NUVI 200 lowering speeds

cliffbrown · Lifetime Member Joined: Mar 06, 2008 Posts: 177

Hi all, I hope someone can help.

Is it possible to change the speed settings so that the maximum can be set to 60mph when towing, this would be helpfull to give a more accurate eta.

thanks in advance

Cliff

Darren · Posted: Fri May 08, 2009 4:58 pm Post subject:

Change what exactly? I'm afraid that much like road signage, Satnav's don't take account of the lower limits for caravans, HGV's, Coaches etc.
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Darren Griffin

cliffbrown · Lifetime Member Joined: Mar 06, 2008 Posts: 177

the internal settings must be set for 70 on motorways etc so it can calculate how long each journey will take. If I am driving to Devon which is perdominatly motorway, it must work out that I will be doing 70 to calculte the eta. But if I am towing I can only travel at 60 on a motorway and 50 on major roads, which means when I program the destination it will give me a wildly under time for the intire journey.

PaulB2005 · Posted: Fri May 08, 2009 5:48 pm Post subject:

You would have to speak to Garmin about this. Many Garmin units have a feature where you can change the vehicle type. However these seem to be more general and the differing speed limits for towing and lorries are often not included.

For example on the 765T you can choose Automobile, Bicycle, Pedestrian.

Running the same route up a long steep hill gives the following times
Automobile 2 min 42 seconds
Bicycle 5 min 40 seconds
Pedestrian 20 minutes 13 seconds

However the speeds used are

Automobile Approximate road limit
Bicycle 12 mph
Pedestrian 3 mph

The Pedestrian and bicycle speeds don't take into account the long uphill journey you have to make and so the timings for Pedestrian and Bicycle are probably wrong too. reversing the journey doesn't speed things up either esp for the bike when most bikes i see going downhill are doing well above 12 mph.

Unfortunately unless you are driving a car without towing you'll have to live with the fact that these units aren't that flexible until manufacturers start to cater for other types of road users. It's almost the same with lorries and width / height restrictions.

inspiredron · Posted: Wed May 13, 2009 12:37 am Post subject:

These units learn your speeds from experience. I use my 660 for car journeys and for motorhome. The motorhome cruises at about 55, the car at 65. When I change from one to the other it seems to take very little time to get its estimates right again.

philpugh · Posted: Wed May 13, 2009 9:50 am Post subject:

PaulB2005 · Posted: Wed May 13, 2009 9:58 am Post subject:

I was trying to point out that even when the unit is switched to bicycle mode there are other factors that can still throw out the estimate anyway. The estimated journey might be 5 minutes 40 seconds but in reality it might take 50% longer (or 20% shorter).

With hind sight, not very clear granted....

philpugh · Posted: Wed May 13, 2009 1:20 pm Post subject:

Sorry PaulB2005 - just couldn't resist it!

I agree ETAs are not very helpful for non-car users. If they would only use your average speed over the last few mins on a road this could be used to better estimate the time it may take. For longish trips in the UK I always reckoned on 50mph average speed. This included starting from home and pulling up at destination. I do less of these now but it still feels about right.
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Phil

xerxes991

Garmin state in their FAQs (accessible through MyGarmin.com) that these units do "learn" from your actual driving speeds, and modify the "planning speeds" accordingly. They don't say how that algorithm works. Does it remember actual speeds from previous journeys and use that data in planning your next trip, or does it only modify the settings once a journey has started? The latter probably makes more sense, since I might have been out for a spin in my Porsche yesterday, and then be taking my clapped out Escort with caravan tomorrow......
Some of that is testable of course. I've just got a Nuvi250, so will be playing around with that over the next few weeks. If I learn anything, I'll get back....
Rgds
Steve
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