newbie just signed up for an agency any advice on best sat nav out there, just in case there’s none in vehicle
Guys at our place rate XGody…cheap and cheerful.
I have the Sygic app on my phone…not bad but you need to treat its rerouting with caution.
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I’ve never been offered a Sat Nav by a company while working for them on Agency. Only 1 client ever gave me a map/directions to one of the stops on the schedule.
Royal Mail has a tablet thing in the cab with Co-Pilot Professional but I’ve never found it useful - You’re lucky if it ever works.
I use a Garmin Dezl 770 with lifetime updates and has enabled me to take on work in areas I have never been to before, including Central London. I’ve compared it to a TomTom and found the Garmin mapping to give quicker routes but it does generally try and keep you to main A roads etc if possible, especially in London, so use it as a guide more than 100% relying on it, especially if you are using shortcuts. I also keep a Philips Truck atlas with me, just in case the sat nav does conk out - Hasn’t happened yet.
Garmin make Marine and Aero GPS units too. TomTom does not, make of that what you will
I’ve heard the newer Garmin Dezl 780 can be a bit funny when it comes to pairing your phone so look into that if you decide to go the Garmin route
Monkey241:
Guys at our place rate XGody…cheap and cheerful.I have the Sygic app on my phone…not bad but you need to treat its rerouting with caution.
Sent from my SM-N960F using Tapatalk
thanks for that much appreciated
Hyh:
I’ve never been offered a Sat Nav by a company while working for them on Agency. Only 1 client ever gave me a map/directions to one of the stops on the schedule.Royal Mail has a tablet thing in the cab with Co-Pilot Professional but I’ve never found it useful - You’re lucky if it ever works.
I use a Garmin Dezl 770 with lifetime updates and has enabled me to take on work in areas I have never been to before, including Central London. I’ve compared it to a TomTom and found the Garmin mapping to give quicker routes but it does generally try and keep you to main A roads etc if possible, especially in London, so use it as a guide more than 100% relying on it, especially if you are using shortcuts. I also keep a Philips Truck atlas with me, just in case the sat nav does conk out - Hasn’t happened yet.
Garmin make Marine and Aero GPS units too. TomTom does not, make of that what you will
I’ve heard the newer Garmin Dezl 780 can be a bit funny when it comes to pairing your phone so look into that if you decide to go the Garmin route
thankyou will look into that
Tomtom is a good one however I have this and not used it as much. I tend to use Google maps and use the low bridges add on for it.
I always Google where I’m going try to plan it and find out what the area is like incase there is no where to turn round.
You can also use co pilot for trucks you get a 14 day free trial and I believe its £8.99 a month after. Saves forking out 3-400 quid on a satnav
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I was an early adopter of Satnav and had the first version of Tomtom on a Nokia N70 in 2005. I’ve got by just fine using Tomtom for cars as an app on phone then standalone unit when they brought those out but have been using Google Maps on my phone for years, checking with a Truckers Map showing bridge heights and weight limits when I was unsure of a route.
I’ve trialled the trucking ones and they have tried to route down enough roads you cannot get a truck down and through enough weight limits etc to come to the conclusion they don’t really offer enough to justify spending money on one. For example going from Malvern to Hereford I go down towards Ledbury and the Copilot one will continuously try to get me to turn right at every road you come to to put me on the A4103. You only have to look up those roads from the A449 you’re on to realise there’s no way in hell you’re doing them in a lorry. Some of them have gradients and sharp bends as soon as you turn off that they even look like they’d be not that much fun in a car.
Hyh:
Royal Mail has a tablet thing in the cab with Co-Pilot Professional but I’ve never found it useful - You’re lucky if it ever works.
We have it on our Microlises. I used to think that it didn’t work either and froze but if you leave it a minute or two it’ll all of a sudden come to life and work how you think it should’ve done but for the first few minutes after firing up it just seemed to sit there unresponsive on a frozen screen. I think it’s because of the low spec of the android tablets Microlise use for their systems.
Conor:
I was an early adopter of Satnav and had the first version of Tomtom on a Nokia N70 in 2005. I’ve got by just fine using Tomtom for cars as an app on phone then standalone unit when they brought those out but have been using Google Maps on my phone for years, checking with a Truckers Map showing bridge heights and weight limits when I was unsure of a route.I’ve trialled the trucking ones and they have tried to route down enough roads you cannot get a truck down and through enough weight limits etc to come to the conclusion they don’t really offer enough to justify spending money on one. For example going from Malvern to Hereford I go down towards Ledbury and the Copilot one will continuously try to get me to turn right at every road you come to to put me on the A4103. You only have to look up those roads from the A449 you’re on to realise there’s no way in hell you’re doing them in a lorry. Some of them have gradients and sharp bends as soon as you turn off that they even look like they’d be not that much fun in a car.
Hyh:
Royal Mail has a tablet thing in the cab with Co-Pilot Professional but I’ve never found it useful - You’re lucky if it ever works.We have it on our Microlises. I used to think that it didn’t work either and froze but if you leave it a minute or two it’ll all of a sudden come to life and work how you think it should’ve done but for the first few minutes after firing up it just seemed to sit there unresponsive on a frozen screen. I think it’s because of the low spec of the android tablets Microlise use for their systems.
Not saying it would be easy to get onto the A4103 from Malvern itself, but i used to run regularly with full and part loaded loaded car transporters between Hereford and Worcester, both ways, so long as you weren’t running much above 15ft (or tree issues) the 4103 itself is fine, only one hill that steepens sharply which can cause issues if you lack drive axle grip in the wet and the autobox won’t keep up with the block down shifts required (good manual shifting practice helps), but otherwise a better road than you might think once on it.
