various "problems"...330S

[jerseyjim]

My kids gave me a TomTom last Christmas. It is used soley in my motorhome...for various trips over 100 miles...including cross country. Am still learning how to use it, and it is interesting.
The first time I used it, I was at the Jersey shore (Atlantic Ocean campground) and figured to enter my "Home address" at let it take me there. Entered my "Home", and off we went. What happened, is that the TomTom told me to "turn left, 600 yards"...which was a dirt road leading right to an Air Force practice bombing range! Needless to say, I ignored this command. My son told me he had this type of problem, too, until he uploaded his "free" map upgrade. That I did. What happened, is that I lost the "Home" icon, but found I could still get it thru "recent destinations" OK. Next trip was to Hershey, Pa, for an RV show. It got me there just fine, and I parked there overnight. The next day, I punched in "recent destinations" and touched my address. What the TomTom did, upon leaving the Convention Center was to tell me to "Turn Right" when I KNEW I should turn left...and it took me right back into the Convention Center parking lot. Not good. After this, I simply left the Center, turned left, and the thing guided me all the way to my house without further bad instructions.
Then, last month, in the Amish area of Pennsylvania, we figured to go to a "tourist trap" location, and the map showed just 2 or 3 turns on 3 routes and we would be there. The TomTom, however, took us on an incredible senic route that took over 3/4 hour....that really could have been done in 20 minits.
Then, last week, asking it for a route from my house to a location in Arizona (2500miles), I got the usual "toll road" pop up...and then another that said "part of the route will be on unpaved roads" "Yes?" or "No?".

What is that? I have some questions:
Other than doing the "soft" resetting, how can I:
1-get back my "Home" icon
2-Get the most DIRECT routing
3-NO "unpaved" popup
4-How can I get that "voice" to say "recalibrating"?

Thanks in advance for any replies.

jimmy

 

[mikealder]

Welcome to the forum, thats quite some "fun" you have been experiancing with the device!

Firstly can you check the type of route planning you have told the device to use, if its set to shortest this will explain some of the strange routes you have been seeing, Change Preferences/ Planning Preferences and you should see quite a few options to force the device not to use certain types of roads, also make sure "Shortest Route" isn't selected as its useless for most normal trips.

For the Home location you need to set a home loaction in order for the device to be able to use it, again go to Change Preferences/ Change Home Location and set your address or a location close to it.

For the most direct routing use Shortest route, but that in practise is a waste of time, use Fastest Route for the device to use major roads and it will offer the quickest journey time, whilst shortest might sound the best option in reality it takes ages for the device to plan the route and will go left/ right/ left/ right through the houses rather than taking a main road around the houses where you will be running at a higher speed.

No unpaved roads, again avoid using shortest, and set up the options in planning preferences, one option should be specific to unpaved roads.

As for getting the device to say its recalibrating forget it as there is no such setting available - Mike

 

[lec510]

@Jerseyjim
Let the GPS acquiring the full satellite signal (at least 3 bars) before attempting to ENTER the destination, avoid lot of surprises. Secondo, when you know better, you should veto the GPS instruction. You will find out that TomTom will quickly obey your order. Some other GPS don't listen to you that well.

 

[mvl]

Jerseyslim, the 330S doesn't have IQroutes, and the pre-IQroutes models like the 330S gave pretty inefficient directions.

Also I don't believe the 330S has the avoid dirt road option.

IQroutes give MUCH MUCH better directions, and all the IQroutes models also have the "avoid dirt roads" option. You may want to consider upgrading to a 335S (which would be equivalent of a 330S with IQroutes added, or a 340S which adds Mexico maps (but is more likely to be on sale than a 335S)