Good morning all, a newbie here, been hanging around for a while but first post.
I’m after a bit of advice regarding the truck sat navs, firstly are they as good as they claim?
Also are the cheap ones on eBay going to do the trick or am I better of biting the bullet for a tom Tom or garmin likes of one…
I have only recently passed my test a month ago and luckily landed a Job a week after getting my cpc, the job is in recovery and as you can imagine it can mean going anywhere so no set routes here.
Now after my first week out these on the company supplied phone for directions has taken me down some shortcuts I would of preferred to avoid so am thinking this my be a worthwhile investment if my good.
Thanks in advance.
Hi mate,
Ive been passed 9 months now and the £40 xgody ones from ebay is the one i use. Never let me down yet doing multi drop all over the country. I also run google maps on my phone for the best traffic updates too. Never would pay anything more for the satnavs, good luck!
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Cookie~Wales:
Good morning all, a newbie here, been hanging around for a while but first post.
I’m after a bit of advice regarding the truck sat navs, firstly are they as good as they claim?
Also are the cheap ones on eBay going to do the trick or am I better of biting the bullet for a tom Tom or garmin likes of one…
I have only recently passed my test a month ago and luckily landed a Job a week after getting my cpc, the job is in recovery and as you can imagine it can mean going anywhere so no set routes here.
Now after my first week out these on the company supplied phone for directions has taken me down some shortcuts I would of preferred to avoid so am thinking this my be a worthwhile investment if my good.
Thanks in advance.
Hi mate,
Ive been passed 9 months now and use the £40 xgody ones off ebay never let me down yet. Also run google maps on phone for best traffic updates, never got me lost doing multi drop all over country. Good luck mate!
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I use a cheapish ebay one.And have done for about 7yrs now.Never rely on them totaly though.As some of the routes it suggest are’nt any good.The more expensive ones might be better.But my mate had a Garmin and now has an all singing all dancing tom tom.And that does muck him about at times.I have the trucktables one of ebay.Bloke called chris sells them.About £80 i think.No live traffic.But i can’t fault it for the price.Had it 3yrs now with no probs.
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I’m in a very small minority here, but as a newbie I would reckon better to learn your way around routes before relying (totally or otherwise) on a sat nav.
If your co are sending you directions all the better, they will likely know if their shortcuts are ok or not anyway.
Plan your routes first Google or even …shock horror a map. 
use a sat nav as a guide.
Sat navs are fine as long as you don’t take them as gospel.
As for truck designated ones (imo grossly overpriced) I can’t comment on, I just use a car type bog standard thingy, some of the roads I have to go on they would not route me down anyway, so a chocolate fireguard situation, even if I wanted a one.
Don’t worry too much mate, once you get a bit of route knowledge under your belt you’ll be fine, but whether getting a 400 quid or whatever truck sat nav to tell you every ■■■■ detail without having to think is a good way of learning or not , is a debatable point. 
As I said, I’m in a minority on this.
I use CoPilot HGV app on my phone. £130 with 12 month Active Traffic subscription. It’s an excellent tool but like others say you still need to use some common sense. If I don’t like the look of a road it wants to go down I don’t take it. It will then reroute. Also use google maps to study my destination if I haven’t been there before, it has the added satellite view which is incredibly useful. Good luck.
I had a 5” xgody one for a while and a out of date AA truckers atlas,my wife decided to buy me a Garmin truck one last year from argos,think it was on offer,dont really use it as we do same drops all the time but never know when they come in handy with diversions etc…
The xgody ones do the job but as said on previous posts never trust sat nav on its own…
Thank you all for replies, some useful info there.
I’m sure I’m just being over cautious, but after driving my transit recovery for over 15 years, last thing I want to do after stepping up to the big ones is get it stuck somewhere, especially when they belong to someone else lol
I think I’ll give the cheap one a go and go from there, I don’t follow the directions religiously, and use my common sense, there was a few ways I did’nt go last week as it looked to small for me and the phone one re-routed, and seem to go about the houses far more than needed too, I’m after something really that will give me half a chance to get to my destination without chasing my backside re-routing over and over, but didn’t want to splash the cash needlessly plus the one on the work phone does the live traffic updates.
For about the thousandth time… Don’t waste money on dam sat navs, if you need such an item to drive a truck you should not be driving a truck. Try understanding how to read a map FFS.
If you really think you need such an item to survive, try using a navigation app on your smart phone and save a fortune.
Pat Hasler:
For about the thousandth time… Don’t waste money on dam sat navs, if you need such an item to drive a truck you should not be driving a truck. Try understanding how to read a map FFS.
If you really think you need such an item to survive, try using a navigation app on your smart phone and save a fortune.
I do understand how to read a map, when I started to use the roads maps where all we had, until many years later we had the new fang dangled internet AA or RAC routes printed off, how amazing they were lol 
I do not need one to survive or indeed drive, but why would you not make use of available technology too aid you■■? Especially when it’s all new 
Pat Hasler:
For about the thousandth time… Don’t waste money on dam sat navs, if you need such an item to drive a truck you should not be driving a truck. Try understanding how to read a map FFS.
