Gps Recommendations For Both Car And Bike

[Serenity_VFR]

Hey guys not to :cheerleader: but I have two friends that use the Zumo 550 everyday on their police bikes. They have had to have them replaced 5 times between both of them. They have only been using them for the past 2-3 years, so you do the math. While they both love them....I see a pattern. Also, one of my buddies uses a Zumo 550 on his Goldwing and he has had to replace his twice in the past 4 years. Just FYI.......

IMHO: I would recommend taking the GPS off the bike while it's baking in the sun (in the car too for that matter) and just giving them all TLC.

This is why I believe in buying the CHEAPEST Garmin one can get away with due to the needed features by each particular consumer. The devices are pretty much disposable junk due to the high cost to update the maps, replace the battery, buy the proprietary charging cords (or rewire your own so that it doesn't get stuck in "computer mode" whenever it is powered up).

Add in the fact that using one on a motorcycle is much rougher service than even the motorcycle-specific (and pricey as hell for the $900 list) Zumo 550 has been shown to be capable of in the long-term.

For $900 (or even the "low" amazon price of $650) you can buy a CRAPLOAD of cheapo bottom-end Nuvi 200 and 205 units from Amazon and a waterproof aqua-box from ramline (which will outlast a dozen Nuvis -or whatever comes out next year) and you'll have 80-90% of the features you get in the high-end models.

If you need/want updated traffic/weather data through your GPS you'll need to get a more expensive unit (and expensive monthly/yearly fees), or if you want to have tracking features so you can play online and show off your route to your friends, then you'll have to spend more money too. But if you want to just have a basic turn-by-turn unit to help you find gas stations or just do basic navigation I think one is best off with a cheap unit. Then if you need to buy a new one every 9-12 months because the bike shook it all to hell or it just fell apart (and face it the Garmins, even the high-end ones, don't have a very good record on motorcycles if you are a higher-mileage rider) you can just junk it and buy another one for another $80 and get a "free" map upgrade too (and all the newest features and better touch-screen that comes with a year-newer unit).

IMHO, ALL Garmin consumer units (and we aren't talking about $7k aviation professional models) are disposable junk, and that includes the $650-900 Zumo 550 which charges an awfully lot of money for a waterproof case that you can get for $40-50 from Ram-line and add to any non-waterproof GPS from any manufacturer (get a wider ramline waterproof box in case you need it for the next disposable unit you buy from Garmin -or one of their competitors in the future). Or just use a plastic bag or latex condom if you are even cheaper or don't use it much on the bike.

[Ranger77]

I got my Garmin 885T in a couple days ago. Got a ram mount to go with it. I'll be testing it when I go get a bike this coming thursday. I'll see how well she does then.

http://gpsmagazine.com/2009/01/garmin_nuvi_885t_review.php

[Flanker]

I've allready got a decent car GPS, and am looking for a (waterproof) way to mount it on my bike. I ran across this solution: http://www.soeasygps.com/

Anyone here have experience with it?The few reviews I can find online are all positive.

Might get that, and rig a 12V cig. adapter to my 5th. gen for power.

[Hobie1dog]

Yesterday my Garmin Nuvi went totally haywire on me as I punched in "Home" and took me off on a wild goose chase. It was showing the map upside down in relation to what cities were located where. I finally recognized where I was at..which didn't correspond to the Garmin, and made my way back home on my own.

I'll never be able to trust it again. :tour:

OK....what brand do I try next?

[Serenity_VFR]

Yesterday my Garmin Nuvi went totally haywire on me as I punched in "Home" and took me off on a wild goose chase. It was showing the map upside down in relation to what cities were located where. I finally recognized where I was at..which didn't correspond to the Garmin, and made my way back home on my own.

I'll never be able to trust it again. :tour:

OK....what brand do I try next?

Buy a new one. Yours is only good for parts now. You can buy a Nuvi 205 for $90 at WalMart.

The vibrations and jiggling of a motorcycle will destroy anything electronic sooner or later. With a new unit you'll get a shiny fresh unit, A better more sensitive touchscreen with higher resolution, many of the latest firmware/menu features, the latest maps and POI's (A $70 value to update it on a year-old garmin), a fresh new battery that isn't running down (most Garmins don't have any easily replaceable battery), and another charging cable to use.

Garmin products are disposable junk -yours just reached the end of its short and disposable life as something went "sping" inside it. It is time for a new one. At <$100 it's not a big deal to have to buy a new one every 2 years -is it?

