I have owned a via michelin sat nav for 4 years now,never really
botherd about its settings took it out of the box switched it on set the
time and away i went. I have checked for updates on web site now and then
and applied them if recommended.
I have just got it out to charge battery via computer for use this week
so i can program route before i put it in car and charge during journey.
I have had a browse through its settings and came across route parameters
one of them being, type of route with options of
RECOMMENDED
QUICKEST ROUTE
SHORTEST ROUTE
It is on recommended which i have always used cause thats how it
came out of the box and it has always got me to where i want to go
but what do the rest of you have yours set at and which
is the best?
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Have my TomTom 720 set to fastest, sometimes with the TMC traffic aerial changing the route.
I use shortest if I want a country trip to places I have never been before.
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I would leave it on recomended. Tried shortest on mine and it takes you down all sorts of narrow lanes, so although it may be a shorter route it takes twice as long.
Quickest can have the oposite effect where it always trys to use as much motorway because its faster - can add quite a few miles to the route
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Mrs M's Tom Tom One is the best I've used, including a new Garmin and the built in one in the Outlander.
Shortest and fastest exhibit the usual problems, of daft short cuts that save 50 yards or major detours to make use of a motorway. 'Limited Speed' I have found to be best, set to about 55mph. It is enough to deter it from going out of its way to a motorway, but does not let you in for the roads with grass up the middle or the hopeless 'shortest' routes that ignores bypasses and ring roads to go through congested town and city centres en route.
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At the end of the day there is no substitute for reviewing the route chosen by the Satnav and adjusting the route as necessary in the light of experience and common sense before setting off
Simple enough to do - just add some "via" points on a Garmin or the equivalent on other machines .
Last edited by: CGNorwich on Mon 23 May 11 at 21:02
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The viamichelin website also offers "economical" and "sightseeing". The former is more appropriate where there are toll roads as it will balance out tolls v. fuel costs
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An example of why one should be careful of choosing shortest route if you're not too familiar with an area cropped up when I was in Tuscany recently. I wanted to plan a route before getting in the car and the sat nav insisted no route found. Odd I thought. I wondered if it was confused with the road we were on - a bit of a track but it had gotten us there to begin with.
So I thought I'd try shortest instead of quickest and it plotted a route and the distance was about right. It avoided San Gimignano (the route I thought it would plot) but we set off... but it had warned about the road type and thought that was because of where we were starting. And then part way through it said to turn right down an unpaved road - no way was that the road I'd take. So I carried on.
I then twigged why it claimed originally there was no route. I'd told it to drive to the centre of Volterra and it couldn't get you to there without using an unpaved road (it would have been paved but not classed as a proper road).... and as soon as you told it shortest and to use such roads it really did plan the shortest route possible.... but it actually took longer!
I actually knew the route there I should have taken so I came back that way and didn't need sat nav :-)
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Sat Nav = waste of time
Buy a map, use your brain, and choose your own route !
J
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