Who says Sat Navs don't have a sense of humour!

[Otter Spotter]

My frustration lies with the persistence in taking Motorways where and whenever it can, if you are away in some strange land you might not notice but driving an area you know well with the SatNav on for accurate speed or Cameras you often get a route directing you miles out of your way to a Motorway and know there’s a better way.

Can you not go into settings and tick ‘avoid motorways’ ?

 

[Minxy]

Lenny HB ... you'll like this with your penchant for 'off-roading' ...

One of the Irish roads we were directed down ... fortunately it wasn't 'green' for long!

After that we were a bit more 'wary' of where it was taking us but this one was okay ....

Unfortunately though we fell foul on this one not because the road was too narrow but if you look at the first picture you can see on the right that it was quite steep with a sharp left hand bend at the top. As it had been raining hard and there was a load of mud and gravel on the road where the bridge was just before this which had coated our tyres plus our having to slow down for the bend, it meant we lost traction and simply couldn't get round the corner and were also slipping with the back end trying to go for a wander on it's own, thus we decided it wasn't worth the risk of damaging the MH ... also hubby was having kittens!

Hubby reversed down to the stone bridge where the mud etc was and then I managed to direct him in a multi-point turn by getting him to put the rear over the edge of the road and give the side hedges a good squish (yes I check them for stones, branches first!). There were workmen on the bridge clearing the crap who we'd passed on our way up who had tried to help by putting some sand etc down for us and told us that at the start of the road there should have been a sign saying it wasn't suitable for motorhomes or larger vehicles ... it wasn't there though, or if it was it had been hidden by one of the vehicles they had parked there.

 

[Minxy]

My frustration lies with the persistence in taking Motorways where and whenever it can, if you are away in some strange land you might not notice but driving an area you know well with the SatNav on for accurate speed or Cameras you often get a route directing you miles out of your way to a Motorway and know there’s a better way.

Yup, one reason why I always look at an overview of the route before we set off as they can take you on a route with a much higher mileage on a motorway to save a couple of minutes! I often end up poking it and putting in waypoints to get it to go the way we want.

 

[Minxy]

If you are ever bored, and fancy a good laugh, switch on your Garmin Camper, set it to voice recognition, she will ask you where you want to go......then try any place name, any address, any post code, and see what she comes back with!
As irnbru will verify, don't try saying "Thirty Three" you will not get anywhere using that, you have to say Three, Three, but she still wont be able to recognise where you want to go.
What she does come back with is hilarious at times, you can confuse her even more with an accent or three.
Try it & see
Strange though that our BMW Sat Nav not only has a lovely respectful ladies voice, but instantly recognises the address you voice over to her, and the route automatically appears on the centre screen.
So it is Garmin at fault, others can do it much better.
LES

We had great fun with a previous TomTom unit, when giving instructions in France we had it say the town etc names when directing us, sometimes they were right but often it was like something from "Allo Allo" but when it told us to go in the direction of Grand Camp Maisy we were in hysterics as the male voice we used said it in such comedy Monty Pythonesq way with the voice gonig up and down the octave we couldn't help ourselves and had to pull over! I wish I could reproduce it now for you to hear, one of the funnies things we've ever heard from a sat nav ever and still makes me giggle even now ... if ever we're near there we'll be sure to see if it does it with Sygic.

 

[Minxy]

Can you not go into settings and tick ‘avoid motorways’ ?

You can but the trouble is that you might want to use some motorways on the route but the idiot units sometimes want you to use every one in the country, or so it seems!

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[Hawkstone]

I use the sat nag, google maps and a good old fashioned map. The combination works well which is just as well cos both the GPS ones do the weirdest of routes. Like the op, off a slip road and then back on to the major road. It’s particularly bad in France where it’s blatantly obvious that the A road is by far and away the most direct. I have been down far too many teeny roads and my poor husband has done too many 10 point turns.

 

[Littlewheels]

Can you not go into settings and tick ‘avoid motorways’ ?

On a 250 mile journey

 

[L' Hobo]

On a 250 mile journey

Why not? I can sell you a collection of AA yearly handbooks that I had BEFORE the motorways were built at a very reasonable price, they even list hotels and garages on your journey!

