Thought I'd just tell you about "my repair" at TomTom.
My TomTom One XL worked perfectly ok but stopped recognising the RDS - TMC
unit when I plugged it in. I contacted TomTom through their website and
they gave me a returns number, a box and a prepaid bag in which to return
it, even though it was out of warranty. After three days they returned a
brand new One XL and RDS unit. Best of all, it had the whole of Western
Europe on it; the original had only UK and Eire. I am quite impressed!

Lawrence

On 07/11/2010 20:25, Lawrence wrote:
Thought I'd just tell you about "my repair" at TomTom.
My TomTom One XL worked perfectly ok but stopped recognising the RDS -
TMC unit when I plugged it in. I contacted TomTom through their website
and they gave me a returns number, a box and a prepaid bag in which to
return it, even though it was out of warranty. After three days they
returned a brand new One XL and RDS unit. Best of all, it had the whole
of Western Europe on it; the original had only UK and Eire. I am quite
impressed!

Lawrence

Similar experience my friend had, his tom tom was having problems
charging up, when I looked at it the socket was loose because it had
come away from the pcb, with a bit of surgery I could have fitted a new
socket so he contacted tom tom to ask about a spare socket, they offered
a repair so he sent it off a few days later, he got a new one sent back,
don't know what maps he got with it but its a very good service as it
was outside the warranty too.

"Lawrence" wrote in message
...
Thought I'd just tell you about "my repair" at TomTom.
My TomTom One XL worked perfectly ok but stopped recognising the RDS - TMC
unit when I plugged it in. I contacted TomTom through their website and
they gave me a returns number, a box and a prepaid bag in which to return
it, even though it was out of warranty. After three days they returned a
brand new One XL and RDS unit. Best of all, it had the whole of Western
Europe on it; the original had only UK and Eire. I am quite impressed!

Lawrence


Dutch company obviously values customer service .......

On Sun, 7 Nov 2010 22:43:43 -0000, "Rick Hughes"
wrote:


"Lawrence" wrote in message
...
Thought I'd just tell you about "my repair" at TomTom.
My TomTom One XL worked perfectly ok but stopped recognising the RDS - TMC
unit when I plugged it in. I contacted TomTom through their website and
they gave me a returns number, a box and a prepaid bag in which to return
it, even though it was out of warranty. After three days they returned a
brand new One XL and RDS unit. Best of all, it had the whole of Western
Europe on it; the original had only UK and Eire. I am quite impressed!

Lawrence


Dutch company obviously values customer service .......

Similarly I have a (rather dated now) (510, although it's labelled as
a 710) tomtom that failed a while outside "warranty". Power switchery,
I think.
My dealer sent it back to TT for an estimate for its repair. A few
days later it came back, fixed, at no charge.

I'm also impressed.

I wasn't aware that it's a Dutch company.

--
Frank Erskine

On 07/11/2010 20:25, Lawrence wrote:
Thought I'd just tell you about "my repair" at TomTom.

Ah, TomTom.

We've had one for sveral years, and it's always worked very well except
for one occasion. Guess which one that was?

Yes, it was the time we went on holiday to Italy (by plane), and had
organised a hire car midway through to transport us from Venice to the
centre of Rome. Having checked we had up-to-date maps on the satnav I
packed it without a second thought, only to find to my horror that for
some bizarre reason, it wouldn't take any power from the hire car and
didn't work at all.

Never did find out the reason - the TomTom was fine at home when we got
back - but boy did I enjoy that drive through the Rome rush hour. Not.

David

I've had "support" experience over the last few years with Magellan,
Garmin and recently TomTom.

Magellan took ages to tell me to get lost.

Garmin was helpful and competent.

With TomTom, daughter wanted an urgent Satnav for someone who was an
on-your-bike you quango-site government victim. It had to have Homer
Simpson as the voice.
Research showed this had to be a TomTom, so I got one (Halfords (spit)
with a bait and switch European maps offer, but that's another story),
got it home and rang support to find out how to purchase and do the
voice change without getting the unit registered to me rather than the
recipient.
The English-sounding rep hand held me through the whole process and
de-registered me at the end. Inevitably, something went wrong, probably
at my end, so he logged it as a fault and cancelled the charge for the
extra voice.
I have to say that I was really surprised and impressed.

