Wow, lots to read there, drexor.
I'll pick out a few points...
The model name:
TomTom call the same hardware different things in different countries. If your supplier got his stock by an "unusual" route , or TomTom simply made a cock-up, you may have got kit originally destined for Europe.
If you enter the first two characters of your serial number into the box
here, it will tell you the exact model name (or names).
That's the US site. I suspect it will come up with both the VIA and START names, but if it only comes up with the VIA name, it would probably come up with the START name if you try the European equivalent site
here
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Viewing the map.
I'm not sure I understand what's missing when you say you can't see the map without putting in a route. Maybe your model is different, but I had a START20 for a while and don't remember it being impossible to get to what used to be called "browse map" and is now renamed "View map" on the recent "NAV3" models.
If your menus are the same as my other NAV3 TomToms, then there *is* one annoying "feature" in that once a route has been calculated, then the "Show map" menu item gets changed to a two-button "View route" followed by "Show map of route" before you can see the map screen.
But all that means is that every time you visit the map from that menu, it has been zoomed and panned to your current route. However, it still works exactly the same as before... you can drag the map with your finger and use the zoom bar to move about, and the "Find" button still works like it always does.
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Map corrections for speed limits "A to B"
Again, many of us have been asking for this for years.
Obviously the way it works is that each "road section" in the maps has a speed limit attached. Changing that value is easy, but actually changing the length of a particular section (to mark the precise point where the speed limit changes, must be FAR more difficult as it would mean changing the core map data.
You can always report the exact coordinates for the stretch of road using the "report other" text box, but I'd be the first to agree they could REALLY do with a complete re-think of how to handle speed limit corrections.
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Map corrections for "single-point" blockages...
Yes, I've been asking for that ever since MapShare came out.
In the UK, our local councils just LOVE blocking residential roads, and it is always done with a gate or bollards or some ornamental flower beds.
This means that the blunt instrument of making a road "one-way" in BOTH directions, never describes the real situation correctly.
But to do it properly means having to redraw the actual road segments, and as we've seen above MapShare is not designed to be able to do that.
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You say "there used to be an option to select "shortest" and "fastest" what about "least turns" ? or even a hybrid of shortest/fastest .. "
Do you not still get the shortest/fastest options if you set it up that way in the "Planning preferences menu ?
(again, that menu MAY have gone on your model, but I didn't think the START20 had cut-down menus, like some lesser models)
Lots of TT models now also have an "eco-route" option which is supposed to be a hybrid of fastest and shortest, but to be honest, it usually still seems to use the "fastest" route if you select "eco".
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Manual calibration?
I doubt it's the actual static positioning calibration that's wrong. It's more likely just to be running slowly at that point and the position is lagging. Have you got too many POIs set to "show on map". That's a classic way to get it to start struggling to keep up, and stupidly, many recent software updates actually "tick all the boxes" and turn on all your user-POI categories without you noticing.
