Hi. I am trying to get info on tried and tested Sat Navs for LGVs. I used my very old Tom Tom yesterday in a Class 2 to deliver 9 pallets in North Manchester. For the 3rd load my Tom Tom tried to take me down a 7.5 Tonne weight restricted road. After phoning my depot, customer and others who were of no use It took me 1 1/2 hours to deliver the load and find an alternative route suitable for my vehicle. I must of come across 4 low bridges and dead ends. My head was right up it. It was made worse as im from Liverpool and not Manchester or to be specific Middleton.
Can anyone reccomend a tried and tested Sat Nav that actually works to prevent this again. I dont think the transport manager was to impressed when I cam e back with 4 out of the 9 loads. HA HA.
I think Snooper have a new Truckmate out which let´s you put in up to 18 postcodes at once for multi-drop. I´ve never used any kind of truck specific ´nav myself though.
I don´t want to seem rude, but maybe try to learn a bit of old school navigation as well? Invest in a truckers road Atlas with bridge heights. Weight limits are usually in residential areas so plan your route to stay on the main routes as much as possible. Ask the other drivers before you leave the yard if they´ve done any of the drops before. Spending even as much as half an hour planning your route before you leave the yard could mean you save an hour of stress later on. And it means the satnav becomes just another tool, not a necessity.
I and many other people have been down that road before! The cheapest way to get around the problem is to buy a truckers atlas. You can use your sat nag as normal but check your route with the truckers atlas. If you come across a low bridge or narrow streets use your sat nag to calculate an alternative route.
Even if you were to shell out loads of cash on a truckers sat nag, I’d still double check your route using a truckers atlas.
Regards SB
I use a TomTom car nav with lowbridge and weak bridge weightlimits, downloaded from pocketgpsworld.com, it doesn’t however do the nimby weight limits though. It’s a bit of a PITA routing though as the TT won’t avoid POIs, so you have to input your destination then go to “navigate to a POI along route” and choose the low bridge POI and see what pops up and navigate round as required, as others have said, use in conjunction with a truckers atlas and common sense.
Biscuits:
I don´t want to seem rude, but maybe try to learn a bit of old school navigation as well? Invest in a truckers road Atlas with bridge heights. Weight limits are usually in residential areas so plan your route to stay on the main routes as much as possible. Ask the other drivers before you leave the yard if they´ve done any of the drops before. Spending even as much as half an hour planning your route before you leave the yard could mean you save an hour of stress later on. And it means the satnav becomes just another tool, not a necessity.
^^ This
I use SatNav but only in conjunction with my truckers road maps to check for low bridges and weight restrictions even though I use the TomTom truck version. Its not fool proof and sometimes wants to take you the fastest route rather than the most sensible.
The other problem with using only SatNav is its easy to switch off and just let it tell you where to go. If you do this you will never memorise the routes and will have to use it time and time again for the same route.
Snooper S7000 all the way. Nice big 7in screen, height,weight,length,load type so many options its greay. Also has multi route planning and freeview tv and bluetooth!
I copilot truck on iPhone let is put 20-30 adresses in it and can optimize them for you personlly id prefer it over TomTom pronav works very well gto and can do multiple addresses
some maps dont show restrictions so sat navs will always get caught. Try D-loading A copy of Microsoft AutoRoute2011 and looking through that. I am deciding between a decent sat nav and a small lap top with this on it and my current sat nav with up to date maps
For Mothers day this year my kids bought me one off ebay only about 70 quid I always look for the route on my atlas first and use the sat nav for the last bit in to find specific road and has been fine , its called primo never heard of it before but it hasnt sent me anywhere yet that i couldnt get out of got bluetooth can download music onto it and has a few games to play when stuck waiting to be loaded or unloaded , if you leave it on whilst stopped even came up with is this a break the other day lol can put in the height weight width of veh you are driving , as I say i normally use my maps first and sat nav secondary as like you have come unstuck when just used the sat nav , but this so far has done the job , yest had to go into kent for a drop in the sticks and although some of roads where tight i never got near any width or weight restrictions and found it first time .
jx
hello fellas
don’t get me wrong but in this day and ages u NEED a satnav !!
its all about timing, init?
of course u check ur route, the bloody thing wants to take u, with a truck map!
i work like this:
i have an old tomtom one 3rd edition for cars!!
i downloaded for free all POI i need and let em show on the map!
all bridge heights, width, 7,5 to weight limits, IT IS FREE !!!
it won’t guide u around it but u can see the bridges on ur browsed map. if there is one just click on find alternative and click on travel via point on map… put ur cursor on the road YOU want to go around … check recalculation and go…
IT DOESN’T COST A THING!
and i hate the question when r u there…
and u need to know how far u can go according to ur driving time left at a day!!
so i know up front if i can do the job or not and tell my transport manager at once if i will be late!!!
