GPS Not Very Impressed With TOMTOM Customer Service

BACKWOODS

I bought a gps unit made by TomTom. It works very well and has some nice features. I did find out the map was about a year old and a new map for USA/Canada was available, for $79.....
I called and asked why my newly purchased unit did not qualify for a free upgrade to latest map. They danced around for a good 10 min, putting me on hold, etc.
Final answer was the unit I bought (Go510) was not being offered a free upgrade.
I thanked them and said I will return the unit and get a Garmin.
Just keep this in mind while shopping for yourself or holiday gifts. I could not get over their policy
Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving,
Steve

KentWhitten

Garmins are not that much better. Their maps are outdated.

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If you correct your mind, the rest of your life will fall into place ~Lao Tzu

Custom Cabinetry - Portland, Cape Elizabeth, Scarborough, Kennebunkport, Yarmouth, Falmouth, Cumberland, Ogunquit, Maine

Salmon Falls Cabinetry

daArch

A fellow Boston Chapt NGPP member is sold on his Garmin, but as they say, garbage in, garbage out. Once there were a few of us on a large job, and one of the guys, unfamiliar with the town, borrowed the Garmin to find his way to the local pizza store and back. 60 minutes later he returns, with cold pizza and sandwiches. He put the Garmin on a ladder and we watched it has it showed the highway heading south, telling the operator to "Turn next exit, Rt 3A south" and continued on its own little journey.

Hearing other stories, I penned the following - based on fact - for our newletter.


Georgie has always had a good relationship with Technology. His first job was data entry with those old IBM punch cards. His first cell phone was the size of a VW Beetle. He had bought the first generation laser level as soon as it hit the market, also the size of a VW. Is it any surprise that Georgie lives by his GPS Car Navigation system? Maps? He don't need no steeekin' maps!

So when Georgie went to visit his son at the University of Vermont, he packed his bright blue Mini Cooper with the essentials: Blackberry, Blue Tooth, i-Pod, i-Book, Canon Digital Rebel, and his Garmin Quest GPS navigator and headed north. He left a day early with plans of exploring "God's Country" and take some pictures of rolling farm lands and boulder strewn creeks he knew of in Craftsbury,VT, assured his Garmin would lead him across state to Burlington.

Georgie spent the night by a stream and was up at the crack of dawn ready for a very leisurely drive over to Lake Champlain. As he was heading west on Rte 15 through "Mo-ville", he prompted the Garmin to take him a direct route through the Mt. Mansfield State Forest. The wooded route was gorgeous with the road turning to dirt, now and again, and then all dirt. Georgie pressed on, positive the GPS was directing him towards an improved road and his destination. However, when it was more of a Jeep trail than a road, Georgie was getting a little concerned, but remained loyal to his high-tech navigator, which was unwavering about its choice of routes.

Fairly soon, the Mini was bottoming out, and Georgie was needing to drive on the shoulder and the middle hump. The road was fast degrading from Jeep trail to ox cart path, apparently used only at sugaring time. There was no place to turn around. Georgie's faith was waning, but his electronic pathfinder continued to point the way forward. As late afternoon arrived, storm clouds lowered, and the woods closed in. All of a sudden the Garmin’s screen went blank! What to do? Just then a battered old pick-up bounced into view going the opposite direction. Georgie pulled over as far as he could to let the seasoned, north country native squeeze by. When the vehicles were side by side, the woodsman called out to Georgie in a seen-all-I-need-to-see Vermont accent,
"GPS ? "

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Wallcovering Installations by Bill Archibald|paperhanger|Eastern Mass|Greater Boston Area|Dover|Wellesley|Franklin|Sharon|MA

POOLMANinCT

I do 90 percent residential, my garmin quest has been good to me over the past four yrs. for resi door to door ant be beat. one map in particular will put e in the resevoir, but they literall moved the road 2yrs ago.

perfect no, a tool that saved me countless hours yes.

ray

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......Less with the jaw & More with the paw.....

Second Look

I sounds as if Georgie's GPS did what it was asked to do. He wanted a trip across the mountains and he got it. If the GPS had a choice of paved roads only and it send him down a dirt road, that would be an error. If it didn't offer that choice then he was taking his chances.

A quick consult of the itinerary over morning coffee, followed by a double check on a paper map might have saved some aggravation.

Sometimes it pays to consider what you're asking for.

__________________
Second Look home improvement www.SecondLookHome.com
Handyman and Home Repair Specialist in Rhode Island
RI Licensed Lead Safe Remodeler/Renovator, RI Registered & Insured Contractor

daArch

Sometimes it pays to ask a local BEFORE they get the opportunity to laugh at you for relying on hi-tech wizardry.

Even USGS Topographic Maps show as "roads" cart paths that have been abandoned and overgrown for any number of years. BTDT - Gunnison Nat'l Forest - 1967

I'm a map & compass person myself. But if I ever go winter hiking again, I'll take a GPS locator so they can find my stiff and broken body at the bottom of some ravine.

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Wallcovering Installations by Bill Archibald|paperhanger|Eastern Mass|Greater Boston Area|Dover|Wellesley|Franklin|Sharon|MA

Putty Truck

I've had Garmin for a year now and have used a paper map twice since then. GPS has been wrong twice in about 500 times and that is better than me trying to read a map while driving a 8,000 lb putty truck in Washington state.

It take me the long way around sometimes, but that's okay because I'm not in a particular rush most days.

I haven't gotten the update thing to work, but I think its my firewall or losing the directions or something. Things don't change all that quick around here anyway.

Between Garmin, email on my cell, cell phones, trucks that ride like Caddys and Diet Rock Star, I'm in 21st century nirvana.

KentWhitten

I'd really like to hack my garmin with google maps. They are at least up to date.

__________________
If you correct your mind, the rest of your life will fall into place ~Lao Tzu

Custom Cabinetry - Portland, Cape Elizabeth, Scarborough, Kennebunkport, Yarmouth, Falmouth, Cumberland, Ogunquit, Maine

Salmon Falls Cabinetry

RenaissanceR

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daArch

The GPS didn't have the new bridge programmed in. It thought you were driving on water

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Wallcovering Installations by Bill Archibald|paperhanger|Eastern Mass|Greater Boston Area|Dover|Wellesley|Franklin|Sharon|MA

Second Look

That's an interesting quote from 1967. I wonder if that's still the case. And who uses USGS maps for driving? Aren't Topographic maps more suited for outdoor activities like hiking and climbing?

I'm thinking Rand McNally here, and maybe ol' Georgie should have stuck to the state highways and county roads if he were in a hurry.

__________________
Second Look home improvement www.SecondLookHome.com
Handyman and Home Repair Specialist in Rhode Island
RI Licensed Lead Safe Remodeler/Renovator, RI Registered & Insured Contractor