Kenwood Garmin Sat Nav Route Selection Issues

[chrisandkateg]

I have a Kenwood system fitted in the van which has Garmin Sat Nav. The routes selected by Garmin are not the best and seem to choose a lot of short cuts through narrow roads/lanes which actually save little time. Yesterday it took me through on an industrial estate service road which cut of a short corner and saved no time at all. I have updated the firmware and tried the various route options, fastest, cheapest etc but still the routes tend to be a bit strange. I don't get this with the Tom Tom I use in my car.
Does anyone know how to improve the route selection on Garmin?

 

[owen_h]

My standalone Garmin (Nuvi) also comes up with stupid route decisions, often wanting to take me through the center of towns or divert onto minor roads to cut a corner. I think its estimation of average speed on minor roads is overly optimistic but unlike a cheap old TomTom I can’t see any way to adjust this.
A suggestion made on another forum is to set your average mpg on small roads to a low value (say 15mpg) and a high value (say 40mpg) on A and motorways. Then change the routing from ‘fastest’ to ‘most economical’.
Would be interested to hear if this works for you.

 

[chrisandkateg]

My standalone Garmin (Nuvi) also comes up with stupid route decisions, often wanting to take me through the center of towns or divert onto minor roads to cut a corner. I think its estimation of average speed on minor roads is overly optimistic but unlike a cheap old TomTom I can’t see any way to adjust this.
A suggestion made on another forum is to set your average mpg on small roads to a low value (say 15mpg) and a high value (say 40mpg) on A and motorways. Then change the routing from ‘fastest’ to ‘most economical’.
Would be interested to hear if this works for you.

Thanks for the suggestion, I will see if I can adjust the settings and try it.

 

[chrisandkateg]

Just been trying to adjust the settings for mileage on different road types but haven't managed to do it. The Garmin did it again yesterday, driving back from North Devon to Exeter, I decided to avoid the busy North Devon Link Road and M5. I left it up to the Sat Nav and it took another very strange route including a bridge just wide enough for the van. I come from Devon and am not shy of narrow roads and lanes but someone visiting the area would possibly struggle and anything bigger than a Cali would have been stuck.

 

[Freeley]

Was that the route via Tiverton and Bickleigh? I use that route sometimes

 

[chrisandkateg]

That's the route I would have taken, but I let the Kenwood/Garmin do it's own thing, the route was possibly more direct but completely impractical saving no time and fuel using some very narrow lanes.

 

[teeboy]

If it makes you feel better the zillion pound vw unit also makes some "helpful" backroad "shortcuts" - we had a very helpful gated road short cut in North Wales recently.

Sent from my SM-N9005 using Tapatalk

 

[Andy]

Yes I've had this on my RNS510 as well. But standalone Garmin seems OK. StreetPilot 2820 possibly running on old firmware & definitely old maps.

 

[Freeley]

That's the route I would have taken, but I let the Kenwood/Garmin do it's own thing, the route was possibly more direct but completely impractical saving no time and fuel using some very narrow lanes.

If it's any consolation my pioneer unit does much the same. Frustrating when abroad and not confident enough to ignore it.
Even Google maps on my mobile (which I love) has the odd moment of sketchy route planning.

 

[Andy]

Even Google maps on my mobile (which I love) has the odd moment of sketchy route planning.

I think they all do. That said they will always get you from A to C. Some will go through B & others around.
I use Co-pilot on my Samsung Galaxy & have the option to say what type of road I prefer which helps.
RNS has option to show you three routes, you then pick the one you favour which helps.