Poor satnav routing

[CMJToyota]

I drove back from Dartmouth to South Devon to my home in Kent today and the satnav came up with a very odd routing through some very narrow lanes before it joined the A38 at South Brent rather than routing via Totnes and Buckfastleigh.  At on stage the routing information seemed to be about a mile out. What limitations have you experienced with it and do you have any tips for getting the best performance out of it?

Is there a way of reviewing the route the kit has chosen before setting off rather than just scolling through the map?

[Roy124]

Christopher, I presume you have the Touch 2 Go system.  Having input the  route does it flash up 3 route options? 

These routes IIRC include a primary and 2 others. If they disappear quickly immediately tap the screen when they appear.  They remain longer. 

[CMJToyota]

It probably did but I just accepted the first one offered. I was surprised about the poor accuracy of its present position.

[Roy124]

10 hours ago, CMJToyota said:

It probably did but I just accepted the first one offered. I was surprised about the poor accuracy of its present position.

Have you selected any options in the settings? 

How do you mean poor accuracy?  Very occasionally I have seen it tracking over open fields etc presumably given a start with poor satellite lock.  It should improve with 'snap to road' as you follow a road and make a number of turns.  It takes longer when travelling on a long straight road. 

Where I have driven a lot, around my village, track history often turned the map purple with lines everywhere. 

[CMJToyota]

I will have to check the settings. It was about a mile out from where it thought it was which made the directions meaningless.

[Trewithy]

I have my sat nav set to pick the fastest route and living in south Devon I can say that the fastest route (according to the sat nav) is not always the quickest or safest route.  Many of the roads to the south of Dartmoor are very narrow. twisty and have high hedges with limited visibility.  Yet these roads have the national speed limit for single carriageways of 60mph when in reality even 20mph might be reckless.  The sat nav doesn't know local details it just knows that the speed limit is 60mph, so you have to apply a bit of common sense.  Sadly not everybody has this and there are instances of delivery lorries getting stuck in the narrow lanes. 

[tfc]

I think you will have poor routing on all different  sat navs. I've had tom tom take me off the main a road go through a housing estate onto a dirt track for about 200 meters back down onto the same housing estate , and it took me back to the main road and looked to my left and I could see the road I went into the housing estate about 50 meters down the road .

Even the sat nav in the corolla and waze on the phone sent me onto a single track road for about a mile just to cut a corner  off. It didn't make the journey any quicker most likely slower because it was zig zagging through the trees. 

[TonyHSD]

Google maps on a smartphone and if you prefer mirroring on your car screen, nothing beats them for getting around. If internet connection it’s an issue there is an off line mode to load maps at home. You can add your car details and can offer you fuel saving routes too. Life traffic updates and search for amenities top class. 

[cruiserOAP]

Android Auto is the most brilliant idea Google have ever come up with. The built in satnav in my Seat has come up with several illogical and awkward routes, won't accept full postcodes, and costs a fortune to upgrade. I use Google maps exclusively now. I can sit at home and work out a route on my phone at leisure, plug it in to the car, and there it is! I get live traffic, and it had registered a diversion almost as soon the cones were put out.

I have Waze as well, and can upload warnings about accidents, potholes etc.

[YarisHybrid2016]

CoPilot generally does a good job. Part of the problem is the map data itself causes these issues. I did some dev work a few years back, and found a bug that caused all one-way streets to be backwards. This code was in use in well-known systems.

NEVER trust the initial route. You should be able to specify "route through here", and give weighting to motorways and primary routes.

TomTom has a poor routing algorithm. I hate it, and it doesn't matter which model you buy - it's the same.

[Graham47]

Unfortunately, AFAIK, CoPilot is not CarPlay compatible.

Don’t know about AA.

[Roy124]

Today, for a change, I used the Smart Connect satnav.  I noticed the car was parallel to the for a couple of miles before it found the road 🙂

 

 

[CMJToyota]

Back to the paper map and a bit of local knowledge I think is the answer reading all of your replies. 

[YarisHybrid2016]

7 hours ago, Graham47 said:

Unfortunately, AFAIK, CoPilot is not CarPlay compatible.

Sadly not, no.

[Guest]

I use a stand alone TomTom satnav, car isn't posh enough, and it has always chosen some bizarre routing in spite of the "fastest" being selected. e.g. travelling on an A road it will try to divert along single track country lanes only to rejoin the same A road further on. Yes, the suggested route might be shorter but in no way faster.

I know of many who have complained to TomTom about this stupid, illogical routing but nothing has ever been done to rectify it.

Garmin and Google do exactly the same. Never tried Waze, so can't comment on that.

[TonyHSD]

I am using good maps on daily basis in and around London. Works great , route planning, travel updates including accidents and road works.,  saves me ton of trouble.
The only thing that fails sometimes is the new builds are not uploaded and if anything like this happens, I switch to Apple maps and they do have those new areas. 
I will agree for local knowledge and common sense, but paper maps are in the past. No time or updates on these, they can still be helpful though  but only if electronics aren’t available. 👍

[cruiserOAP]

1 hour ago, olonas said:

I use a stand alone TomTom satnav, car isn't posh enough, and it has always chosen some bizarre routing in spite of the "fastest" being selected. e.g. travelling on an A road it will try to divert along single track country lanes only to rejoin the same A road further on. Yes, the suggested route might be shorter but in no way faster.

I know of many who have complained to TomTom about this stupid, illogical routing but nothing has ever been done to rectify it.

Garmin and Google do exactly the same. Never tried Waze, so can't comment on that.

It's because even the roughest country lanes are under the national 60 speed limit, and satnavs aren't intelligent enough to spot how accessible minor roads are. Perhaps Waze users could identify the difficult minor roads and upload the info.

[Guest]

Therefore, rather than route on a road, 60/70mph limit the satnav will choose to divert onto a road with a limit less than 60mph? Country lanes, unless otherwise posted, are at the national speed limit which in no way can be safely achieved. That is why the diversion off an A road will be computed because the minor road has a 60 limit and a shorter distance even when that road can only be safely driven at much less than 60. Tough if one gets stuck behind Farmer Giles.

My TomTom also has live traffic (built in SIM) and many times I have been stuck in traffic and the really intelligent device diverts to a road already passed. Even better on a M Way  when the voice guidance cheefully says leave at junction X when it's already been passed. Or even slow traffic ahead - yes I know I'm in it!

[Roy124]

In days of yore I used to do a 5 1/2 hour journey on fast roads before motorways.  Eventually I thought I would see if a more direct route on an A to  B journey of 90 miles would be quicker. 

I drew a line on the map and attempted to follow it. 

I still managed to drive largely on A roads although it required some hairy overtaking when passing snakes of 8 cars all nose to tail. 

There was one point where my A roads did not link without a largish deviation.  I used an unclassified road for a few miles. 

I still shudder at doing fast driving culminating in a straight, steep descent to the next A road at a T junction.  There was always the smell or burning brakes. 

I cut the journey time by 2 hours.