GPS I just bought a new Rand McNally TND 740 (ongoing review thread)

This right here is why I wanted to throw the RM out the window. The way Garmin looks up addresses is far superior, as a minor mis-format in the address doesn't require using GPS coordinates.

Mind you, as I've mentioned before, they are little more than toys and upcoming corner finders to me, so the routing is something I do on my own anyways. I never have the voice on for that reason, they're always SO disapproving of my choice of routing! Athough as @Mike noted, the RM hangs on to it's initial route entirely too long before adjusting to your new route.

Switching to the Garmin has been a very positive change. The routes are basically always correct. If not, and I choose a different direction, it quickly recalculates to the route I have chosen, rather than trying to force me back to it's chosen route for the next 100 miles.

And yes, it is just a tool/toy, but a useful one.
 
This right here is why I wanted to throw the RM out the window. The way Garmin looks up addresses is far superior, as a minor mis-format in the address doesn't require using GPS coordinates.

Mind you, as I've mentioned before, they are little more than toys and upcoming corner finders to me, so the routing is something I do on my own anyways. I never have the voice on for that reason, they're always SO disapproving of my choice of routing! Athough as @Mike noted, the RM hangs on to it's initial route entirely too long before adjusting to your new route.

I feel your pain...and it'll keep telling you to make a u-turn for 20 friggin miles instead of just recalculating. Just an expensive piece of doodoo...:poop::bootyshake:
 
I feel your pain...and it'll keep telling you to make a u-turn for 20 friggin miles instead of just recalculating. Just an expensive piece of doodoo...:poop::bootyshake:
I can say the same thing about Garmin products. I have one of each - side by side. You want to know why some newb drives a loaded 18-wheeler across a 16-ton load limited antique bridge? Followed Garmin instructions most likely.

PA-93 between Jim Thorpe PA and Beaver Meadow PA has a weight restricted bridge. Today, the Garmin got it wrong, and would have sent me down US209. RM got it right. Limited to 34k, except combinations at 40k.

Neither of these things are perfect... it's just a choice of what you want to deal with.
 
I've found it best to use Google maps to find where you actually want to enter a site with the truck. Often, that location can be up to a mile or more away from the address that's on the bills or the rate con that you've been given.

Always! Long before truck GPS' were a common thing, I'd always scope out dealers for trees and such on the approach routes.
That's not a minor formatting error. It's a disconnect between the business address quoted by the front office that corresponds to a post office zip code that may be miles away from the physical jurisdiction the business resides in. As

I speaking more the address on the BOL not exactly matching the database. Those are easy to deal with on Garmin, entering the number first, and it pops up the possible streets. Good luck with that on a RM.
 
I had a Rand McNally and it was great for the most part. Keep in mind it was a long time ago and one of the older ones and then one day it just crapped out on me.
I didn't really have the money to buy a new so I started using the one that comes with Paccar trucks. I am more than sure it is a Garmin platform because it is almost identical to the Garmin I have for my car.
The built in Paccar GPS served me well.
 
The built in Paccar GPS served me well.
Cool beans.

The one I have? I wouldn't trust it to point out the way to the men's john. It has great features... love the lane programming display.

I speaking more the address on the BOL not exactly matching the database. Those are easy to deal with on Garmin, entering the number first, and it pops up the possible streets. Good luck with that on a RM.

I'm going to check out the satellite view in Google Maps as part of prep for anywhere I'm unfamiliar with in any case. If RM is a little hazy on location, I can just work backwards from Google Maps.

These things are just tools to get a task done. The last thing I'm going to do is blunder into an unfamiliar location relying on one of these techno-whiz-bang-wonders to do my trip planning for me without checking every step it thinks I'm going to take. Got no desire to allow the likes if @Duck the opportunity to plaster my truck all over the screw-up page from one of those, "Well the GPS told me to do it" deals!

:rolleyes-80:

None of them really work the way I'd like them to, so I make them conform to my expectations. Just don't trust the Garmin to find its way out of as little as a paper bag after seeing the monumental screw-ups it's capable of producing.
 
Well, my review of the Rand Mcnally TND 740 began yesterday evening, and ended this afternoon.

Stopped in at Dow Chemical in Freeport this morning to make my delivery. Go inside to watch the safety video because my card expired a few years ago. Come back about an hour later, and the unit is no longer on the map screen (just like the previous night). This time, it is on some dark screen that has options for updates, GPS repair, and something else. I click the x to get out of that screen, and nothing. Click it again, and the whole screen flickers, third time, it actually left that screen.

Get unloaded, go to leave and set my destination for Fort Smith, AR. It decides to save me a few miles and route me straight through the woods, through an area that flat out sucks to drive through. I figured this would be a good opportunity to see how it recalculates a new route when I ignore this one's desire to send me over to 59. I reach Houston and turn up 45. GPS is freaking out, tries to put me on 10 to get me over to 59. I ignore it, and continue up 45. it then tries to get me onto 610 to take me over to 59. Ignore it and continue on, it tries to put me on the beltway to get me over there. Still ignore it, and it tries to start u-turning me at exits.

Continue on further, and it has me exiting about 20 miles up the road to cut across over to 59. Ignore that, and a few other options, and by the time I am in Huntsville, it tries to send me across highway 19. I'm laughing at this point as I take Exit 118 and swing into the Peelot. From the Peelot, it wants be to go back down to highway 19 to get back over to 59, lol. Take GPS from window, put it back in the box, grab receipt, and into the store I go.