SWMBO and I did one short trial run with Homer. Not sure about the long
term, but our little trip was really fun.
--
Bill

On 08/11/2010 07:15, Bill wrote:
I've had "support" experience over the last few years with Magellan,
Garmin and recently TomTom.

Magellan took ages to tell me to get lost.

Garmin was helpful and competent.

I have likewise had excellent help from Garmin for a hand held GPS. For
that reason (and the fact that the Garmin was the only equipment to take
grid references) I bought a Garmin sat-nav for my car. Unfortunately the
route finding abilities of the Garmin left much to be desired - the
basic problem being that it was wildly over optimistic (by a factor of
two or more) about what was possible on single track roads leading to
endless 'short cuts' that took considerably longer than sticking to
classified roads would have. The timing of the directions also left much
to be desired.

I eventually junked the Garmin and bought a TomTom which is much better
in almost every aspect. However it, like the Garmin before it, has
thousands of junctions coded with the wrong priority and also one or
very odd quirks such as advising keeping right to avoid driving into a
bog standard roadside lay-by on the A66. But what really gets my goat
about TomTom is the £26 or so that Halfords (and others) want for the
swan-neck mount for deep windscreens. OLh yes, and using lat/long for
out of the way places is a bit of a pain.

On Mon, 08 Nov 2010 00:13:41 +0000, Lobster wrote:

only to find to my horror that for some bizarre reason, it wouldn't take
any power from the hire car and didn't work at all.

Blown fuse in the hire cars ciggy socket. Don't TomToms have an
internal battery or was that flat/have very short run time.

--
Cheers
Dave.

In message , Roger Chapman
writes
On 08/11/2010 07:15, Bill wrote:
I've had "support" experience over the last few years with Magellan,
Garmin and recently TomTom.

Magellan took ages to tell me to get lost.

Garmin was helpful and competent.

I have likewise had excellent help from Garmin for a hand held GPS. For
that reason (and the fact that the Garmin was the only equipment to
take grid references) I bought a Garmin sat-nav for my car.
Unfortunately the route finding abilities of the Garmin left much to be
desired - the basic problem being that it was wildly over optimistic
(by a factor of two or more) about what was possible on single track
roads leading to endless 'short cuts' that took considerably longer
than sticking to classified roads would have. The timing of the
directions also left much to be desired.


We have a cheapy Myguide Satnav, it seems to also like doing this,
though I imagine they all do it to a certain extent, depending on the
weighting given. It also seems rather pessimistic on Motorways.

I don't know if fancier ones allow it, but some way of tweaking the the
way it chooses the roads would be useful. And a way to learn over time
how long you take over certain types of roads.

I eventually junked the Garmin and bought a TomTom which is much better
in almost every aspect. However it, like the Garmin before it, has
thousands of junctions coded with the wrong priority and also one or
very odd quirks such as advising keeping right to avoid driving into a
bog standard roadside lay-by on the A66.

Ditto, doesn't all the mapping for these things come from a couple of
companies (Navteq and someone else?), so I guess the same problems will
occur with multiple manufacturers.
--
Chris French

On 08/11/2010 12:55, chris French wrote:

snip

Garmin was helpful and competent.

I have likewise had excellent help from Garmin for a hand held GPS.
For that reason (and the fact that the Garmin was the only equipment
to take grid references) I bought a Garmin sat-nav for my car.
Unfortunately the route finding abilities of the Garmin left much to
be desired - the basic problem being that it was wildly over
optimistic (by a factor of two or more) about what was possible on
single track roads leading to endless 'short cuts' that took
considerably longer than sticking to classified roads would have. The
timing of the directions also left much to be desired.

We have a cheapy Myguide Satnav, it seems to also like doing this,
though I imagine they all do it to a certain extent, depending on the
weighting given. It also seems rather pessimistic on Motorways.

