Peobody wrote: ↑Tue Sep 03, 2024 11:10 pm
The XT excels at getting you to a destination. The frustrations that I know of are associated with trying to get it to follow a pre-planned route.
After years with the 590/595, and
@jfheath's help, I have no problem getting the XT to follow a pre-planned route. Mostly, that is a matter of preventing recalculation, and using an understanding of how the XT works to create a reliable route in Basecamp.
I can rely on the XT to find
a way to reach a destination. But I cannot rely on it to find the fastest route, or the shortest route, or to efficiently deal with traffic slowdowns or a road closure.
I am extremely careful to keep the XT from (re-)calculating a route, because it does that very poorly, often picking routes that are neither the quickest time nor the shortest distance. It favors what it considers "faster" roads - highways, multi-lane roads, major thoroughfares - even if they have more traffic control devices, heavier traffic, and lower speed limits. It will route me miles out of my way just to use a short section of a "faster" road. It is equally bad at re-routing to avoid traffic and construction.
One afternoon, it re-routed me to avoid a "closed" exit ramp that had been temporarily closed 11 pm to 5 am, and had been fully re-opened weeks earlier. Set to prefer Faster time, the normal route was 6.4 miles, 9 minutes. The XT detour: 5.4 miles, 19 minutes, through a congested university campus. Available alternative: 6.5 miles, 11 minutes.
The XT has tried to send me through town on residential streets when there were shorter alternatives that bypassed the town on lightly travelled 55 mph roads.
Yes, the XT will get you to your destination, eventually. But I do not like its choices.