[Hobie1dog]

Yesterday my Garmin Nuvi went totally haywire on me as I punched in "Home" and took me off on a wild goose chase. It was showing the map upside down in relation to what cities were located where. I finally recognized where I was at..which didn't correspond to the Garmin, and made my way back home on my own.

I'll never be able to trust it again. :pissed:

OK....what brand do I try next?

Buy a new one. Yours is only good for parts now. You can buy a Nuvi 205 for $90 at WalMart.

The vibrations and jiggling of a motorcycle will destroy anything electronic sooner or later. With a new unit you'll get a shiny fresh unit, A better more sensitive touchscreen with higher resolution, many of the latest firmware/menu features, the latest maps and POI's (A $70 value to update it on a year-old garmin), a fresh new battery that isn't running down (most Garmins don't have any easily replaceable battery), and another charging cable to use.

Garmin products are disposable junk -yours just reached the end of its short and disposable life as something went "sping" inside it. It is time for a new one. At <$100 it's not a big deal to have to buy a new one every 2 years -is it?

The sad part is this one was only used in cars, so it never got wet or had any vibrations affecting it :tour:

[Serenity_VFR]

The sad part is this one was only used in cars, so it never got wet or had any vibrations affecting it :tour:

That's why I wouldn't spend $300+ for one of the top-end units. All it takes is for one little thing to go wrong on them and then you are screwed. It's not like a laptop computer that you can get repaired and have a component replaced. One little bit inside goes to crap and you are dependent on Garmin to stand behind it if you are lucky -or SOL if you are not. If it is over a year old then you are pretty much better off just buying a new one.

With the cost of the map upgrades, batteries that are not easily user-replacable, and the fact that the technology marches on making a high-end unit that is 2+ years totally obsolete compared to even the bottom-end ones (except for fancy features like traffic updates and such) it's just not worth putting big money into planned obselence tech that can go "spung" at any time.

For me, buying a $100-ish disposable unit every couple of years is the way to go $50/year for GPS isn't a bad price to "rent" it. No map upgrade fees, no worry about batteries going to hell, no worries about something inside going "spung" before I got my $300-600 out of the thing...

It's just my own personal philosophy when dealing with a nickle & dime you to death company like Garmin.

[Guest]

I've been thinking of just going the cheap eBay route with the Kung Fu GPS units. For the money, they seem like a good deal.

Has anyone been using Navigon or TomTom on their iPhone?

[BonusVFR]

I think if all you want is to know where you are ...cheaper is better. However if you want the capability to execute long tours with PC routing and the ability to keep track of where you actually went more $$$ dollars are required. In my experience, I do not find that an expensive unit is totally obsolete in a little over two years...their features hold up well so far for me. But this is never ending dilemma in the tech age when obsolescence is often a way of life for just about all gadgets. And of course many are still doing just fine with a map on their tankbag. There is no right answer on the perfect GPS thing......it depends!!!!!! :tour:

On the low end I still think the Nuvi 500/550 has the best features for a MC..with a few significant issues. The Zumos have more features but are you willing to pay for them...I consider several to be more than nice to have. Regardless it is great to have choices no matter how you weight cost benefit analysis factors. Too many choices/TMI perhaps as there seems to be bewildering number of options and flavors out there.

Unfortunately you really do not know what you absolutely need or should I say prefer till you jump in the GPS pool. As your familiarity builds as with all electronic gizmos some will also experience the "What have you done for me lately" phenomenon....if the answer is not much you may be disappointed with a basic unit.

Frankly it is all good to me since I loathed getting up early to use a sextant.

[Ranger77]

Garmin pretty much has the best routing software in their gps units. Its not just the date of the maps that are on unit, the device needs to get you to your destination the best possible way and provide detail info.

Garmins tend to display a better route with route direction wording. I love Magellan's operating system and the higher resolution of their gps units but the Mastro I had sucked. Very laggy, fm trasnmitter didnt work well, constantly changing route, if I went off route cause I was going my own way it would take awhile for it to re-calculate itself. Maybe their newer line Roadmate's are better. I was going to get the Roadmate 1475T, but just settled on the Garmin for the features it had.

There's only two road map companies and that is Navteq and TeleAtles. Tele is up to par with Navteq now. I've never had a gps with Tele so I can't compare, just what I've read.

I'm not trying to "sell" my unit but here's an example.

http://gpsmagazine.com/2009/01/garmin_nuvi_885t_review.php?page=10

Another main thing is where you live. If you live in a HUGE city, then you there's is probably lots of road changes, companies moving or shutting down, etc etc. So your map may not even show a road or two or some POI's.

