2597 and Route Calculation

The thought that jumps to my mind is that you have an avoidance set for tolls.

Check to see if Traffic Trends is enabled. It will influence route selection if it is selected/checked.

Agreed. TrafficTrends, myTrends, ecoroute and Custom Avoidance may also affect results. See manual:

http://static.garmincdn.com/pumac/nuvi_24x7_25x7_OM_EN.pdf

I'll still suggest that a quick check for a toll avoidance is what I'd look to first given the problem with the OP's Turnpike selections.

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Welcome to the site.

Before getting too deeply into a problem posted by someone new to the site (in your case a "routing" problem), we usually recommend the following.

There is a "Learn" button in the upper right of this page next to "red light cameras" that takes you to a Getting Started page. It is worthwhile visiting this page.

To make navigation easy, most browsers provide the following option. When you want to follow a link - but still keep your current page open - you can hold down the "Ctrl" key as you left-click on a link. That action will open a new "Tab" in your browser up on the "Tab" bar. When you then left-click on that new "Tab", you will follow the link - leaving the "Tab" you are now reading open and available to click on and return here.

So, using the "Learn" link, you might try the "Ctrl" - left-click sequence and then return here. You can return by either "X-ing" out of the "Getting Started" page (using the "X" on the "Tab" itself) or just left-clicking on the "Tab" for the page you are on right now.

Since you are new here, I encourage you to go through a couple of the Tutorials.

The first link makes sure the settings on your computer are such that you can do more advanced POI loading.
http://www.poi-factory.com/node/30393

The next link helps you make a backup of your GPS by attaching it to your computer. (NEVER do anything to your GPS until you have a backup). It also assures that you put your (newer) unit into a state where you can see all of the folders there.
http://www.poi-factory.com/node/30394

It would be helpful if you could look at your 2597 and let us know the various setting in Settings > Navigation > Avoidances

Uturns, ferries, unpaved road.

Environmental I just turned to allow.

My trends I turned off.

Still I see it's not choosing the fastest route

OK, we're getting somewhere. It's not an Avoidance issue. But you say Environmental I just turned to allow.

By environmental, do you mean eco-route? There are several threads here discussing eco-route not offering the fastest route. A couple threads suggest that eco-route tries to avoid roadways with speed limits over 40-50 mph. Could this be your issue?

(Just one followup on your avoidances: have you, if needed, used the down arrow to get to page 2 of avoidances? Could tolls be on p2 and you didn't scroll down? Can you confirm that you see the Tolls Avoidance and that it is unchecked? If you've done this already, ignore this thought.)

Tolls is not checked. There was an option called environmental areas. For eco route, I cannot find this on the unit

I found eco route and this is not setup. I wish I could figure out the problem. From staten island to six flags great adventure, we should take the nj turnpike to exit.7a. The device never chooses this. Even with fastest time and all avoidances turned off it chose another route. The arrival time was 7:51. When I looked at all routes on the device, the nj turnpike was 7:39. I cannot figure out why this is not picked by default.

Well, I'm at a loss for your routing issues. There could be an issue with a map and future maps may resolve this--or it could be similar to Garmin's preference for sometimes avoiding wanting to suggest left turns.

On another topic, I tried searching for Environmental Areas associated with Garmin or nuvi. I did find very few mentions of the term, generally associated with the changelog of a nuvi's operating software. Eventually, I found that they are also called Environmental Zones. A search for EZ rather than EA came up with this potential answer. If this is what's being offered, it's not an issue for users in North America so far:

http://www.theaa.com/motoring_advice/fuels-and-environment/e...

will you do Settings > Device > History
and tell me if there is a check mark present?

Traffic – The Traffic avoidance will route you around traffic problems if a quicker route is available, provided you are using a traffic receiver with an active traffic subscription.

Disabling the traffic avoidance does not disable traffic alerts from appearing on the device; however, it will not take the reported traffic incident into account when calculating routes.

