Improving Navigation With a Nuvi 3597

A great experiment! Thanks for all the work.

Did you ever try creating these routes with a single 3597 more than once? If so, do you get identical routing for each route each time or does a single 3597 give alternative routes? If tried, are the results the same with the other four 3597s when trying to create a route multiple times?

Whenever I use my 3597 it always gives me a consistent route. I have tried it on several occasions to the same destination and it always follows the same route. (This is a route about 20 miles in length.) It has been quite consistent in that regards.

Although I appreciate that you and your brother probably have spent a fair amount of time to gather the various results you have posted here, which we thank you for, I think your results would have been more beneficial if you had addressed the following:

For any of your tests were there any significant variations in the time it took to get from your start point to your entered destination?

There maybe variations in how a device(s) calculate a given route, which may be a curiosity that some would like to know the answer to, but personally, I have never seen this behavior on my 3597 and unless it is costly me time I'm not sure it would be something I'd find a major annoyance.

That is interesting. Thank you for taking the time to post this.

I can say that mine creates the identical routes to go from my home in Virginia to a lat/lon on Merit island Florida every time i go to watch a launch. Further, it uses the same route anytime and any day. Regardless of the trends etc.

I thought it was just me but I have found the same problem and have to create way points to make sure I go the way I want to go.

With out way points I may not get the same route every time.

In many cases even on short routes it is not the way I would go but on the return it is the way I would go.

Thanks for the tips.

All five units were set for "faster time". We did note that there were only minor variations in "time to destination" in most cases. As you would expect, there were greater variations in "distance to destination" however.

I'll admit, all of the routes created by the 3597's would do the job and get you to your destination. Without comparing multiple units, the driver would have no idea of the possible variations except when repeating the same route.

This experiment was in no way intended as a criticism of the 3597. It was done only to satisfy my curiosity and possibly to discover a reason for the routing inconsistencies .

Question to bdhsfz6: during the experiment, were all routes point-to-point using identical coordinates from unit to unit for the begining and ending locations? As distinct from starting "here", for example.

All routes were created from the current GPS location to POIs that were part of a simple file created specifically for this test. POI coordinates were obtained via Google Earth to eliminate any addressing errors.

my biggest gripe about the 3597 and Garmin in general is the near psychotic routing issues. I will try all of these suggestions!

I have a 3597, but have not used it yet. It's also a refurb.

This is interesting, but not unusual. I have a 3590 and it often times sends me different routes when going from the same origin to the same destination.

Maybe it is looking at the traffic info? I don't know.....

Well that is one piece of your answer then. There is zero chance that the current location was exactly the same at the internal resolution used among the units you are comparing. It is not even the same from moment to moment on the self-same unit sitting still at one location, though Garmin artificially freezes the speed display to zero mph if the "detected movement" is below something like one mph.

If you actually want to compare consistency of routing among units for exactly the same route request, you need actually to make exactly the same route request. In order to do that you need to route between beginning and end specified by coordinates, not from "where I am now" to a coordinate specified location.