Nuvi 680 sucks getting through Chicago

Sir,
Your Nuvi is just a child in the great big world. You must learn to master you GPS and not let you GPS frustrate you.
For those of you that do not like to chosen route may I suggest one thing.
If you are planning your trip and you have time look at your route and set points on the map as you scroll around, this way you can choose these waypoints as via points. You know the annoying "new destination", or "continue as a via point". Not sure if that is the exact names but that's about right.
Don't get frustrated with it, use the force.
And no matter what, never, ever, ever, ever bad mouth a Garmin Nuvi, thousands of nerds can now easily find you house, traffic jam or not!

I had a similar situation, but I was more fortunate than you, for mine didn't get ANY traffic info at all outside of my home area of North Carolina! (I say more fortunate because at least it didn't send me INTO bad traffic like yours did!) When I got back from the Midwest, I called MSN who claimed that sometimes the 680s need "multiple activations." So, they reactivated it and it did work going from NC to DC. In fact, it did a good job of routing me around some bad backups on I-95 near Manassas. From what I've read and experienced, the MSN gives more detail about traffic incidents, but the other service on the Nuvi 660 is available in far more locations. Not sure at this point if the 680 is that much better than the 660 when price is taken into consideration.

It isn't the 660 or the 680 that's at fault.

The real cause is MSN and TMC. The gpsR is only a receiver of information. When it sends you down a wrong street, it isn't the gpsR's fault, it's the map it's following. When your car doesn't start and you have a dead battery, it isn't the car's fault, it's the battery. Same thing with the traffic reporting, or the movie or the weather or the gas prices etc. It will only tell us the information that's transmitted to it.

The weak link is the MSN and TMC traffic service.

Agree but in the case of the car, one does not buy a battery, engine, seats, drive shaft, etc. etc. etc. One buys a car and expects it to work together. Similarly, while you are technically right about Garmin and MSN and TMC, the customer would expect that the pieces provided by the OEM should meet expectations.

Still, if you understand the limitations, you can adjust your expectations.

Cheers

So, let me try again...lol Your car comes with a radio. You have one radio station in your area, your radio picks the station up just fine. However the radio station broadcasts the news that is two hours old or continually repeats the old news or doesn't broadcast the news at all, for whatever reason.
It's not the radio's fault (comparable GTM traffic cable) and it's not the car's fault (GPSr) it's the radio station that broadcasts the info (TMC and MSN).
The GTM cable, that came with my c550 is also used for 12V pwr, which works fine, the traffic receiver part of the GTM works fine. I don't believe Garmin has anything to do with TMC or MSN broadcasts - MSN traffic states that it's updated every two minutes. That's good, however reposting a blank screen (no news), showing traffic that's been cleared (old news) every two minutes does no good if the info isn't current.

The info has to be passed on to TMC and MSN so that info can be passed on and received by our GPSr's.

The pieces provided by the OEM work just fine. The ancillary services provided TMC and MSN are not great.

So yes, if you understand the limitations, you can adjust your expectations.

Thanks for the improvement.

Cheers

Has anyone found the traffic feature to be dependable?

It by far is not always dependable.

It is useful provided you are in a coverage area, or drive frequently through a coverage area.

If you don't mind listening to a radio report that says there's an accident, then you get there and there's nothing, or vice versa, if you are a patient person and not too high strung or apt to fly off the handle into a fit of road rage, then you could probably cope with the traffic feature.

I am a subscriber and will probably renew when the time comes.

There are numerous threads on the traffic feature. Search for it if you like and read til your eyes cross.

Should Have Bought a Street Pilot 7500 LOL..........

Your traffic is you have to buy a monthly subscription and have an external antenna for it to work Check the Garmin site for That

I have been having problems with my MSN direct picking up signal. I will be in downtown Baltimore and D.C. and not get any signal. After many calls to both MSN and Garmin, Garmin is replacing my whole unit. Will see if it changes, if not, I know it is MSN that is the problem.

I have upgraded my Nuvi 660 to the 680 and I find that the traffic info is not all that accurate. I had to make several calls to get the free trial working and am just amazed at how many different answers I have gotten from different customer service agents to the same questions. What ever happened to customer service awareness? Seems like everyone has a different suggestion on how the systems works... Oh well, the unit gets me where I want to go, but the MSN is not all that and a bag of chips. Gas prices range from 4 days old to 1 day old, and thats really very little help now that prices can change hourly. Traffic info could be better too, but sometimes it does help save me time with a warning.