It is some time since I switched but my memory of the Garmins (the hand
held had a rudimentary road map and much the same routing software as
its car borne cousin) was that the average speeds on major roads were on
the high side but, unlike those for single track roads, achievable in
light traffic. I formed the distinct impression that Garmin didn't
really care whether the road was a single carriageway or a single track,
it still got an average speed circa 40 mph. TomTom by contrast claim
their average speeds are based on real drivers. I don't hang about and I
now find that I get a cushion in the ETA which covers all but the worst
of unexpected traffic jams.

I don't know if fancier ones allow it, but some way of tweaking the the
way it chooses the roads would be useful. And a way to learn over time
how long you take over certain types of roads.

Both the Garmin and the TomTom allow you to chose fastest or shortest
and I think to avoid Motorways but Garmin's shortcoming is the values it
gives to individual lengths of road. Fastest can't be worked out without
having both time and distance in the equation.

I eventually junked the Garmin and bought a TomTom which is much
better in almost every aspect. However it, like the Garmin before it,
has thousands of junctions coded with the wrong priority and also one
or very odd quirks such as advising keeping right to avoid driving
into a bog standard roadside lay-by on the A66.

Ditto, doesn't all the mapping for these things come from a couple of
companies (Navteq and someone else?), so I guess the same problems will
occur with multiple manufacturers.

Probably. It is a feature I find irritating rather than misleading under
most circumstances but again Garmin falls short of TomTom in not
displaying as many minor side roads along the way and sometimes even a
prolonged look at the display (not to be recommended while moving)
leaves the next turn uncertain.

In message , Roger Chapman
writes
On 08/11/2010 12:55, chris French wrote:

snip

Garmin was helpful and competent.

I have likewise had excellent help from Garmin for a hand held GPS.
For that reason (and the fact that the Garmin was the only equipment
to take grid references) I bought a Garmin sat-nav for my car.
Unfortunately the route finding abilities of the Garmin left much to
be desired - the basic problem being that it was wildly over
optimistic (by a factor of two or more) about what was possible on
single track roads leading to endless 'short cuts' that took
considerably longer than sticking to classified roads would have. The
timing of the directions also left much to be desired.


I don't know if fancier ones allow it, but some way of tweaking the the
way it chooses the roads would be useful. And a way to learn over time
how long you take over certain types of roads.

Both the Garmin and the TomTom allow you to chose fastest or shortest
and I think to avoid Motorways but Garmin's shortcoming is the values
it gives to individual lengths of road. Fastest can't be worked out
without having both time and distance in the equation.

Oh sure, ours does that sort of thing. I was thinking of some way to
tell it to give greater weight to choosing a route that say uses more
major roads over side roads.

I suppose what I mean is some sort of 'sensible route' function. Like
the way as a human you might look at a shorter, but wiggly route and say
nah, it's easier and hardly any longer to go on some more major roads.

Ours seems to choose a wiggly route even if it might theoretically save
you just 30 seconds or something I reckon.


I eventually junked the Garmin and bought a TomTom which is much
better in almost every aspect. However it, like the Garmin before it,
has thousands of junctions coded with the wrong priority and also one
or very odd quirks such as advising keeping right to avoid driving
into a bog standard roadside lay-by on the A66.

Ditto, doesn't all the mapping for these things come from a couple of
companies (Navteq and someone else?), so I guess the same problems will
occur with multiple manufacturers.

Probably. It is a feature I find irritating rather than misleading
under most circumstances

Indeed, mostly irritating, occasionally confusing,.


but again Garmin falls short of TomTom in not displaying as many minor
side roads along the way and sometimes even a prolonged look at the
display (not to be recommended while moving) leaves the next turn
uncertain.

Yup, that could be annoying, Ours seem to show pretty much every road,
no matter how small.
--
Chris French

On Mon, 08 Nov 2010 00:13:41 +0000, Lobster
wrote:

On 07/11/2010 20:25, Lawrence wrote:
Thought I'd just tell you about "my repair" at TomTom.

Ah, TomTom.

We've had one for sveral years, and it's always worked very well except
for one occasion. Guess which one that was?

