Zumo User Forums

(I'm really not sure where to post this as I am new on the forum, I'm not sure if my problem lies with route planning software or my Zumo 390 unit. I'l stick it here and the moderators will no doubt move it to suit)

It may help if I try to describe what I am trying to achieve first:

I’m off for my two weeks around Europe again next month, this time for my first proper look at Spain and into Portugal. I have fleshed out the route on Google maps working with about +/- 200 miles per day and booked the hotels for my overnight stops. I want the Zumo to hold 15 “trips” that I can call up each morning and follow to my next hotel via some pre-selected attractions (or roads) with confidence.

Unfortunately the Zumo has never yet given me confidence and at the moment it is not looking like it is going to be any better this year.

My current methodology is to plan the route using Tyre as I find the maps and search functions far better than Base Camp (I rarely get any success with an address search in Base Camp, I can’t understand why it comes up with suggestions for North America when it must know that the maps in the unit it is linked to are for Europe. More often than not the system just “hangs” and I end up shutting it down).

Once the map is drawn up in Tyre I export it to the Zumo. From there, I import it into Base Camp for checking and tidying. Then it is exported back to the Zumo (after deleting the Tyre file in there).

On the above process Day 1 is not looking too bad, but there again it is only 25 miles between the ferry port and my first hotel – not much to go wrong. Day 2 however is totally confusing. Tyre reckons my trip to be 185 miles. Base Camp calculates it at 188 miles which is near enough the same but the Zumo unit its self comes up with 327 miles. It seems to have decided that what I really need is a large unnecessary loop down into the Picos de Europa. Now, I really like the Picos and I do want to go there again one day, but I have not got time this year. Even the loop on the map cannot possibly account for nearly doubling the mileage.

Can anyone suggest what is going on? The way points on the unit are the same as in Tyre and Base Camp. I can’t see that any of my avoidance settings could be causing the issue and the calculation is based on Car / Fastest Time – I have been badly mislead by the Motorcycle / Curvy Roads option too many times in the past to consider that.

At a glance it looks like the next two days routes I have sent to the unit are also coming up with excessive mileages.

OK, it is most likely to be Operator Incompetence so can anyone suggest what I am doing wrong?

Cheers,

Pete

Pete,

There is something seriously wrong here. I’ve planned a 3 week trip abroad using Basecamp/Mapsource and the Garmin agreed with it. So, it SHOULD work.

Are the maps on your Garmin the same as on the PC? Are you sure any intermediate points you have set are on the road and not just off. Are you sure the Garmin isn’t set to ‘public transport’ or something silly?

One last thing - whereabouts do you live? Maybe someone could meet up with you and check things out.

Alan

PS- the Picos are worth visiting !!!!

alan sh wrote: ↑Wed Aug 29, 2018 10:22 pm Pete,

There is something seriously wrong here. I’ve planned a 3 week trip abroad using Basecamp/Mapsource and the Garmin agreed with it. So, it SHOULD work.

Are the maps on your Garmin the same as on the PC? Are you sure any intermediate points you have set are on the road and not just off. Are you sure the Garmin isn’t set to ‘public transport’ or something silly?

One last thing - whereabouts do you live? Maybe someone could meet up with you and check things out.

Alan

PS- the Picos are worth visiting !!!!

Thanks for the reply.

As far as I am aware the maps are drawn into Base Camp from the Zumo when it is connected to the PC's USB so I assume it is the same source material. I've had another search trough the settings menu and still can't see anything amiss. The selected way points were selected as specific locations in Tyre (usually a hotel or landmark) so should be no more than 100 metres off the mark.

I live in Stourbridge so if there is some kind soul in the West Midlands with experience of these things help would be appreciated. However time is now running out, we are off in a couple of weeks so I think I am going to have to hope that someone spots my mistakes on the forum or confine myself to just entering in the address for each stint - a bit of a frustration, I had hoped for more when I purchased the unit.

Mind you, if you think the above is bad, look at what happened last year when I tried to calculate a route between Ribe and Hirtshals in Denmark with 6 way points. This should have come up at about 325km plus a few extra for minor detours to stop offs. As you can see it managed to find me a route that was nearer 16,000km. It looks like it is picking up several places from previous trips including Croatia, Swizerland and the Czech Republic even though they are not listed in the table in Base Camp.

Pete.

Sounds to me like Tyre is poisoning the routes, possibly bad waypoints or a feeble attempt by tyre to specify route tracking that doesn't work with MS/BC.

Once you have your plan in Tyre, start with a clean slate in MapSource or BaseCamp and build the routes from scratch.

The trouble I found with TYRE is that all it does is send the way points to the zumo and not always in any order and if you have multiple routes it can get confused and use the other waypoints!

I have had some very strange results from TYRE

The solution for me was to sit and watch you tube videos and read on how to use basecamp this has now never failed

I thought basecamp was a pain in the arse to stat with but now I am getting used to it

Thanks both.

As it happens I was just in the process of abandoning Tyre and trying to plot something directly into Base Camp. Unfortunately it is making me remember why I gave up using Base Camp directly in the first place; Every time I search for an address it just hangs then crashes......

yes I have found the search function pretty useless to be fair!

I use google maps for that as they seem to be more accurate too then I zoom in on basecamp and add a waypoint

Stu wrote: ↑Thu Aug 30, 2018 7:52 pm yes I have found the search function pretty useless to be fair!

I use google maps for that as they seem to be more accurate too then I zoom in on basecamp and add a waypoint

That's what I do
Pete, are you sure you have the same maps on your Zumo and Basecamp?

kernowing wrote: ↑Thu Aug 30, 2018 8:00 pm

Stu wrote: ↑Thu Aug 30, 2018 7:52 pm yes I have found the search function pretty useless to be fair!

I use google maps for that as they seem to be more accurate too then I zoom in on basecamp and add a waypoint

That's what I do
Pete, are you sure you have the same maps on your Zumo and Basecamp?

Ah, thanks for pointing me to that, I though that basecamp was drawing map data from the Zumo but a quick check has shown me that there are two map versions on my PC (2018, 2019). I've tried switching and something seems to have changed (although not in a way I was expecting) so I'll have another dig into it tomorrow evening. Time for a beer and bed now......

My relationship with Garmin products is not improving.

I've now had a crack at day 10; both the Zumo and Basecamp have "2019" maps and I have gone nowhere near Tyre, this is with the waypoints directly created in Basecamp.

Looking at the Google screenshot you can see my intention to make a nice round-trip from Cadiz (348km)

Putting the same waypoints into Basecamp results in a load of doubling back and a total trip of 449km

It seems to want to avoid the obvious route between the Mirador Puerto del Boyar and the Ronda viewpoint. I have added in one intermediate waypoint on the route between the two, but it just made the dead-end even longer so I have taken it out again on the image below.

Does some kind soul have a few minutes over the weekend to put the same waypoints in their systems to see if they get the same result?

Thanks,

Pete.