Garmin Problems in Dallas Area

Wow, I really don't have any answer for you but you may be happy to have my company when you learn my experiences in your great city. I live in the Southwest and my father lives in a Retirement community in Florida. My Garmins always want to route me through DFW since it supposedly is the fastest way between my home and Greater Tampa/StPete. Even without the DFW construction issues, the main highways with their too-close-together interchanges and their traffic gridlock scared me the first couple of times I followed nuvi's route through your city.

After many round trips by car, I finally decided to the best way to avoid DFW was to add a "via" waypoint to my route, the via being Sherman TX. I finally came to this conclusion on my last return from FL--but now my father's moving to a retirement home in Greater Denver so this knowledge comes a bit late for me.

Good luck on your DFW issues. I never experienced the issues you're having since I was always routed along major highways or Interstates. And without a doubt, my fix of "via Sherman" isn't going to be of use to you

Once coming down a street with 2 lanes on each side of the median, I was approaching an intersection with a left turn lane and my destination was on that street to the left. Jack sure wanted me to turn right and then make a U-turn! The next time, he was happy to allow me to turn left. If you have recently updated your maps, try a hard reset. It may not fix this, but I've seen it fix a lot of odd things that sometimes crop up after an update. If you have any Favorites stored, be sure to back them up before the reset or they will likely disappear.

I had an exterminator come by today to take care of some bugs in the attic. Guy calls me from the road and asks for directions.

I asked him if he had a GPS, and he said yes, but his GPS has him going in circles and is constantly calculating a new route. Guess what? It's a Garmin!

I'm new to Dallas and already had my Garmin stretch a 20-minute trip into 35 minutes by taking side roads instead of the interstates. I think I need a Magellan or TomTom.

I wouldn't recommend a Magellan.

Bill - Welcome to Dallas! I live in West Plano.

I do not experience any of the problems you have encountered and dealing with. Sure, from time-to-time my Garmin GPS may tell me to go further up the road a bit and make a U-turn (and then turn right) when I could just turn left without passing the street I want to turn left onto. But I have had that happen in various part of the country. Of course with the sizable amount of road construction we have here (with the Metroplex covering almost 10,000 square miles) the latest maps from Garmin are usually behind with some new streets and roads...as well as some of the newer ramp entries and exits to major roads, highways, Interstates, parkways, freeways and turnpikes. Again, I do not experience any of the problems with my Garmin GPS that you have encountered.

Just a long shot, have you unchecked "avoid U-turn" in the avoidance tab and see what differences it has on the routing?

I live in Lewisville and have had problems but nothing like you have. My biggest problems are all of the construction and the maps not being able to keep up. It will tell you to exit right but that exit is now on the left, etc.

Hi, Koot, can you tell me which model Garmin you are using? Your profile says you have a StreetPilot i5 and a Nüvi 255, is it the Nüvi 255 or Nüvi 255W?

I haven't had any problems north of Dallas, the issues I am having are localized in Arlington and south of Arlington towards Mansfield. No problems inside the cities of of Fort Worth or Dallas.

Arlington isn't that bad if I first get onto a freeway while ignoring my c580's pleas to take sideroads.

But a Garmin in Mansfield is an absolute mess. For example, despite the fact that I have No Dirt Roads checked it keeps trying to take me onto dirt roads.

Bill - Do you even have any dirt roads down there in Mansfield? I don't think we have any dirt roads in Plano...at least not in West Plano. I don't even recall if my GPS has 'dirt roads' listed on the avoidance list where I can select to avoid them...

I have the Nüvi 255 (not the 'W' or wide model) I use in one of my vehicles, which has served me very well since new. (The other vehicles have [onboard] integrated navigation systems, which I don't particularly like for many reasons.) When I bought the 255 some years ago I definitely did not want a large screen (and still don't), and even though some of the newer model GPSs may have more features - I'm not interested...plus I have 'lifetime map updates' with the 255. (I have the older StreetPilot i5 in the trunk as an emergency spare just in case I ever need it.)

I travel in and around Arlington a fair amount to play golf, but not so much down in Mansfield. I've never had any such problem with my GPS as you have described. I find your problem to be really strange. I'd be trying to find someone locally, in your immediate [problem] area, with a Garmin GPS to see if they are experiencing the same problems you experience. I cannot imagine the problem you have would be model-specific, but instead I think it is more likely local-specific due to a problem with the map. If you could borrow another GPS and compare - that would be ideal. If it is a problem with the map itself, maybe they are aware of it now and the fix has already been made and will be corrected with the next map update....however, that may be wishful thinking.

I had emailed Garmin at the time of my original posting about the problem.

This week I received an email back from "Garmin Cartography Administration" telling me they are aware of the problem.

It be fixed in the next Garmin map revision 2014.40, which they estimate will be released in February.

A while back I was commenting on very similar problems that I had while vacationing in this area. I have a 2460LMT and had just upgraded my maps and did the recommended software updates. It was absolutely the worst trip that I have had to the DFW area, as far as the Garmin routing is concerned. When I commented on it on the forum I got all kind of comments like it must be the routing that I used, etc. I am glad to see that there are a lot of others that are having the same type of issues, from a reporting standpoint, not that I am glad you are having issues. Just as a point of interest, I have since downloaded the US OSM map, and the routing problems seem to disappear. There definately seems to be an issue with the maps that Garmin is providing. If I lived in the DFW area, I would forget about the Garmin supplied map, and just use the OSM map.

Did the 2014.30 maps fix any of these errors?

It could be map issues. I just had some issues with maps in Dallas area this week downtown. Most of it was construction though. Sometimes I have some strange occurances of taking an exit and getting right back on the Interstate.

I've had many issues with construction combined with maps that are not entirely accurate...

I find the use of via waypoints to be useful as well in such situations.

Good - looking forward to having this fixed, hope the February maps have this sorted out properly.

There are many road constructions in DFW. Thus there are my detours. The map might not have the updated information.

Garmin told me the errors will be fixed in 2014.40, which they estimate will be released near the end of February.

Part of the issue is with FINISHED construction, where a road or exit no longer exists but the signs for the old road or exit were not taken down yet. I see that a lot.

The 2014.30 map fixed all the specific route corrects I had reported to Garmin. Woo hoo!

Earlier you said that the errors would be corrected in 2014.40 and they weren't corrected as of 2014.30?

My SPECIFIC route corrections (ex: "Exit 432 on I-20W is now gone, please remove") were all incorporated into 2014.30.

My GENERAL corrections (ex: "please redo all the routes and exits around the I-20 I-820 Fort Worth loop, they have changed since construction") I was told will be fixed in 2014.40.

BTW, I just installed 2014.30 a little over a week ago.

And now 2014.40 is out so you can see if the changes to exits are there as well.

I hope the changes indeed happen in 2014.40!

I recently spent several days driving in central and south Texas. I had my Garmin 50LM really confused several times. What I think happens is my Garmin thinks I am on the freeway when I am really on the frontage or feeder lanes along side the freeway. This problem happened many times during my visit. So often that I chose to turn down the volume and rely on street signs and the occasional glimpse of the purple route for general direction only.

Michael

You have experienced the advantages of Garmin's road lock. Where actual position is not displayed but is displayed on a line on Garmin's map.