Need help entery search criteria. Always shows no Point of Interest found.

[tomtomvinvin]

It seems when I'm lost and am trying to find something, I can never find it on the Tom Tom.
I always get no POI found.
Today I was looking for a funeral home. I knew the name and the town. It was called, Rendina Funeral Home. located in Gary Indiana. I did not know the address. It has been there for 30 + years.
I did a Navigate to>POI>Indiana>Gary>Find>Rendina+ No POI found.
I was 3 miles away, so I tried POI near me. Same infor entered= No POI found.
I tried entering funeral home no POI found
Funeral = No poi found.
I finally pulled out my cell with internet and googled the address and then entered it and entered it manually into tom tom and found it.
What am I doing wrong? I know this is one case and possibly the POI was not in the software. But this was an old place that's never changed it's name.
To be fair, tom tom has recognized places before. A lot were where I more or less knew where I was going. It just seems when I'm clueless, it lets me down.
There's been times I've entered a store, but did not really know how to classify it. Is it shopping, business, company etc.
I was in Portage Indiana and knew a place was by Lowe's Home Improvement. I typed in Lowes, and of course, No POI found. My old GPS was not as difficult to search. I could just hit Find and start typing and with each letter, it would show results and narrow down the search.
I did not have to enter a catagory either. It would just be a broad search. Car dealers, Schools, Parks, etc.
Any tips would be appreciated....
I've had it 1 1/2 years and it's always been a pain. I really want to love this thing.......
Oh yeah, When I try to search and I don't know the exact city I get NO poi found too.
Once I find the city it is in,sometimes it magically knows where it is.

 

[dhn]

Unfortunately, a reality of any brand of gps is that a limited number of poi's are installed. Some models such as 920 and 930 have many more poi's than those of lesser models.

And TomToms tend to have fewer default pois than, say, Garmins.

It's frustrating, I know. And sometimes the user has to resort to techniques such as you applied to get to the correct destination.

There are many sites that offer custom poi's to complement the ones installed on the unit.

Here is a list of some places you can try:
http://www.gps-data-team.com/poi/
http://www.poi-factory.com/
http://www.poifriend.com/
http://www.gpspassion.com/forumsen/default.asp?CAT_ID=20

 

[tomtomvinvin]

Is there a better way to search if you don't know the town? Sometimes a destination is close to a border. Or in Chicago there are multiple areas where one side of the street is one town and the opposite is another. Sometimes you don't even know the name of the town.
It really sucks when you search and find no POI and then learn the town and there it is.
How far does POI close to you searches extend out? What is "Close to you" in terms of distance?

 

[mvl]

Is there a better way to search if you don't know the town? Sometimes a destination is close to a border. Or in Chicago there are multiple areas where one side of the street is one town and the opposite is another. Sometimes you don't even know the name of the town.
It really sucks when you search and find no POI and then learn the town and there it is.
How far does POI close to you searches extend out? What is "Close to you" in terms of distance?

"POI in city" searches beyond city limits - In my experience it searches about 30-50 miles from the city center before giving up.

The ONE/XL x30 models and older had limited POIs, primarily due to their limited internal memory. It was one of the things you lost by getting a lower end model Tomtom. Tomtom offerred the best POIS on the 9xx series GO models.

However the latest ONE/XL 140/340 models now have double the internal memory, and now hold the full POI file that was formerly available on the 9xx GO.

 

[tomtomvinvin]

Thanks for the feedback. This one was a gift. Is there any way too improve the memory on mine so I can add POI's? I have the SD slot that has no card.