youtube!!!!

Unfortunately the Ignorant slut videos were all withdrawn due to copywright infringement. Dammit!!!

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Todd Breakey
STS 42 - 1992 Sunburst Miata
Dammit!
"You souldn't play leap frog with a porcupine. You might get hurt." - Eliza

Those skits were really hilarious when they first came out, since they were a take-off on the '70s precursor of all subsequent left vs. right political "debate" shows, the weekly Point/Counterpoint segment on 60 Minutes.

Anyway, I'm wondering why Rodney needs a Nav system for that busted Paseo.

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Art McDonald
Premier Amateur #518
2008 Dishman Cup
Pivot Cone Snob

Rodney is a waxer (but in a good way)

Interesting. I've had a Garmin 276C and a 376C and have used a couple other different nav units that had text-to-speech. I thought it was neat, but never once missed it on my 376C. I use those units because they are fairly waterproof and thus usable on the motorcycle and/or boat. I also like having XM on the 376C not for the radio, but because it will download and automatically overlay weather radar information (and even show you a radar loop if you want). Comes in very handy for the motorcycling thing, for those that care. Occasionally handy for tire choice at an autocross.

I have heard Chuck's rants against Garmin before. I can't argue with what happened, but as has been pointed out, there are options on most Garmin units that seem to fix most of those problems. Eric can attest that my Garmin has routed us poorly a couple times, but on the whole it's been very good. And every other nav unit I've used has done similar things to the Garmin, so I have no complaints with it. I have not tried using a laptop and Microsoft Streets and Trips, but that's for several reasons. One, I don't trust ANYTHING from Microsoft. Two, like Aaron I really don't see how you can sanely use a laptop in a car. I did actually try it back in 2003 in my first toter, and that included having a place on the big truck dash to velcro the laptop down. I found that the interface wasn't really made to be used while bouncing around (a touchpad or trackpoint just isn't very useful in a truck like that) and it just didn't work very well for me. But that was a long time ago and in a much different environment that a car. We had plenty of room for it, but that truck was loud and things did bounce around a lot.

I had hoped to be able to make my own notes on it of toter-friendly places to stop. Just didn't work.

I have noticed that Garmin's maps have gotten a lot better over the last couple of years, too. Some of our routing problems were really that the maps were just wrong, which is always going to be possible thanks to construction and such.


--Donnie

I really like how user friendly S&T is especially now that it includes a wireless receiver interface for the GPS antenna. I can play "what if" scenarios comparing routes both in travel time and milege as well as see what type roads it is sending me over, install it on my laptop and desktop computers and use it without the GPS to do route planning at my leisure then save any and all the route files I come up with and transfer them to any other computer running S&T. I can change between saved route files with a couple mouse clicks. I can see the entire route on one screen and expand or reduce the view window and still read the meaningful route info. I can leave a trail as I travel and then reverse the route. I can mark significant waystations such as on route hotels I have made reservations at, or restaurants we liked, find what hotels are close by to my present location and even their telephone # to call for a last minute room. I have sat in a hotel parking lot and called them for a room more than once.
AFA carrying a laptop, most of us do that anyways, and we typically travel with a "navigator". We have found a trackpoint to work better than a touch pad while in motion tho or pull off and park along the road for a couple minutes. Once you have picked your route, you don't have to interact with the computer unless you need to change or find something, and it's definitely a lot easier to enter data from a keyboard than trying to "type" with little touch screen keys while in motion! IMHO. S&T uses a typical windows interface with drop down menus and shortcut keys we are all pretty familiar with rather than having to page thru screen after screen of icons (usually in obscure order) to get to the one that does what we need to do. I also find having the screen attached to the windshield very annoying especially at night.
The KC example didn't have us doing U turns, it kept circling us back on city streets to the expressway above the detour. After finally stopping and asking directions (which were pretty simple if you knew the roads), it wouldn't accept the fact that the roads we took would put us back onto the correct route, and kept recalculating every 30 sec or so trying to get us to make another circle!
Rather than buy any updated maps (S&T come with complete maps of the entire US, Canada and Mexico) I just buy a whole new version of the program every couple years, the new features and better antenna they've added each time was worth the 100.00.
Take it for what it's worth to you, just giving an alternate view IMHO of a strong competing product.

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SPIN or WIN!
there's no glory for going slow.

I use TomTom Navigator 6 and a Freedom Bluetooth GPS antenna with my Palm TX. Cool features are a Bluetooth GPS antenna the size of a key fob and the screen rotation feature built in the Palm TX. Oh yeah, the capacity to operate with no wires! The voice isn't the loudest on the Palm(cause its muffled by its case) but I end up turning the voice off half the time anyway.

I was overseas last month in Ireland. One of my associates rented a TomTom from the car rental agency. It was invaluable. It did take us on a couple of questionable excursions, but in the long run we got where we were going and got to see a little extra bit of the country to boot.

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“I feel safer on a racetrack than I do on Houston's freeways.” - A.J. Foyt

Kevin Butler
Mobetta Autosport Spec E30 #612
2003 C5 Z06 Corvette
AFR Miata, SM2 61, '93 w/200 SC'd RWHP - soon to be resurrected
Waaaay too many other projects....

Todd, you will probably be lying on your death bed thinkng "Man I wish I had spent more time on Youtube watching SNL skits". Your Wecome!

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2002 MCS, 2003 MCS Track Rat, 2003 Generic White Yukon, 2003 BMWk1200rs, 1973 CB350F, 02 996. 08 Cayenne Turbo
http://www.clinehallagency.com

On another frustrating topic, try finding a laptop with a trackpoint any more. *sigh* Lenovos still have them, but they're turning into junk rapidly.

All of the things you're talking about being able to do work fine for me on my Garmin, but there is a MUCH larger learning curve as to where and how to do things. The menus aren't as intuitive as Windows, as you state. Nowhere close. But I still can't see using a laptop if you were by yourself.

Wonder if any of the PC stuff will download and overlay radar information, though. That would be nice.


--Donnie