Garmin getting retarded

cheri1122

Veteran Expediter
Driver
When you know where you are, it's amusing: again today, my Garmin says "off road" when I'm on Inkster, near Load 1.
Mine also likes to send me off in the wrong direction when I leave the parking lot, so I tap the bar that shows the next few turns to see if it is being retarded.
 

Turtle

Administrator
Staff member
Retired Expediter
Do keep in mind that the Garmin (or any GPS receiver) doesn't know where the front of your vehicle is or which direction you are facing. It only knows which direction you are going, and it interprets that direction to mean forward.

That means, when you pull into a parking lot, and then back up even 2 or 3 feet, that's the direction it thinks you are facing and are headed. When you pull into a lot heading north, and then you back up a few feet in the southern direction, the Garmin thinks your vehicle just did an instant 180 degree flip and are now headed south. That's why the initial turn for the directions may seem crazy and wrong.

You can confirm this by setting the display screen to show the compass or the directional heading on screen, and then take note of just how quickly it changes when you move forward or backward even a couple of feet.
 

21cExp

Veteran Expediter
As others have pointed out, most misdirections can be better understood by tapping the screen to get the overview screen to see if your Garmin is actually telling you to do what you think it is, or if it has the compass points wrong momentarily. A lot of times, when it tells you to get on 35N, for example (this seems to happen more when there are service roads that parallel the interstate ), it seems to do it because you have to get on that service road to get the ramp for 35S and to go up to the next overpass to go over for 35N, and I bet it's been put into the Garmin database wrong for that interchange. When that happens, at least on mine and I sense it's wrong, I tap for the overview screen and see what it really means.

When it tells me to get off a ramp only to make me cross the street and get back on, it most always is because it is a fraction shorter to do so, which seems silly, but is what the unit has been told to do.

Mine also usually says the wrong direction for the first turn of a trip, which seems to be widespread. Mostly, these little glitches are easily overcome as you get used to your new Garmin.

Against the Garmin directions, I pulled into a new shopping area one time (that definitely was not in the maps yet) to cut the corner of a notoriously busy intersection, and my Garmin went nuts, almost interrupting itself in a flurry of "recalculating", "driving off-road" and "when possible make a U-turn" messages. My passengers and I were in stitches.

An amusing thing to do with your Garmin is to alter the text to speech file with a hexadecimal editor. Mine now says, instead of "lost satellite reception" when entering a tunnel or in concrete canyons, in her cute Australian accent "It's fooking dahk in here!". When about to enter a roundabout or traffic rotary, she says "What is this, New England?". When I make a turn to early or other mistake and she would normally say "recalculating" she says "alrighty, let's try it your way...".

And when at my final destination, she says "Yo, we be at _____"
 
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LDB

Veteran Expediter
Retired Expediter
Garmin needs a better way to be informed of errors in guidance and/or addresses. They'd be well served by selecting a number of well spoken expediters to give direct contact phone numbers for instant updates on error locations. They could compensate with lifetime updates or something similar.
 

21cExp

Veteran Expediter
Garmin needs a better way to be informed of errors in guidance and/or addresses. They'd be well served by selecting a number of well spoken expediters to give direct contact phone numbers for instant updates on error locations. They could compensate with lifetime updates or something similar.

Official Beta Tester style or similar, but with existing on the market products. Could be very useful, I agree.

poi-factory.com provides tons of POI lists, from fuel stops to hotel by chain, to Diner's Drive-Ins & Dives, to rest areas, and depend on users to report changes, closures, and difference in actual coordinates. I'm all the time adding a waypoint to my Garmin favorites that is different from what I've been given. Places on the other side of the street or a block down, etc.
 
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