 

[poppycamper]

Why not? I can sell you a collection of AA yearly handbooks that I had BEFORE the motorways were built at a very reasonable price, they even list hotels and garages on your journey!

And if I am not mistake a list of number plate letters so you could tell what county/area a vehicle was registered in.

 

[Lenny HB]

On a 250 mile journey

Why not?

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[Lenny HB]

@Lenny HB ... you'll like this with your penchant for 'off-roading' ...

One of the Irish roads we were directed down ... fortunately it wasn't 'green' for long!

That's a nice wide road for Ireland, we went down one with both door mirrors buried in the hedges.

 

[Lenny HB]

would stop and ask someone. directions were just about always given by way of such and such pub

Use to work well until they started changing pub names.

In India a few years ago our driver was so proud he had a map but didn't use just stopped and asked people.

 

[Lenny HB]

I've found the worse one for stupid detours is the Via Michelin navigation app.

Have my satnav set to "Lorry" & "Easy" still tries to take you down narrow lanes with 2m high bridges.
As well as the satnav 'er indoors has the laptop running Autoroute with a GPS receiver. She often shouts "you don't want to go down there" after I've turned the corner.

 

[L' Hobo]

Is it set for the shortest route.?

I often set my VW SatNav to shortest route when not in a hurry.
A few weeks ago, I went from Colchester to Cambridge Crem. and I crossed a ford and about a third of the journey was along single track roads that had grass growing in the centre.

Would not recommend it in anything larger, especially in Wales, but that's another story!

 

[Otter Spotter]

On a 250 mile journey

Of course, it’s called touring in your Motorhome, you don’t find pitches on motorway services

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[Widge]

How on earth i ever got around the country in the 60s without Sat Nag is beyond me, but we did.

But you could stop at a junction and read the signs, then refer to you map for 5 minutes if necessary without causing a multiple pileup and traffic jams for half an hour.

 

[bobnick]

But you could stop at a junction and read the signs, then refer to you map for 5 minutes if necessary without causing a multiple pileup and traffic jams for half an hour.

That's never going to happen in reality is it.

 

[Widge]

We had great fun with a previous TomTom unit, when giving instructions in France we had it say the town etc names when directing us, sometimes they were right but often it was like something from "Allo Allo" but when it told us to go in the direction of Grand Camp Maisy we were in hysterics as the male voice we used said it in such comedy Monty Pythonesq way with the voice gonig up and down the octave we couldn't help ourselves and had to pull over! I wish I could reproduce it now for you to hear, one of the funnies things we've ever heard from a sat nav ever and still makes me giggle even now ... if ever we're near there we'll be sure to see if it does it with Sygic.

For the same reason i have put my google maps into french, rather than have it attempt to read incomprehensible street names, in french it just directs you without all the street names, of couse you do also have to understand a bit of french.

 

[Minxy]

For the same reason i have put my google maps into french, rather than have it attempt to read incomprehensible street names, in french it just directs you without all the street names, of couse you do also have to understand a bit of french.

But where's the fun in that

 

[berni109]

Was trying to learn a bit of Greek. Haha thinks I, set the satnav to Greek then I will know all the words for directions. Yeh right great theory.
Works for any language but you can get a bit distracted just when you dont want to be.
The other problem is she cant understand my reply in English when I tell her she must be bloody mad if she thinks I am going down there.

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[Widge]

But where's the fun in that

I dont call this fun

Although there were many reasons i was stressed that day, but one was trying to work out what google was on about, rather than remembering the height.

Luckily the bridge tapered so is slowly squashed me down on the suspension, it would have been a different story if i had been going the other direction, i had to let the tyres down to move again.

I completely destroyed an evaporative cooler on the roof, which didnt work anyway, apart from that just a bit of panel repair.

I was very lucky.

 

[vzac]

Told me rd closed north, so took me on this journey before taking me back to the same junction.

 

[poppycamper]

Of course, it’s called touring in your Motorhome, you don’t find pitches on motorway services

Tebay Services Caravan Park!

 

[cyberyacht]

My TomTom Camper periodically says "Listening" for no apparent reason as I never use voice control.

 

[Otter Spotter]

Tebay Services Caravan Park!

Ok clever clogs, I will give you that one should have remembered that as we have stayed there when we were dragging a box

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