TomTom 1 frustration

[ozi_oldman]

Recently I purchased a TomTom 1 to help with navigation while on holidays. Smart move?......... not in my opinion.
While on the coast in northern NSW I programmed the TomTom to go to a little town inland from where we were staying and followed the instructions TomTom gave me to the letter (I did tell it to go via the shortest route). We are not familiar with the area as we had never been there before. This is where the fun started we ended up travelling 169km to the destination when we should have travelled 71km. TomTom sent us past the same POI twice, once in a east/west direction and then north/south. Not impressed.

On our way home I programmed the TomTom to navigate home, yes I did let it know where home is, and the TomTom never alerted us to a turn off until 5k up the road and all we got was "at your earlist opportunity please turn around" . The TomTom even led us up a deadend road 40k long. The trip ended up as a 13 hour drive instead of a 9 hour one.

Would I buy a TomTom again?............NO

Did I get support from TomTom Aust?....NO.

The girl at TomTom Aust helpline explained "if the unit said that was the shortest way then it was the shortest way" and hung up on me.

Emails I have sent to TomTom in the last 2 weeks have gone unanswered.

Would I recommend TomTom to anyone? I very much doubt it with the lack of support shown by TomTom. I think the next river I see I'll find out how bouyant this GPS is and go buy something else.

Adrian

 

[dhn]

Sorry for your misadventures. When you bought the unit, did you have an opportunity to update (for free) to the latest application and, more importantly, the latest Oz map?

No GPS, any brand, is going to replace local knowledge. Having said that, what restrictions did you put into planning preference (besides shortest?). May have affected the routing algorithm.

 

[YouthInAsia]

Additionally...and please don't take this the wrong way...once you create a route, and the map overview screen pops up, take a look at the route to see if it makes sense. Zoom in, and drag the screen around. I've found that I've mistakenly selected the wrong POI as a destination, and deliberately looking at this route screen saved me some frustration. You can always bring this screen up again later by touching the status bar, too.

Although I don't have any experience with with an Aussie map, take DHN's words and see what kind of routing restrictions you had in place...that will help us help you.

 

[ozi_oldman]

Except for shortest route no restrictions.
I did update to the latest everything when I purchased the GPS

Adrian

 

[doctormstein1]

tomtom

For me on Long island NY, i am a long term tom tom user. Sorry for your problems but I really have to say that TOM TOM ROCKS.

 

[mikealder]

For future reference (assuming you still have the device) set it to use the Fastest Route, the shortest route is a waste of time and shouldn't be used IMHO - Mike

 

[gcopter]

For future reference (assuming you still have the device) set it to use the Fastest Route, the shortest route is a waste of time and shouldn't be used IMHO - Mike

I agree. I'm a new to TT and have used my 730 to give me the shortest route from work to home. The shortest route took me thru umpteen turns through residential areas. It seems as if, to TT, the shortest route is via a straight line, good for flying but useless for a car.