Hand the box and receipt to the clerk, and exchange it for the Garmin DEZL 580. Thought about the 770, but after putting the RM 7 inch screen up in my windshield, decided to just stick with a 5 inch screen.

Unbox, plug it in, and low and behold, it picks the correct route. I get to the Dallas area, and low and behold, it doesn't have the speed limits all screwed up.

Call me crazy, but I bet if I get on the Dallas North Tollway now, this GPS won't try to drag me into residential areas because it thinks there is a low bridge on the tollway.

One last thing, the Garmin with the little 5 inch screen is easier to view than that 7 inch RM was.

Looking to buy an antique map made of paper? Rand McNally is the place to go. Looking to buy an actual quality GPS? Go with Garmin, the people who know how to actually build a quality GPS.

I hope your garmin is still working as advertised. I hate mine. It consistently tries routing me wrong, away from known truck routes to non-truck routes etc... Garmin sent me a link to send them updated route info so they can "fix" the issues, like I can write down what routing it gets wrong while I'm driving! Seems like both rand and garmin have turned to junk with their latest creations. I loved the old 730 my wife and I used when we expedited cross country, it was rarely wrong and never froze up. I had to stop using that one after a few years it finally started freezing up on me at the most inopportune times, like just before entering an unfamiliar city ;) So after reviewing the new rands, I chose the new garmin as there weren't that many negative reviews on that... SMH
 
Latest Garmin vs RM...

RM is an old 510 that works fine, and a new 5" Diezel. Getting out of Patterson NJ this morning, the Rand has a longer more turns route back to I80, Garmin is shorter more direct. Both lead me south on Railroad Ave to 21st St, Rand turns to the right, Garmin turns left underneath a railroad overpass.

Well OK, looks doable, but there's no clearance sign, so I turn left since everyone thinks they're the Boss. About that time, Mr Rand starts coughing up clearance warnings... not absolute, but may be a bad idea. Trailer barely fits...

Really closer than I'd like to deal with...

So along with all the Garmin bogus warnings... no trucks allowed warnings getting out of north Boston for example yesterday - no prohibition signs, and a half dozen other trucks were heading that way to get to I95 - now the damned thing is working at topping a trailer.

No thanks. It's a POS.
 
Latest Garmin vs RM...

RM is an old 510 that works fine, and a new 5" Diezel. Getting out of Patterson NJ this morning, the Rand has a longer more turns route back to I80, Garmin is shorter more direct. Both lead me south on Railroad Ave to 21st St, Rand turns to the right, Garmin turns left underneath a railroad overpass.

Well OK, looks doable, but there's no clearance sign, so I turn left since everyone thinks they're the Boss. About that time, Mr Rand starts coughing up clearance warnings... not absolute, but may be a bad idea. Trailer barely fits...

Really closer than I'd like to deal with...

So along with all the Garmin bogus warnings... no trucks allowed warnings getting out of north Boston for example yesterday - no prohibition signs, and a half dozen other trucks were heading that way to get to I95 - now the damned thing is working at topping a trailer.

No thanks. It's a POS.

So, what you'r saying is the trailer fit when you went the Garmin route?

Rand Mcnally won't let me on the Dallas North Tollway due to a low clearance on a bridge that does not exist.

So, yeah......
 
So, what you'r saying is the trailer fit when you went the Garmin route?

Rand Mcnally won't let me on the Dallas North Tollway due to a low clearance on a bridge that does not exist.

So, yeah......
 
Traffic was non existent on I39 yesterday morning, so here's a few pics of the 740s display. I had both WiFi traffic warnings and the weather overlay enabled; the weather was showing radar precipitation.

This one was just after going south of I80, you can see some showers being displayed...

IMG_20181006_082412415.jpg

Roads shaded in green show no traffic issues, blue aren't reporting. I39 below the red arrowhead is the calculated route. It's a little lighter because I'm using yellow for the travelled route.
 
This one is a little closer to Bloomington IL, where you hit the I39/I55/I74 junction. The auto scaling feature has shifted to a closer-in display, and has gone from a North-up to a Heading-up display. You can see the showers more clearly.

The weather data is near real-time... there's some delay from how often the radar picture is saved, then how long it takes to send over Internet via WiFi. It is reasonably accurate.

IMG_20181006_085454794.jpg
 
Close-in display as a route change is approached. The orange for shows where your exit is at, the lane programming display is at the bottom. Note: that's for the 1st exit at I39 and Main St.

The yellow shading for the chosen route is more apparent here, with the green on both sides indicating no traffic problems reported for either north or south-bound I39. A traffic problem would be shown as a red segment, and a routing option can be enabled to avoid traffic problems.

IMG_20181006_092331846.jpg
 
This is after going through Bloomington IL, shifting onto I55 towards Springfield and St Louis. The display is now gone back to a larger scale, and shifted to North-up.

There was a cold front sweeping through, and the heavy showers associated with it are showing up on the left side of the screen.

IMG_20181006_093428571.jpg

Later on, the weather display was showing high level thunderstorms moving through downtown St Louis, covering the I64/I70 route into the city. I was going to take I44 southwest out of the city, so going around on I255/I270 allowed me to avoid the thunderstorms.
 

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