Sat Navs

Trumpet

Well-Known Forumite
Does anyone know, does sat nav software 'degrade' over time? Mrs T has a Tom Tom that's about 5 or 6 years old and of late has been throwing up all sorts of rubbish.
Logic says no but something weird is definitely afoot.
 

Glam

Mad Cat Woman
Does anyone know, does sat nav software 'degrade' over time? Mrs T has a Tom Tom that's about 5 or 6 years old and of late has been throwing up all sorts of rubbish.
Logic says no but something weird is definitely afoot.
You should update every so often. But my satnav goes off kilter most of the time.
I was in Brum about 6 weeks ago, Merry hell car park, Middle of an enormous hail storm. I'd done my shopping, ready go get my exhaust. Sat nav out, turned it on. I got told by it, I was elsewhere in the country. Sat there an hour for a signal.
Decided I'd drive round hoping sumat would happen. I have no sense of direction either.
Headed towards Halesowen, Sat nav decides send me down tiny side streets, anywhere but where I was going. Eventually found the car spares place, got the exhaust, then needed find him indoors. No signal on the phone either.
I sat and cried. Turned up at his house 2 hrs later than I said I would. Horrible.
 
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joshua

Well-Known Forumite
As long as regular updates are done then it shouldn't, have you tried a full reset and then dpomh an update ?
 

Jonah

Spouting nonsense since the day I learned to talk
Updating will be done through your computer with the bundled software.
 

Jonah

Spouting nonsense since the day I learned to talk
You should update every so often. But my satnav goes off kilter most of the time.
I was in Brum about 6 weeks ago, Merry hell car park, Middle of an enormous hail storm. I'd done my shopping, ready go get my exhaust. Sat nav out, turned it on. I got told by it, I was elsewhere in the country. Sat there an hour for a signal.
Decided I'd drive round hoping sumat would happen. I have no sense of direction either.
Headed towards Halesowen, Sat nav decides send me down tiny side streets, anywhere but where I was going. Eventually found the car spares place, got the exhaust, then neded find him indoors. No signal on the phone either.
I sat and cried. Turned up at his house 2 hrs later than I said I would. Horrible.
The weather would have caused the issue as the Sat Nav needs to be able to "see" the satellites. The hail storm probably confused it I guess.

I always keep a road atlas in my car despite having a Sat Nav.
 

Jonah

Spouting nonsense since the day I learned to talk
According to the TomTom app on my iphone, 15% of roads change every year so you need to update the software regularly.
 

proactive

Enjoying a drop of red.
I always keep a road atlas in my car despite having a Sat Nav.
Very sound advice.

If I've gone somewhere by satnav, I often have absolutely no idea where I am. If it wasn't for keeping an atlas in the boot for the occasion where the satnav won't work for some reason,I'd probably still be driving round in circles, somewhere in the middle of nowhere.

The alternative would be to stop and ask someone but as a man, that simply wouldn't do!
 

Laurie61

Well-Known Forumite
I have an old TomTom and its still going OK. The only difference now is the internal battery will no longer hold a charge for as long. So I can only use it plugged into the car power supply. Navigation is still as good as it originally was. If you are using an older unit on internal battery power it might be that causing problems ?
 

Trumpet

Well-Known Forumite
Always plugged into car charger. Last week going to Sutton Coldfield it tried to take her via the M1.
Recently going to Brize Norton it instructed her to come off at every junction of the M42 & M40 and "take the first exit at the roundabout" which would obviously have started to send her north again.
 

proactive

Enjoying a drop of red.
It sounds like it might need a change to the settings in the Route Preferences menu.

Failing that it has lost itself in relation to the latest position of satellites which is usually just a case of plugging it into the PC software and letting it update that way. Even if you don't have access to route updates, sat positioning updates are usually free and only take a minute or so.
 

littleme

250,000th poster!
Very sound advice.

The alternative would be to stop and ask someone but as a man, that simply wouldn't do!
We gave up with ours, it tried to take us over open fields once....just do what the care worker does, & make the passenger (me) ask for directions!
 

number9

Well-Known Forumite
I assume updates are done online. Is there a charge?
map updates are every 3 months, you pay for those if you want them. (expensive). the number of the latest map is v965, each 5 it goes down is 3 months older.
the gps needs updating now and again, done thru tt home, as are map corrections thru mapshare. these are free, but they are not newer maps with newer roads etc, just corrections.

there's a lovely tomtom 740 for sale with latest maps in the for sale section :)
or
I can look at yours for you, depending on the model you have, and put the latest maps on for you foc :)
 

Trumpet

Well-Known Forumite
The alternative would be to stop and ask someone but as a man, that simply wouldn't do!
My advice to our guys on the road when they call the office to ask where somewhere is is to wind the window down and start a conversation with a local along the lines of "excuse me mate, can you tell me where etc....."
 

Noah

Well-Known Forumite
I prefer a road atlas but the Garmin satnav we keep in the car is so ancient that the quarterly updates are now free. Works fine, except for a tendancy to try to route you via the M6 Toll.
 
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