Garmin Route Selection

First, I would gently ask the neighbor to detox, I wouldn't buy into the conspiracy theory

Second, try the route both ways and compare which is actually faster. My unit takes my average speed for the different categories of roads, and uses that to determine which route is the fastest.

I've noticed on Navteq's site that there are different "types" of roads (FC1-FC5) Main Road, First Class - Fourth Class. I would guess that if both roads have the same classification, then it would make sense to pick the shorter of the two, even though logically it doesn't make sense to do so.

I now have officially heard everything.

Unless you are constantly going past Best Western, Olive Garden and Red Lobster, I think your neighbor is incorrect on this one.

I do not believe that and can tell you it is definitely not true on the 7xx series.

Will you ask your neighbor to file a complaint against Garmin?
I believe they will love to hear who she is.

This happened to me once in NC. I later discovered that I had avoidences turned on to bypass traffic.

Many models come with Eco-Route and enabling this has been known to cause some very strange routings as it tries to find the most economical route based on average speed and not necessarily distance or faster.

I am reading a very interesting book called Among the Truthers. The book provides a fascinating assessment of the psychology of conspiracies and the mindset of people who participate in them.

In some respects, conspiracies are just a variation of an "urban legend" - a situation that has a grain of truth, and some apparent link to reality. But, as you dig deeper, such formalized, secret and highly complex activities are completely impossible.

I am not sure how much money Garmin gets from individual Best Buy stores or Howard Johnson hotels, but I doubt it would cover the expense of developing and implementing an algorithm to "force" people along routes with local advertisers. Especially considering how out of date people feel Garmin's internal POIs are

I'd love to hear the conversation between the neighbor and Garmin's support

I didn't think about Eco-Route, my unit does not have this new fangled calculation ability. Driving at a slower speed (i.e. 45MPH) would be more fuel efficient than say 65 or so on the highway. Would Eco-Route be turned on by default, or is that something the user would have to turn on?

i would like to see a better list of choices in my Nuvis in the preferences selection for routes such as "most use of interstates". I question the current system because sometimes it picks some weird routes when I know they are incorrect. For example, I usually use shortest time. In going from my home town I have actually seen the route "loop" itself. I have also seen my iphone do similar poor routing as well.

1] Shortest Distance
2] Fastest Time
3] Less Fuel
4] Off Road
5] Follow My Damned Route

I'm all for route #5.

Can't add much to that one!

It is the selections under Tools>Navigation>Avoidances>Enabled. The one you may have ticmarked is Highways. I also don't think the Garmin is taking you by their advertisers.

one more..
no traffic trap

There's no doubt that Garmin has preferred roads. No matter which option you select it tries to take you through those roads. I usually select fastest time. I've noticed many occasions that arrival time gets shorter when you avoid Garmin's preferred route.

Even the cheapest GPS units nowadays can select which roads you want to take and which ones to avoid. I believe some 8xx series Garmin units had that feature, but not others.