I still have my Lowrance 500c. Great gps unit. Never had a problem with it. I would keep using it cause of the 30gb HDD, but the map date is only XX/XX/09. Doesnt seem bad but its missing one of our updated highways (shows me riding on dirt) and a good amount of POI's. If it wasn't so big and needed a constant 12v, I'd take it with me when I go pick up my bike and compare it to the newer garmin. O well.

[jasonsmith]

Yesterday my Garmin Nuvi went totally haywire on me as I punched in "Home" and took me off on a wild goose chase. It was showing the map upside down in relation to what cities were located where. I finally recognized where I was at..which didn't correspond to the Garmin, and made my way back home on my own.

I'll never be able to trust it again. :tour:

OK....what brand do I try next?

Buy a new one. Yours is only good for parts now.

Rather than assume it's deader than dead, is it not possible to re-install the software and or hard boot the device to try and bring it back. If every electronic device I had went to the bin after a "glitch" global warming would be a lot worse right now.

[Hobie1dog]

Yesterday my Garmin Nuvi went totally haywire on me as I punched in "Home" and took me off on a wild goose chase. It was showing the map upside down in relation to what cities were located where. I finally recognized where I was at..which didn't correspond to the Garmin, and made my way back home on my own.

I'll never be able to trust it again. :pissed:

OK....what brand do I try next?

Buy a new one. Yours is only good for parts now.

Rather than assume it's deader than dead, is it not possible to re-install the software and or hard boot the device to try and bring it back. If every electronic device I had went to the bin after a "glitch" global warming would be a lot worse right now.

I guess that would be worth a shot. Any way to tell me how I do a hard boot?

I ain't the smartest dog in the litter. :unsure:

[jasonsmith]

The Zumos have more features but are you willing to pay for them...I consider several to be more than nice to have.

:unsure: wise words. Your paying for the convenience of features, not having to use a baggy and to not having the guts rattle them selves apart after the first little while. Unfortunately your not paying 3-4x the cost for 3-4x more software stability. Garmin is notorious for letting the consumers beta test their software, there will always be problems. When someone buys an electronic device now-a-days some flexibility and patience needs to be exercised. Some effort also needs to be put into troubleshooting and diagnosing "glitches" as I stated in my above post. Nothing is perfect in today's world I'm afraid.

[jasonsmith]

I guess that would be worth a shot. Any way to tell me how I do a hard boot?

That will be dependent on your specific device. There are a few things you can do. Pull your battery for a couple hrs to start. On my Zumo I can enter a diagnostic mode which will force a reboot upon exit. There is also an option to wipe out the user data and kinda start from fresh. Check your manual and or worst comes to worst call Garmin. Don't email them, call them. When you email you get the standard, "I would be happy to help you with that, please turn your device on" type of response.

[Ranger77]

Got to youtube and search garmin gps reset. On some, you can turn off the device, turn back on and tap one of the corners of the screen and it'll pop up a menu.

[Guest]

Hey Dutchy---

I tried all that too! I'm trying to get Garmin to warranty it before thats gone too.

Thanks for the thoughts though...

Gary

Hey all---I realize this an older post, but I have a similar situation. I own a Garmin Nuvi 260. I bought the PowerLet outlet and cables for my unit. (PPC-015 & PPC-024) As mentioned, specific for our units. I have the same problem that the Nuvi sees the PowerLet cables as "data" cables.

A call to PowerLet says they should work, but here's 4 work arounds that will otherwise. No they don't!

A call to Garmin says they don't recommend 3rd party cables for their stuff (of course). They suggested a "Master reset". It didn't work either.

Now, here's the kicker! Two of my co-workers have Garmins.(Nuvi 205 & Nuvi 260W). My Powerlet cables work on both of them. What the heck! Short of buying a new GPS, I don't know what to do. Any ideas from anyone??? Is there a fix for this short of modding the cables???

Thanks for any info.

Gary

MiniUSB Adapter for Garmin GPS PPC-024

Hmm, this one even says specifically "Required for use with Garmin GPS units. Special circuitry inside this adapter puts the GPS in charge mode."

I think I would be calling Powerlet on this one and ask them why it doesn't work correctly. My GF bought a Nuvi 750 and has just been using it on battery. At some point, I will probably have to wire it in and the Mini USB is soooo much easier then using the standard cradle and the plug that comes with it.

Hello Gary,

If I inderstand you correctly, once you plug the unit on the powerlet, you get the screen that shows the little image of the unit connected to a PC.

Did you then wait for say 1 miute for it to go away? If not try that.

Or, with the unit powered up and displaying the above, press the on/off button.

nothing ventured nothing gained :unsure: