Strange routing (Ft. Myers FL to Denver CO)

I've seen LOTS of praise for Garmin support.
I think it is time you test it !!

this is what i do , when it acts up and doesnt want to go the way i want it will recalculate.. just go the way you want!

Hmmm. I tried it on my Nuvi 260, and it used I-70.

I'm not familiar with the slider for preferences, but could "highways" mean "non-interstates" in Garminspeak? Try putting the slider in the middle.

I always keep my routing slider in the middle and I just drag the route where I want it to go. Sometimes the route slider produces unusual results.

If I remember correctly "Highways" in Garmin land are NOT Interstates

Here's what the Routing Preferences window looks like.

http://i32.tinypic.com/66l0e9.jpg

And here's what the driving speed screen looks like.

http://i31.tinypic.com/2wrp5qp.jpg

How who knows how MapSource uses all of this! : )

As I said, I typically drag the route where I want it to go anyway since that's a fairly simple process.

The OP has a 260 just like I do and we don't have routes and none of the sliders that MM mentioned.

this is from Mapsource. The version for the puter....not the gpsr.

Yeah, we're talking about routing in MapSource.

I'm assuming that the OP is creating a route in MapSource to preview it and is going to create Waypoints along the way to use in the nuvi.

... Even when I use waypoints in MapSource to try and force the route, it still leaves I-70 again as soon as it can. I've tried it with the preference slider in every position. I've tried pretty much every setting I can think of. The strange thing to me is that when I simulate it, the Nuvi does it the same as MapSource, and that seems to indicate some sort of glitch in the map itself that affects the routing algorithm.

I'm going to keep messing with it, but I don't have a lot of hope at this point. I've been trying to get it work right for a week now and I'm still no closer to success.

Try breaking the route up. I know that not what your ultimate intention is, but it might help.

When I plugged in Fort Myers to Denver, first of all the route didn't go anywhere near St. Louis. But when I attempted to drag it to I-70 west of St. Louis the recalculation hung.

But when I placed points east of St. Louis and west of Kansas City, it routed on I-70 without any problem.

Wow. Patience IS a virtue but there IS a limit.
You do have a working phone, don't you?
Is there some (good) reason you don't call Garmin ??

...a try and see what I can come up with. Thanks for the suggestions.

Just stubborn.... I like working things out myself. It was desperation that made me even decide to post this here...

ust jesting out the problem using MapSource and a Nuvi750.

I just tried using MapSource routing for FORT MYRES FL to DENVER and it did route me mostly on highways and not Interstates, But when I rubber-banded it to St Louis it then routed like RAPRIEBE wants I75 to I24 to I64 to I70.

I then built the route using my Nuvi750 with the only avoidance being U-Turns, and it did route me according to the way RAPRIEBE wants I75 to I24 to I64 to I70.

It seems maybe the routing algorithm is a little different

H Hannah
Nuvi750 and Ique3600

I also plugged in a route from Ft Myers to Denver in my 760. I do not have MapSource. I did not use any waypoints and only had U-turns, Toll Roads, Car Pool Lanes, and un-paved roads as avoidances. I first initiated a route with Fastest Time selected in the route preferences. The route distance was 2160miles and 31:54 for time. The route passed through Dallas and looked this:

http://i31.tinypic.com/x6ga3p.jpg

I then recalculated the route with the route preference set to Shortest Distance. The route distance was 1985 miles and 30:13 for time. This route did pass through St Louis and looked like this:

http://i29.tinypic.com/hsqpte.jpg

I repeated the test a couple of times because of the conflicting results just to make sure I wasn’t flipping my conditions around a bit.

Curious that the fastest time was the longest for time and distance and the Shortest was shortest for time and distance.

..is that the 260 will only take one via point, so I can't set up and view the entire route. I think I'll still be able to get around it by just setting up each day's travel through waypoints, but I find it a bit unsettling that the basic algorithm doesn't keep you on the freeway. It is clearly both the shortest and the fastest route, as shown by Google and MS Streets and Trips, yet something in the Garmin programming fails to see that here. It makes me wonder how many more such peculiarities I'm going to find when I don't have the luxury of being able to sit here in my study and replan it.

Anyway, I'm going to set up the 3 legs of the trip for each day and see how the route shakes out that way.

I think it's time you called Garmin and talked to one of the techs. They may beable to do a program correction on the 260, or send you new software.

The "problem" is that it's not really designed to stay on highways.

Whether it should be designed that way or not is a completely separate argument. : )

The algorithm is attempting to plot the "Fastest" route based upon the speeds set in the map data. As you are discovering, it's not necessarily designed to give you the "best" or even the most efficient route.

See the post by MM on moving your routes in mapsource,I tried it and it works out pretty good, there is 50 some miles difference between the two routes i got. Take a look at this and see if it will help you out or not

http://www.poi-factory.com/node/12221

I did that, and yes it works just fine, but it still doesn't help with the Nuvi 260 (no multi via point routing capability). I'll get it working ok... just need to do it in smaller increments.

You may already be doing this, but I just wanted to point out that a way to get around the lack of multi waypoint routing in a unit like that is to create a series of waypoints along your route. If you name them sequentially, you can then load them as Favorites or Custom POIs and then select them sequentially along your route.

I do that in MapSource now. I make a custom POI file and name them Way 1 - Hwy 287, Way 2 - I-80, etc. That way they are sequential, but they also have geographical meaning too. I hope to get the route finalized here in the next few days. I'm not too rushed as I don't need it until the 2nd of May.

I was in Little Rock, AR and was heading back home 30 miles north of Atlanta, GA and I generally run I-40 to Nashville then I-24 to Chattanooga then to I-75.
Well this time I decided to follow the GPS... I was home in 7.5 hours!! I took I-40 to Memphis and then on the south side of Memphis I ended up in eventually on US-72. It was a nice drive and about 2 hours shorter.

Well, I got the trip set up by routing each day's travel, and it turns out to be a non-issue. When I route from the start to the first night's hotel, then to the 2nd night's hotel, then to home, it works as it should. Seems to just be when I try to do the entire route at once that it gets indigestion. That's irrelevant anyway, since there is no way it could be driven it in one day.

I've got my waypoints loaded as POI's and ready for the trip, so thanks to everyone for all the ideas. Hope to meet one of you along the highways or byways someday.