When possible make a U turn!

Last year our trusty Garmin sat nav suddenly announced that 'there are no roads in the area' and switched itself off.   You might think this happened out on a dirt road miles from anywhere, not so, at the time we were on I10 in the middle of Tucson.   Luckily we knew where we were going.

 

We left it for a couple of days, tried again and it seemed fine, then it happened again and again.   To us the whole idea of a sat nav is for that extra navigational help when you're somewhere strange, so it seemed like it was time to get a new one.

 

After much research into sat navs designed for RV's our first choice, as we liked our Garmin, was a truckers Garmin.   But I have this quaint old fashioned idea that I actually like to see things before I buy them and as I couldn't find one anywhere to look at before I bought it that took care of that.   So then it was a straight choice between Rand McNally and Magellan, both had pros and cons, in the end we, okay I, as I do most of the navigating and map reading, chose the Magellan.

I'm beginning to think it was the wrong choice.   Why?   Because despite having the system set for the correct length, width and height of our truck and fifth wheel.   On the 'mostly freeway' setting on our way to Rincon East RV Resort, it always but always wants to direct us right through the middle of town and then just as we're arriving, it directs of off the road the RV resort is on around a housing sub-division across the street before directing us back to the road it just directed us off.   Hmmm.........

I got online and spoke to a lovely lady at Magellan, who got exactly the same results as I did.   She suggested removing some turns,  okay that can be done, fiddly and time consuming, but it can be done.    But what about when we're in a strange town and I haven't got a clue where I am, how do I know it's going to send me round a housing sub division when there is no need for me to be there? 

While we've been out and about exploring (obviously without our fifth wheel attached!) I've set the sat nav on different settings, 'avoid freeways', 'fastest time', 'shortest time', I even extended the width to 14ft and every single setting sends us round that sub-division!    So I'll be emailing Magellan and asking them to look into this and see what's happening.    And yes, we do have all the latest maps and updates on it. 

So now here we are with a fairly new, very expensive sat nav, that I don't think I particularly trust, don't ya just love technology?

All I can say is thank goodness we always have directions from whichever RV park we're heading for and for good old fashioned paper maps!

Have fun, we are!