FOR THE EXACT TIMING SET A MAXIMUM SPEED OF 85 KMH IN THE PLANING PREFERNCES…
u r at ur destination with +/- 3 min…
adjust ur speed to the time shown on ur satnav…
or just go with 87 or 89…
all 2 years i buy me new maps if there is an offer!! (especially in the summer season)
the battery of that thing is ■■■■■■ but at the next car boot sale i willl look for a better old tomtom…
20 to 30 pounds and i am done…
but i am still the driver and i decide where i wonna go
hello fellas
don’t get me wrong but in this day and ages u NEED a satnav !!
its all about timing, init?
of course u check ur route, the bloody thing wants to take u, with a truck map!
i work like this:
i have an old tomtom one 3rd edition for cars!!
i downloaded for free all POI i need and let em show on the map!
all bridge heights, width, 7,5 to weight limits, IT IS FREE !!!
it won’t guide u around it but u can see the bridges on ur browsed map. if there is one just click on find alternative and click on travel via point on map… put ur cursor on the road YOU want to go around … check recalculation and go…
IT DOESN’T COST A THING!
and i hate the question when r u there…
and u need to know how far u can go according to ur driving time left at a day!!
so i know up front if i can do the job or not and tell my transport manager at once if i will be late!!!
FOR THE EXACT TIMING SET A MAXIMUM SPEED OF 85 KMH IN THE PLANING PREFERNCES…
u r at ur destination with +/- 3 min…
adjust ur speed to the time shown on ur satnav…
or just go with 87 or 89…
all 2 years i buy me new maps if there is an offer!! (especially in the summer season)
the battery of that thing is ■■■■■■ but at the next car boot sale i willl look for a better old tomtom…
20 to 30 pounds and i am done…
but i am still the driver and i decide where i wonna go
Biscuits:
I don´t want to seem rude, but maybe try to learn a bit of old school navigation as well? Invest in a truckers road Atlas with bridge heights. Weight limits are usually in residential areas so plan your route to stay on the main routes as much as possible. Ask the other drivers before you leave the yard if they´ve done any of the drops before. Spending even as much as half an hour planning your route before you leave the yard could mean you save an hour of stress later on. And it means the satnav becomes just another tool, not a necessity.
^^ This
I use SatNav but only in conjunction with my truckers road maps to check for low bridges and weight restrictions even though I use the TomTom truck version. Its not fool proof and sometimes wants to take you the fastest route rather than the most sensible.
The other problem with using only SatNav is its easy to switch off and just let it tell you where to go. If you do this you will never memorise the routes and will have to use it time and time again for the same route.
Fair points both, however, having half an hour to plan you route with maps is not a luxury you’re often afforded these days. That said, I agree that it’s not a good idea to be totally reliant on sat navs and having a good set of maps to me is an essential part of your tool kit.
I invested in a Tom Tom 7100 Pro Truck about 6 months ago and although it was £350, I think it was well worth it. You can set your height, width, weight etc and I it works almost perfectly*, particularly useful if you’re sent into London - the most truck unfriendly place in the world. *The only thing I will say though, is that sometimes it will try and route you where you perhaps would rather not take an artic and for some reason, it refuses to route you through the Dartford Tunnel i.e from Kent into Essex.
Thats the thing I like about this site. Everyone has got their own way of doing things. Whether I or anyone else agrees with others views or not its the way they do the work that suits them. It would be a pretty boring world if we all did the same things in life. That said, I will buy a decent truck sat nav (probably a Snooper S7000 Truckmate) and some decent old fashioned atlases and hopefully with some half decent route planning I shouldn’t end up in bits again.
My S7000 tried routing me through weight limits three times yesterday when there were obvious alternatives. All my options were set for weight, height etc but it still did it. It also seems to have a few weight restrictions missing. A call to Snooper is due on Tuesday! Other than that great bit of kit
