Garmin camper sat navigation 660 (1 Viewer)

[NeilEmma]

I don't know if this fits on this forum, but I recently thought I'd be organised and do a software update for our sat available, only to find that it wiped southern Europe off the thing. I've done all the things that garmin helpline have advised me to do as far as I can - I don't know if it is simply a matter of campsite WiFi not being up to the job. I've done it with the campsite WiFi and our WiFi boost. We are on the road until August so i cant change that and there are aslo somethings on their trouble shooting list theyve told me that i cant do eg connect computer to wifi with ethernet etc. Hubby doesn't fancy going into Italy without it because it (supposedly!) takes into account the dimensions of our vehicle. If anyone has the magic answer of how to fix it (unfortunately our moho doesnt have a time travelling button, otherwise i'd certainly go back and never run the update) I'd be eternally grateful.

 

[Geo]

"Hubby doesn't fancy going into Italy without it because it (supposedly!) takes into account the dimensions of our vehicle"
Only because you told it, but do you really think it knows the width of every road too??
If the last road to your destination was a foot narrower than you van does it say say "Destination Unsuitable"
No it merely works on the legality of using any given road combined with a set of preferences ie fastest route with preferred A roads
You can set those up yourself in most sat navs combined with your eyes, common sense and a map
If Hubby wants to follow a Sat Nav blindly should he be let out on public roads? I only ask because that#s exactly what I do
It said on TV this morning that sat navs cause part of the brain to switch off, it certainly has with mine most of it actually
set up your preferences you'll be fine

 

[Gellyneck]

I don't know if this fits on this forum, but I recently thought I'd be organised and do a software update for our sat available, only to find that it wiped southern Europe off the thing. I've done all the things that garmin helpline have advised me to do as far as I can - I don't know if it is simply a matter of campsite WiFi not being up to the job. I've done it with the campsite WiFi and our WiFi boost. We are on the road until August so i cant change that and there are aslo somethings on their trouble shooting list theyve told me that i cant do eg connect computer to wifi with ethernet etc. Hubby doesn't fancy going into Italy without it because it (supposedly!) takes into account the dimensions of our vehicle. If anyone has the magic answer of how to fix it (unfortunately our moho doesnt have a time travelling button, otherwise i'd certainly go back and never run the update) I'd be eternally grateful.

The latest full European map updates from Garmin (and other manufacturers) are very large and increasing everytime!
Do you have an additional micro sd card in your sat nav unit? You really do need one as the inbuilt storage is almost completely used when new.
I've heard, second-hand, that the latest map updates are too large for the inbuilt storage and as a result if there's no sd card installed it can only update and store a part of the update file. What part it updates and stores I've no idea.
Usage on our 760 is 1.25Gb free of 7.02Gb on the internal storage and c6Gb used on the sd card of which the maps are c2Gb.

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[NeilEmma]

Thanks for your very helpful replies!

Ha ha I love the common sense of just use common sense, you're better off without it! That has lifted my spirits! Although I am more than a bit scarred by previous experiences where you don't know what's round the bend.

Yes I will buy an sd card, it says about 8gb free and I was indignant that the thing can't store the maps it's designed to, but it's certainly worth having a go.

Thanks both!

 

[Zepp]

We lost all our maps with tomtom camper rang tomtom they said it was due to slow internet hooked it up to my phone with faster connection did the update again and they all came back.

Thought I would use site wifi so I did not use all the data on my phone won't use site wifi again.

 

[elamessa]

Do you download the update to the device only or device and computer?
If you download to both and you have a problem with the maps on your GPS you can reinstall them from the computer using garmin mapinstall. http://www8.garmin.com/support/download_details.jsp?id=3291

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[NeilEmma]

One of the trouble shooting points I've been sent by garmin says it's not meant for mobile Internet connections because I did consider using my phone Internet. It made me think maybe I shouldn't have tried with campsite WiFi. But perhaps I've got nothing to lose trying it with my phone Internet.

I haven't put the maps on my computer because I was concerned about storage space. I do have a 1 tb hard drive with lots of space remaining so perhaps I could download them onto that and then try to transfer them onto the sat navigation?

 

[GeriatricWanderer]

I've always found it much better just to download the countries that you will use. Garmin offers a number of different country groupings and you can easily chop and change as and when you need them.
You don't really want to clutter up your GPS with Estonia and Lithuania etc if you've just off to France and Iberia.
My experience is that they run very much faster and with less glitches when running lean.

 

[NeilEmma]

I've always found it much better just to download the countries that you will use. Garmin offers a number of different country groupings and you can easily chop and change as and when you need them.

I'm not sure I can do this. As far as I could tell I just have the option to "reinstall maps" but I'll see if there are options elsewhere. Thanks.

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[NeilEmma]

We lost all our maps with tomtom camper rang tomtom they said it was due to slow internet hooked it up to my phone with faster connection did the update again and they all came back.

Just got back and thought I'd give this a go as we haven't been anywhere to pick up an sd card and within 5 minutes all southern European maps updated! Hooray!!! Thanks for all your posts, it's fixed!

(And it's the exact opposite to what garmin told me to do so I never would have worked it out otherwise!)

 

[Gellyneck]

Great to hear you're sorted.
Did you update Northern Europe as well?

 

[tonyl]

My post is no longer needed so deleted it!

The 660 has more memory space than the 760 so should be OK for a while, I think.

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[Zepp]

Glad you got it sorted

Paul

 

[robnchris]

We never trust what the Sat Nav tells us, we type in the destination, then check the route against a good old paper map.
Having said all that the Sat Nav built into our VW Golf took us straight to our hotel in Rapallo through a route we would never had managed on a road map, so sometimes you just have to trust them.

 

[NeilEmma]

Did you update Northern Europe as well?

Erm, good question, when I originally did the update it left me with only northern Europe maps no southern europe - I didn't think to check if they were still there after my last update so I'll do that today! Knowing me I'll now have south Europe and no north Europe!

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[NeilEmma]

We never trust what the Sat Nav tells us, we type in the destination, then check the route against a good old paper map.

We don't have paper maps but I have maps.me on the iPad which we tend to run alongside the sat navigation (and usually our phones). That said I am not very good at checking the route the night before despite very good advice I've been given to do this. We had a very fun drive to the alhambra from the commercial centre car park on which we'd stayed the night before - it should have been 5 minutes on dual carriageways but instead the camper sat nav took us for 45 minutes through totally unsuitable roads through the centre of Grenada and we ended up negotiating a lane with houses one inch to the right and a rockface one inch to the left. I really do need to get into the habit of checking these things the night before!

 

[Gellyneck]

I really do need to get into the habit of checking these things the night before!

If you've got a Windows laptop or mac (no Linux version unfortunately) with you you can download Garmin BaseCamp foc and install that. You can then use that to plan routes, stopping points, routing points, etc and transfer that to the sat nav by plugging it into the laptop.

You can also install the latest map updates to BaseCamp without the risk of screwing up the sat nav as BaseCamp, by default, keeps both new and old map versions. Maps can then be installed from the laptop to the sat nav offline.

http://www.garmin.com/en-GB/shop/downloads/basecamp