If you really think you need such an item to survive, try using a navigation app on your smart phone and save a fortune.
I agree with you up to a point Pat.
I’m also old school, learned routes with maps pre sat nav days, and managed fine.
On the other hand I got a sat nav about 11 or so yrs ago, and as long as I use it properly with a big helping of savvy,.I would not be without it…as for actually ‘‘needing it to survive’’ …then no I don’t.
The danger comes about when they are followed blindly. Then chuck into the mix the truck ones where you get by using zero initiative because it tells you every ■■■■ thing, well.I reckon as a newbie it aint a good move to go about learning the job.
Have you thought about seeing what trial options are available? I believe that some will offer you a short time to try the product and then charge for a full blown option.
I’ve used 3 different sat navs - the one built into my car is rarely used as most journeys are the bog standard home to work, shops family type trips.
My freestanding Truck nav (snooper) with the different vehicle sizes programmed in. This is my preferred due mainly to the fact it’s the one I use most often and have got used to how it gives out the information. Also means I always have the sat nav option even when using non fleet hire vehicles.
My company fleet vehicles also have driver tablets with Go Pro sat nav included. It does pretty much the same as my Snooper but I find the display and layout a bit strange at times.
Try plenty, if you have choice get at least a 7" screen for ease of reading. I did try an app on my phone but found the screen to small for my liking.
Got a Tomtom 6500 one of those new fangled overpriced truck sat nav will never take off thingies 
and must admit for multidrop as in 10+ drops a day plus collections it can be a godsend.
I still use mine for night trunking even though I can get to the depots blind folded normally, but Highways England have a really big fetish for closing major roads randomly and not telling anyone until they’re a mile from the closure which makes stopping and looking at a map kindof hard, oh and then closing the diversions too!
Main advantages - less stressful redirects, doesn’t require me to park up and look at a map, live traffic and in my experience it knows about more low bridges than the Phillips Truckers Atlas & Highways England. Oh and councils seem to forget to put up low bridge warning signs until you’re staring at said bridge.
Main disadvantages - it can still take daft routes on occasion so use eyes too & do check the route and is very expensive. I don’t have one with builtin TV however, it’s a sat nav and that’s it.
Would I be without it, not a hope in hell even if other drivers think I’m a big girls blouse…!
Get yourself a bridge heights map as well. A map will give you something which a sat nav cannot do so easily and that is relate one town to another, a sense of direction and just how many low bridges there are in a particular area. Also if you are moving onto heavy recovery now then you are going to need at least a tape measure or better still a height measuring stick. The casualty vehicle may be marked up as 13’ 6" but how high is it once you have it on suspended ?
I’ve got co pilot truck…on my phone.
Worth the 80 quid,just for the amusement factor 
robroy:
Pat Hasler:
For about the thousandth time… Don’t waste money on dam sat navs, if you need such an item to drive a truck you should not be driving a truck. Try understanding how to read a map FFS.
If you really think you need such an item to survive, try using a navigation app on your smart phone and save a fortune.
I agree with you up to a point Pat.
I’m also old school, learned routes with maps pre sat nav days, and managed fine.
On the other hand I got a sat nav about 11 or so yrs ago, and as long as I use it properly with a big helping of savvy,.I would not be without it…as for actually ‘‘needing it to survive’’ …then no I don’t.
The danger comes about when they are followed blindly. Then chuck into the mix the truck ones where you get by using zero initiative because it tells you every [zb] thing, well.I reckon as a newbie it aint a good move to go about learning the job.
Why does using maps help someone learn the job? I learned to read maps when I was at school. I got a bit better at reading them in the army. And recently I’ve started using maps agains simply cos I don’t like using the motorways so much.
But I’d still not be without one for the last mile or five. I’ve used google maps before when I forgot my truck satnav. But I can’t see how I’m learning more when I’m using a map. As far as I can see a satnav is just a computerized map.
I don’t see why new drivers need to make life harder for themselves. Just stick the postcode in and press go. They work fine in my experience of both cars and trucks. If you fancy a chilled route or something different maps are great - for for getting from a-b I see no point in maps.
If you do get a xgody off ebay though make sure its the updated version,the one i had got annoying telling me i was speeding on single carrageway if doing above 40 mph,mates got a newer one and his is fine.
robroy:
As I said, I’m in a minority on this.
I don’t actually think you are. Most of us who’ve got a bit of experience know that even paper maps can be wrong sometimes let alone sat-navs; so we use both as a guide and not as an absolute must-do.
The trick, as you well know, is to stop well before you cannot go any further, look out for obvious signs (overhanging branches at cab height for example) and use that tongue in your head for its appointed purpose… in other words ASK!
Even the above aren’t fool-proof but I work on the principle (and I do farms as you may know) that I’d sooner walk half a mile forwards and have a look than be towed half a mile backwards because I didn’t bother to.
This very topic was discussed very extensively not more than 2/3 weeks ago! Search for it, it’ll have plenty of advice
Pat Hasler:
For about the thousandth time… Don’t waste money on dam sat navs, if you need such an item to drive a truck you should not be driving a truck. Try understanding how to read a map FFS.
More nonsense from the trucking dinosaur 