Problem with satellite tracking?

[Rockster2004]

I "upgraded" from a 396 to an XT this winter, and now that I've had it out a few times I'm seeing a problem that I don't recall with the 396. It will tell me my next turn is a couple of miles away when it's really right in front of me. A few times it's been off by almost 4 miles, and one thing was really odd - I turned onto a road and it said my next turn was 2.7 miles ahead, but then it decided it was 5 miles and started ticking down from there, but when I hit around 2.7, that's where the road was, and it knew it as soon as I passed it. Do you think I have a defective unit, or is this "normal"?

[rbentnail]

This used to bug me too until I realized the XT doesn't necessarily calculate distance to turns. It often calculates distance to the next point in your route. You may have 3 turns until your next shaping or via point but you'd not know it. I work around it by placing shaping points about 500 yds AFTER turns so I get a more accurate calculation of "distance to turn". Other times it acts right, there seems to be no reasoning to it. Still other times it tells me "turn right" when it's actually a straight road. It's just stupid sometimes.

[Rockster2004]

I did also get one of those “turn left” directions that took me off my route. With all the years they’ve been making these things and the relative stability of the road system, you’d think they could do better.

[rbentnail]

They did do better....... with previous models! The 595 was better. The nuvi780 was fabulous!! But looking backwards those models had less apps and fewer maps. I still say, "the more something does, the less it does well." I firmly believe this applies to the XT.

[Peobody]

The XT definitely struggles with intersections in curves where the road side road is not perpendicular to the traveled road. An example is a road road that is sweeping to the right and your route has you turning left in the sweep at such an angle that it looks straight on the map, the XT will not prompt you to turn left even though it is a different road. It only takes a couple of seconds though before it recognizes that you are off-route.

An issue related to phantom turn instructions is a waypoint that is positioned off the road.

This used to bug me too until I realized the XT doesn't necessarily calculate distance to turns. It often calculates distance to the next point in your route.

I have been thinking about this. I agree that sometimes it displays the distance to the next point but I think that happens only when there aren't any turns between you and it. I don't recall any issues with the displayed distance to next turn (+/- 30 yrds). This has me intrigued though. I leave on my next trip in 4 days so am going to try to be mindful of distance display behavior to try to better understand what it does.