The trafficTrends feature improves recommended routes on Garmin devices by referencing trends in traffic flow. This helps to provide more accurate time of arrival expectations as well as alternative routes to the destination depending on the time of day and the day of the week. https://support.garmin.com/support/searchSupport/case.faces?...

There is no check mark present.

myTrends is not active, check also
Settings > Traffic > Traffic Trends for a check mark.

I am pursuing this line of investigation because you seem to imply that you can see a route using the turnpike but the unit will not choose it.

How exactly do you know that there is a route on the turnpike with a specific timing?

Traffic.trends is not checked.

I would go to recent -> select great adventures -> routes -> start new route. From here it lists.different possibilities including the one which takes the Nj Turnpike. This is the fastest which I expect

I just put the.check mark in traffic trends and it gave me the fastest (turnpike) route. I did not have it plugged in so there was no traffic report

If you use Traffic Trends you will also need to check history.

I also have a 2597 and it will route me down residential streets and service roads when the fastest route is the freeway. I have tried everything that has been suggested here and it still has weird routing.

At least another person sees the problem and I can finally say I am not going crazy.

At least another person sees the problem and I can finally say I am not going crazy.

I have the routing problem as well. I live about a mile off I-75 and when coming up from the south it always directs me to the exit 10 miles away. I was traveling to Layton, Utah and it took me off the Interstate (9 PM where there was very low traffic) onto a surface street for 15 miles, traffic lights every other block. When I got to the address, there was an exit off the Interstate right there!

Another time I was traveling in Missouri, it had me exit, go 2 blocks, then get back on the same Interstate.

Here's what I do now. If I know I'm not really close or I suspect it's in error, but it's telling me to exit, I pass it up. The GPS recalculates to the next exit. If it's not telling me to exit and make a u-turn, I keep going until I can zoom out and see my arrival flag, then I take that exit.

That's a pretty lousy way for a GPS to work but it beats 15 miles of traffic lights.
-Rich

Yesterday I was at the Jersey shore. Coming home there was a ton of traffic. Every time I hit detour or would miss the exit, the new route would be a u turn and making my way back. I had to zoom out and create my own route. Just silly the routes we are given with this unit

I have 3597 unit and this unit also does strange routing. Last firmware fixed routing issues somewhat but after the last map update I got them back again. Last night I re-installed firmware through Map updater because Garmin Express does not allow you to re-install firmware. Firmware re-installed again fixed the issues again. I have seen when I drive East bound on highway 407 (from Hamilton Ontario to Brampton), it will prompt me to exit to highway 403 and then it would take me to 401 and then to 410 and then back to 407. It does not make any sense of this de-tour route when I can drive straight on 407. I have no avoidances selected except for unpaved roads and car pool lanes.

Just for grins I mounted my older Garmin 255W and 2597 in my car and took some trips around the city. In every instance the older 255W took the better route. The best the 2597 could manage was to match the 255W about half the time. The 2597 would take one route to a destination and another one on the return trip. The 255W took the same route home.

I traveled to the west coast last summer and had 3 intermediate stops entered. Once I started the trip and got about halfway, I entered a new stop, the 2597 asked me to confirm the order of the stops, then it created a route taking me back home before going to the new destination and ultimately to the west coast.

It did this several times during my journey. The only way to fix it was to cancel the route, create a new one with the original final destination and the new intermediate stop. So far, this is the strangest thing I've seen it do and you have to go for a long distance before it does this. Shorter trips don't seem to have the same problem.

-Rich

I'm thinking you may have told the unit to navigate from the beginning of the route which would have taken you back to the starting point before going to the next stop. I've had a similar problem with my 885 in that it would sometimes scramble the route and put earlier stops as the next destination. The only "fix" was to edit the route and delete those earlier stops.

This always seemed to happen on very long routes as you point out rather than the shorter routes.

It has been found this cures a lot of strange issues and assorted "glitches", especially after a map or firmware update.

You are going crazy. You posted the same thing twice, twice.