Yes, it was the time we went on holiday to Italy (by plane), and had
organised a hire car midway through to transport us from Venice to the
centre of Rome. Having checked we had up-to-date maps on the satnav I
packed it without a second thought, only to find to my horror that for
some bizarre reason, it wouldn't take any power from the hire car and
didn't work at all.

Never did find out the reason - the TomTom was fine at home when we got
back - but boy did I enjoy that drive through the Rome rush hour. Not.

If there is no intention of stopping on the way, then Venice to Rome
is a much easier, quicker and less stressful journey, especially at
the Rome end, by train rather than driving. Around 3.5 - 4 hours door
to door, I've not driven it in less than about 6 hours.

I don't have any need to use one in the UK, but sat navs have
transformed my driving abroad, there was an ongoing police operation
(with road blocks) in Italy about five years ago which we got caught
up in. We had no real idea of precisely where we were as it was the
usual case of some sense of direction, following the road signs out of
the city with the aid of the satnav along for the ride (no detailed
city maps were to hand)

Simply ignoring the original planned route, and choosing an avoiding
route of roughly similar direction by a finger in the air with the aid
of the sun got a new route recalculated by the Tom Tom in seconds, we
repeated the exercise then when we ran into yet another road block,
the Tom Tom recognised that a certain area of the city was now not to
be used and we quickly had a route via a heap of backroads out of the
city.

There were no diversion signs and even with a detailed street map it
could have taken us a long time to navigate round the obstructions.

That the Tom Tom works in narrow streets with tall buildings either
side is staggering. The relatively new at that time Garmin handheld
GPS I use as backup when sailing is truly hopeless on land, either in
streets or under tree cover.



--

In message , The Other Mike
writes


That the Tom Tom works in narrow streets with tall buildings either
side is staggering. The relatively new at that time Garmin handheld
GPS I use as backup when sailing is truly hopeless on land, either in
streets or under tree cover.



Our cheapy car satnav seems to work ok in narrow streets as well.
Leastways i've never noticed it not working.

The handheld Garmin GPS's can vary. Those with the high sensitivity
aerial/receiver (what ever it is exactly) seem to work well. Don't use
it in cities much, but my Vista HCx works well under tree cover.


--
Chris French

On 08/11/2010 10:26, Dave Liquorice wrote:
On Mon, 08 Nov 2010 00:13:41 +0000, Lobster wrote:

only to find to my horror that for some bizarre reason, it wouldn't take
any power from the hire car and didn't work at all.

Blown fuse in the hire cars ciggy socket. Don't TomToms have an
internal battery or was that flat/have very short run time.

Nah, the lighter itself worked. Yes, the TomTom has an internal battery
but must have been flat (this was a few years ago now). Not unusual as
(a) we don't use it all that often and (b) SWMBO will persist on using
it just off it's internal battery without charging it, as it's a fiddle
to plug in the cable sigh.

David

On 08/11/2010 22:37, chris French wrote:

The handheld Garmin GPS's can vary. Those with the high sensitivity
aerial/receiver (what ever it is exactly) seem to work well. Don't use
it in cities much, but my Vista HCx works well under tree cover.

Yes indeed. I and a friend were looking for a summit in woodland a few
years back and my older Vista soon lost lock while his later version had
no problems.

Lawrence wrote:

After three days they returned a
brand new One XL and RDS unit.

I suspect that you will find that it's refurbished, not "brand new"[1].
That's how most suppliers operate. It is also possible that had there
been zero refurb stock that they shipped a new unit to save time.


[1] The standard of refurb nowadays is exceptional. I've had refurbished
computers and phones that were indistinguishable from new other than a
"refurb" sticker in the battery bay.

Lobster wrote:

Yes, it was the time we went on holiday to Italy (by plane), and had
organised a hire car midway through to transport us from Venice to the
centre of Rome. Having checked we had up-to-date maps on the satnav I
packed it without a second thought, only to find to my horror that for
some bizarre reason, it wouldn't take any power from the hire car and
didn't work at all.

Never did find out the reason - the TomTom was fine at home when we got
back - but boy did I enjoy that drive through the Rome rush hour. Not.