As you rightly note that short route from Malvern to the 4103 might be awkward.
Also used the A44 between Leominster and Worcester regularly, but usually near enough empty by then, again one sharp hill but otherwise fine, once things get back to normal there used to be a lovely little country cafe at the bottom of that steep twisty hill Worcester side and enough room to park one or two artics opposite side of road, assuming it re-opens when this cobblers it’s over worth stopping at.
Monkey241:
Guys at our place rate XGody…cheap and cheerful.I have the Sygic app on my phone…not bad but you need to treat its rerouting with caution.
Sent from my SM-N960F using Tapatalk
Be careful with the newest xgody, supposed to be a truck sat nav but i bought a new one with updated software, and it was routing as if in a car, it tried to take me under 2 low bridges on major routes even though i had changed the profiles to truck and put in the correct heights lengths etc, I used a trucknav for a couple of years which used the same software but older, so i copied the files from it to the new gody and now it works fine
If i was you i would pay a little bit more and get this… ebay.co.uk/itm/Bargain-2020 … Swve5XNybq its the one i used until i bought the gody, only reason i changed is because i wanted a smaller screen, but I wish i had stuck with the trucknav, plus if you ever get stuck with it you can ring the guy up and he will give you support.
The only thing I would say is if you get the trucknav(or the xgody) copy the contents of the device or the memory card to a good quality memory card as a backup. The only problem i ever had with trucknav was occasionaly it took some time to load or needed resetting on the back, so i copied to a decent memory card and put that in and it cured it and i never had any problems. Becuase the price is so low they use cheap memory cards and every now and then you might get a dodgy one. But i would definately buy another it does the same job as £300 tom tom apart from live traffic.
Also buy yourself a truckers atlas with bridge heights in.
If you wonder how the chinese sat navs xgody etc make money when selling them for the price, it is because they have low spec and pilfer the maps. I am advised that the routing is okay, but it can lead you astray on occasion. Updating is possible, but in my experience most drivers I know that have one say their maps are out of date and they don’t know how to update. It leads to situations where the sat nav says you are going through fields or across a river where there is now a bridge etc.
From my experience don’t waste your money buying a tomtom. I wonder if mine is just a bad ‘un because everybody else really rate them but it’s been carp since new. Laggy, crashy and the way it tries to send me down little back lanes to avoid the start of a weight limit road I may be going into because that’s where my site is. It’s like it only sees weight limits to be the first 100 yards of the road but the rest is ok. Does that all the time. Also, it doesn’t actually show the bridge heights on the screen like my ancient snooper does. The only thing positive I can say about it is the live traffic is very good and useful.
nomiS36:
From my experience don’t waste your money buying a tomtom. I wonder if mine is just a bad ‘un because everybody else really rate them but it’s been carp since new. Laggy, crashy and the way it tries to send me down little back lanes to avoid the start of a weight limit road I may be going into because that’s where my site is. It’s like it only sees weight limits to be the first 100 yards of the road but the rest is ok. Does that all the time. Also, it doesn’t actually show the bridge heights on the screen like my ancient snooper does. The only thing positive I can say about it is the live traffic is very good and useful.
I just have google maps on alongside my sat nav for the live traffic
Monkey241:
Guys at our place rate XGody…cheap and cheerful.I have the Sygic app on my phone…not bad but you need to treat its rerouting with caution.
Sent from my SM-N960F using Tapatalk
I use XGody for a few years, I could not get any updates, but it does the job, but…roundabouts is a problem, it’s just not showing exits fast enough, but I use it with Google maps so it works for me. It’s a very cheap way to get navigation for HGV.
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You will find it hard to beat a Garmin for a trucker. The DZL 770 series are best truckers sat navs available.
Snooper , saves messing about with tv
the same un updated car satnav coupled with a brain and initiative have been perfect for me for the last 14 years.
i suppose it boils down to how observant you are making the best use of just what you need to get on with the job without relying on every add on in existance.
if theres a weight limit or a bridge then theres a sign beforehand telling you that exact information to ensure you dont go near it.
dieseldog999:
the same un updated car satnav coupled with a brain and initiative have been perfect for me for the last 14 years.
i suppose it boils down to how observant you are making the best use of just what you need to get on with the job without relying on every add on in existance.
if theres a weight limit or a bridge then theres a sign beforehand telling you that exact information to ensure you dont go near it.
And I would assume you would say the same about supermarkets, you can get by on shopping at Aldi but some of us prefer M&S.
Noremac:
Updating is possible, but in my experience most drivers I know that have one say their maps are out of date and they don’t know how to update.
Join this group, and the 2019 Q4 updates are in the files section, but please read the map update instructions files first.
facebook.com/groups/1510939042556385/
Please note. These are for Chinese type units that run Igo software.
facebook.com/groups/1510939042556385/files/
Ken.
dieseldog999:
the same un updated car satnav coupled with a brain and initiative have been perfect for me for the last 14 years.
i suppose it boils down to how observant you are making the best use of just what you need to get on with the job without relying on every add on in existance.
if theres a weight limit or a bridge then theres a sign beforehand telling you that exact information to ensure you dont go near it.
I use hgv sat nav, to keep me away from places I don’t want to go, it just makes life easier, and keep an eye on signs, just for peace of mind.
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Quinny:
Noremac:
Updating is possible, but in my experience most drivers I know that have one say their maps are out of date and they don’t know how to update.Join this group, and the 2019 Q4 updates are in the files section, but please read the map update instructions files first.
facebook.com/groups/1510939042556385/
Please note. These are for Chinese type units that run Igo software.
facebook.com/groups/1510939042556385/files/
Ken.
Will try this, thank you.
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