TOM TOM giving wrong directions

[darren.jones]

Hi all,

Just been driving between Echuca and Canberra (6 hours) today and along the way on a highway, my TOM TOM out of the blue says to turn right. It is not a new road that I am travelling on, I have all the updates in my TOM TOM and there is no road to turn right.

Out of the blue it did it again 30 minutes later asking me to turn right and there was no option to turn. It did not recalculate afterwards so it seems like a lost GPS signal or something???? But why say to turn?

Has anyone had this type of problam and do you know what causes it. It is annoying because I tend to lose confidence in my TOM TOM?

Thanks for listening/reading.

Cheers

Darren

 

[dhn]

May be a flaw in the map at the point where you are told to turn right.

Does the arrow on the status screen also show your turning right at that point?

 

[Arno]

The MapData Sciences Google map suggest either the Hume Hwy or the Newell Hwy with the latter having a couple of sharp right turns but you said this happened when there was nothing to turn.

If you remember either of those two spots reasonably well, pick towns or cross roads before and after, near to those instances, and use the Prepare route A .. B to see what the proposed route will show.

 

[mvl]

Just out of the blue today, my 930 said "in 250 feet turn right." In reality, the right turn was half a mile away. Never noticed this error before. I'm going to look out for this more.

Maybe it's because I downgraded to app 8.302, dunno.

 

[Arno]

Just out of the blue today, my 930 said "in 250 feet turn right." In reality, the right turn was half a mile away. Never noticed this error before. I'm going to look out for this more.
Maybe it's because I downgraded to app 8.302, dunno.

Must have been atmospheric conditions in North America today. ;->)
It's been over two months that I had gone back to that but just this evening I got virtually the same "in 80 meters turn right" (which was wrong) and at the same time highlight arrow fro the turn stretched from the current position down two intersections and then right.

 

[lpp]

more wrong directions

I realise it's some time since this topic was discussed, but I have found exactly like Darren and I am also in Australia.

I have found that TomTom seems to lose the plot. The blue triangle indicating our position is about an inch away from the road we are travelling on, with a dashed line between it and the actual road. It will often, suddenly out of the blue suggest 'turn right in 80 metres'.

The issue seems to occur when we are away from the cities. It occurred in the back country in Chile and Argentina, on Kangaroo Island and (last week) on the Tanami Track between Halls Creek and Alice Springs - all places well away from the cities.

Is there some problem with satellite coverage away from the cities? Though TomTom didn't mention any issue with satellite signal.

I've sent a message to TomTom support for what it's worth.

Any comments, suggestions welcome.

cheers
Larry

 

[dhn]

That behaviour certainly is often indicative of loss or gps signal completely, or reduced number of satellites locking. But that usually occurs in locations where the signal may be blocked such as in a mountainous region or in a city with high buildings. Definitely not in areas such as you describe.

It also may be indicative of flaws in the map used or misinterpretation by the application installed on the device.

So...........

Do you have the latest application (9.430?) and what maps and version numbers are you using? (latest is 895).

 

[Andy_P]

This "off road" problem is an old one that seems to be re-appearing.

I used to get it at certain times on my old Go720 and it was definitely not a mapping problem, because these were roads I travelled on every day and they were normally showing in the right place.
It didn't seem to be a signal blocking issue either, (no other trafic around and in open land), so it appeared that it had to be an error calculating the position.

I'm presuming it was an issue with the internal calculations in the GPS chipset, and there was lots of discussion about it in various forums and with TT, but I don't think we ever got a definitive answer as to what caused it.

I hadn't seen it for a couple of years, but recently I've been getting it again on different models (both the older NAV2 ones and the new NAV3 ones too!)

 

[lpp]

Yes, I am running 9430, though my Aus map is a bit out of date, being 865.3245 (I'm also in discussion with TT about a map update subscription which doesn't appear to have been working). I doubt that this is a map issue though, as none of the roads where this has happened are new. Also, when the GPS reverts to normal behaviour, it is correctly on the road. The Tanami Track which we were on last week is 1000km long and the GPS was off and on the road numerous times over 4 days.

My device is a GO 750 which I've had for about 18 months.