Rand GPS - Beware!

[JandC]

I love my Rand and it has been right about 95% of the time. Today I had the address punched in for CG on outskirts of Spokane, WA. It routed us on I-90 from our previous CG in Seattle. I had no reason to think that all would not be good. We got off I-90 and after about the third turn and 5 miles from CG there was a RR bridge ahead that was 13'3". I have the Rand set on "RV mode" with my height entered at 13'6". Lucky for us there was a side road within 1/2 block so we could turn off. The Rand never gave the "Low Clearance" warning. This was one of the few mornings I failed to check my Truckers Atlas prior to taking off. If I would have the RR bridge would have been listed. Warning to all who are using the Rand, it is not always correct and apparently will route you under a low overpass.

[DQDick]

Good to know. In t'wo years it hasn't done that to us yet, but omissions happen. I've been surprised it's got as much right as it does. Like you I usually check a truckers atlas just to be sure. Compared to our old "have you tried this animal trail?" Garmin, it's still the winner.

[HomeOnTheRoad]

I am just wondering Dick if you ever changed the settings in the Garmin. You can tell it you don't want to take that kind of road. The settings make a big difference. When we are going to be on the road for example I tell it to avoid u turns, unpaved roads, toll roads, residential roads and some other things. It helps a lot. I think all the brands have something like that.

[DQDick]

Yup our older Garmin would and still will override the no unpaved roads to let me see the wild donkey's and mountain goats. It was also fully capable of sending you down cup-de-sacs with instructions to drive right thru the yards on the end and turn on the road on the other side. It does seem to be better with newer updates, but I'd already dropped it from our TV by that time.

[DonandBonnie]

Sometimes I wonder about the programming in the GPS. We had a Garmin when we had the stick house. The logical route north was down to the corner and turn right. The Garmin would direct us to cross the intersection, turn left around the next block and return us through the same intersection that we should have turned at in the first place. Our current GPS, Magellan from Camping World, is very accurate indicating turns to a destination, but when we get to the final address, it might be off by a quarter mile or more.