Belgique wrote:
agesilaus: I'm tempted on the 890 but my experience with Garmin is that it is fine if you take Interstates but comes up with strange routes if you prefer old US highways like US2 or US 301. I know you can tell it to avoid interstates but it is binary and won't put you on one even when it is clearly the only real option. S&T used a sliding like/dislike scale for different classes of roads and was better at sensible routes.
Any experience with this on your 890? Many thanks.
So far no strange routing, but it has the option to tell it that you are driving an RV and to set the length and weight parameters for that RV. It then takes very conservative routes. Which is OK but if you drop the TT and are driving your truck don't forget to set the mode to automobile or you will find it taking you on those conservative routes. Way out of the optimal path for a truck.
SA would run us down very strange routes in towns, zigzagging around the city grid. We would find us driving down decayed asphalt roads past houses that had seen their best times decades ago. With folks looking in surprise at the truck and RV cruising by their houses.
The 890 does not do that it takes you down the optimal route and will use secondary roads. And the CG database now includes some boondocking spots on BLM and FS land. We had no problem with it finding our current spot on a Forest Road outside the South Rim.
They have greatly improved the route finding algorithm and in 4500 miles so far it has not lead us astray once.
We have seen that behavior on older systems, one took us up the Moki Dugway pulling a popup, and on another occasion one took us down a goat path in New Mexico. Using 'shortest route' setting was very problematic.
The 890 does occasionally become a bit confused, telling us we were on a dirt road when we were on the paved AZ Hwy 64. But that was harmless so far.
I'm going to sit down an produce a review of the RV890 soon and I'll post it here. But I'm sure that just like any large software product there are some nasty glitches hidden in it somewhere. You always need to be aware of your actual physical location and never blindly follow the GPS system.
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