Lantley
Ellicott City, Maryland
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Phone apps are fine for convenience and ease of use. But a dedicated RV GPS is what you need if you are traveling in an oversize RV.
Convenience becomes secondary to having a larger screen with directions for an oversize vehicle.
The OP was fortunate he was able to unhitch and turnaround relatively unscathed.May not be that lucky next time.
No GPS is perfect or 100% trusworthy however free phone app that will give you updated and accurate current road and traffic info accompanied by a dedicated RV GPS will keep you away from questionable situations
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Michelle.S
Western NY till fall, then Sebring, FL
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I'm running the Garmin 785 with the built-in Dash Cam. It connects to my phone for traffic updates while traveling. So sort of the best of both worlds.
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Lantley
Ellicott City, Maryland
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Michelle.S wrote:I'm running the Garmin 785 with the built-in Dash Cam. It connects to my phone for traffic updates while traveling. So sort of the best of both worlds.
Sort of best, my garmin connects as well but not as up to date with traffic info as Google maps and certainly not as up to date as Waze.
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Michelle.S
Western NY till fall, then Sebring, FL
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Well either of those apps keep you off a road with a low over pass?? Last I looked neither of them offered the ability to enter height, weight, and length.
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Lantley
Ellicott City, Maryland
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Michelle.S wrote:Well either of those apps keep you off a road with a low over pass?? Last I looked neither of them offered the ability to enter height, weight, and length.
My garmin RV GPS takes care of RV size issues. While my phone apps deal with local real time traffic flow.
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pbeverly
South Carolina
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Free phone apps aren't going to take care of your RV needs. Apps that you pay for and have the ability to enter your size data are going to better.
For a serious trip I am going to use my PAID for phone app. Google maps is good for short little quick things, provided I have cell coverage. Google Maps was good at navigating to be specific places in the Great Smokey Mountains NP. I downloaded the maps so coverage was not an issue.
I tried Waze and really didn't care for it. Really don't care where the cops are as I only do about 5 over the limit and don't even do that when pulling a camper. I am not in a hurry, the place where I am heading to will be there when I arrive regardless. If it is a timed thing then I make sure I have plenty of time for the unexpected.
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Sandy & Shirley
North East, MD
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My partner is leaning heavily on the Garman RV GPS system, but, while driving, there is no room to mount a sizable screen in front of me.
Do any of the Garman versions come with an android phone interface? My WAZE app is just about useless because it will take us onto roads with low bridges. But it does have some great features that I’m hoping are available with a Garman Phone Interface (if one does exist).
Will it talk to me and tell me when my next turn should happen?
Will it show me an image of where I am on the road and where my next turn will happen?
The screen I’m looking at right now on my home computer is for the RV 890 8 inch RV GPS Navigator. Like I said, I don’t have the space in front of me while I am driving to mount an 8 inch screen!
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Sandy & Shirley
North East, MD
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What a mistake! We listened to this post and decided on the Garmin 890. We just got home from our first trip with the new GPS, from North East, MD 21901 to Ferryboat Campsites in Liverpool, PA 17045.
On the trip up to the campground, the Garmin took us through the center of downtown Lancaster PA. The road did not have an low overpasses, but it was stop and go on a crowded street where we passed 3 different delivery truck blocking one of the two lanes with parked cars on both sides. Like I said there were no obstructions, just some sharp downtown turns!
Then, when we asked the Garmin for directions to get back home, the first thing it told us to do was to actually take the ferry across the Potomac River. First of all, the ferry is more of a visitor’s thing, it can only hold 3 cars at a time, but the Garmin wanted me to drive my 37 foot motorhome onto it with my car in tow! To top it off, the water level was low, so the ferry wasn’t even running for the past week!
Time to call Garmin to see what I have to do to send it back within the first 30 days!
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Gdetrailer
PA
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Joined: 01/05/2007
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Zero of your complaints can be addressed with a GPS.
There is no way a GPS can know if there is "sharp turns" or "crowded streets" or if there is a lot of "stop and go traffic lights". GPS also cannot determine if a "ferry boat" is of large enough size to handle your rig.
Very few GPS units deal with bridge height either..
GPS units sole design purpose is to route you the FASTEST way according to distance and speed limits and that often means taking you a more direct route which as you found out the hard way often is right through the heart of small towns or even heavy city street traffic.
GPS is not a replacement for the grey matter between the ears and your eyeballs, it is simply a routing tool to assist you from getting from point A to point B.. One of the pitfalls of GPS is the fact that it often has more SMALLER roads in it's database and due to that it just calculates your driving time by using those small roads.
Old fashioned paper Atlas's skipped over the very small roads and you plotted your trip with larger roads which often have less low height objects in the way. Also gives you a better feel for what cities and towns to avoid and plot your way around the bottle necks. GPS units don't offer you that kind of planning.
Keen observation of the roads size, road signs you are driving on should also give you some hints as to what may be ahead.
You know you are in a huge motor home, don't take the smaller secondary roads, GPS units don't know that and have no way of telling you to avoid that route.
And a 37ft Motorhome is nothing, try towing a 35ft TT (actually 38ft including tongue!) behind a 22ft long pickup truck and then try turning around in the middle of a busy small city street at rush hr (have done that)..
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Sandy & Shirley
North East, MD
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Not exactly true!
The Garmin has an RV mode where I was able to input the length, width, and height of my motor home. That is supposed to be the advertised reason for choosing the “Garmin RV 890 GPS” unit and running it in RV/Motor home mode!
Yes the street through Lancaster was not RV impassable, but the recommended route to use the river ferry was impassable. I double checked with the owner of the campground and ferry. Motor homes and not allowed on the ferry and that is something that an RV rated GPS should know!
If the GPS can’t take me to passable routes, I should just continue to use WAZE, it’s free!
PS: before the motor home we also had a 38 foot fifth wheel towed by a Ford F350, long bed, crew cab!
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