I have both TomTom on a smartphone and a Garmin satnav. In the UK it's a
50:50 thing. I can't find anything to recommend one over the other. In
Italy it's a clear win for the Garmin, not least because the TomTom
interface is bloody fiddly to use compared to the Garmin and because for
some reason TomTom maps seem to be permanently wrong compared to the
Garmin. I can route using the Garmin to the multitide of small farms,
restaurants, hotels and B&Bs located on "Strade Bianche" in Italy.
TomTom sort of gets one vaguely into the area then gives up. The
postcode database in Italy and the UK also seems suspect. The garmin
will, using postcode alone, get me to within around 100 metres or so of
the destination. TomTom does some bizarre things including taking me to
the industrial estate next door to the one where my customer is located
(i.e. completely the wrong postcode).

On Tue, 09 Nov 2010 10:39:03 +0000, Roger Chapman wrote:

Yes indeed. I and a friend were looking for a summit in woodland a few
years back and my older Vista soon lost lock while his later version had
no problems.

There are various chipsets for GPS reception they vary both in the
number of satellites they can track and the sensitivity of the
receiver section. Modern chipsets knock the spots of early designs
that really did need clear line of sight to the satellites.

--
Cheers
Dave.

On 08/11/10 12:55, chris French wrote:


Ditto, doesn't all the mapping for these things come from a couple of
companies (Navteq and someone else?), so I guess the same problems will
occur with multiple manufacturers.

Teleatlas, are owned by TomTom now, Navteq by Nokia.

I have a Marks and Spencer own brand with Navteq maps, having used if for a
year I can see why they were selling them off in a sale for under £50.
Never chose 'slow car', 'omit motorway' routes, especially in Italy: slow
country road over hills fine, white road OK, cart track? and eventually a
field with some vague trace through the grass, and 100 yards along the bed
of a not quite dry stream to regain the road..
It's just as bad on UK roads; tends to direct 'keep left' onto slip road,
roundabout, and back onto road, when its own map shows a perfectly good
underpass or flyover.


--
djc

On Tue, 9 Nov 2010 12:09:07 +0000, Steve Firth wrote:

[1] The standard of refurb nowadays is exceptional. I've had refurbished
computers and phones that were indistinguishable from new other than a
"refurb" sticker in the battery bay.

Normally they strip the guts out of the returns, test and repair as
required, bung into new casings and repackage in new box with new
manuals etc. The cost is in the guts not plastic moulded casing or
packaging.

--
Cheers
Dave.

On 09/11/2010 12:09, Steve Firth wrote:

I have both TomTom on a smartphone and a Garmin satnav. In the UK it's a
50:50 thing. I can't find anything to recommend one over the other. In
Italy it's a clear win for the Garmin, not least because the TomTom
interface is bloody fiddly to use compared to the Garmin and because for
some reason TomTom maps seem to be permanently wrong compared to the
Garmin. I can route using the Garmin to the multitide of small farms,
restaurants, hotels and B&Bs located on "Strade Bianche" in Italy.
TomTom sort of gets one vaguely into the area then gives up. The
postcode database in Italy and the UK also seems suspect. The garmin
will, using postcode alone, get me to within around 100 metres or so of
the destination. TomTom does some bizarre things including taking me to
the industrial estate next door to the one where my customer is located
(i.e. completely the wrong postcode).

We had an interesting experience in Spain this year with a borrowed
Garmin Nuvi. The pronunciation was ... interesting. To the extent that
when it said a road my wife and I both looked at the screen to try and
work out what it meant. And it reckoned that all the numbered roads in
Asturias were in American Samoa, while all those in Castilla e Leon were
in California. AS-nnn abd CA-nnn - must be states?

On the other hand, the actual navigation was pretty darn good.

Andy

Andy Champ wrote:

We had an interesting experience in Spain this year with a borrowed
Garmin Nuvi. The pronunciation was ... interesting. To the extent that
when it said a road my wife and I both looked at the screen to try and
work out what it meant.

I have the same effect with the TomTom in Italy. Every place name is
pronounced using English phonetics.