Motorhome sat nav or lorry sat nav

Helen Calow

Helen Calow

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Can anyone recomend a good sat nav for a 25ft motorhome. As i travel a lot on my own i need something that is bullet proof. I am a woman driver & i don't fancy getting stuck under a bridge or going over one that i shouldn't. Ideally something not too complicated however i am ok with technology?
 
AGURI,,must be simple because i can use it..You can put your vehicle dimensions in and select other preferences,,BUSBY..
 
Discountsatnavs.co.uk

I got mine for £79 with charge lead and screen holder. You can program height, width,length,weight and cruising speed to match your motor home. I think they are £89 now.

I will say not the most intuitive and took me a while to get used to unlike say a Tom Tom which you could grab and use. but there are tutorial videos online once you have bought and it is very good value. It accurately estimated journey times for me.

It got me to Southen Spain through France and back without problems. If money no object then others easier to use but for the money I think unbeatable.

Paul
 
Cheers Paul, i am just looking at uncomplicated ones but will certainly look it up. With a Mastiff as a passanger i need a guaranteed straight forward route to all destinations but will certainly check it out. Thanks again.
 
Helen Calow said:
Cheers Paul, i am just looking at uncomplicated ones but will certainly look it up. With a Mastiff as a passanger i need a guaranteed straight forward route to all destinations but will certainly check it out. Thanks again.
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I second the aguri rv700, been using it all over France, Scotland, England and Wales. I do 5000 +miles a year and had my aguri for three years, simple to use and had a built on dash cam..
 
Thank you, i have looked them up. I do think that would be a good one, price ok as well.There are so many out there but if i get stuck & need to call breakdown, i guess many will turn down my 15st Mastiff as friendly as he is not all are animal lovers bless their cotton socks. But thanks for the advice, everyone uses different ones & with Hugo on board i need to get the best that will suit me . As clever as my dog is navigation is not his skill!
 
All bridges have signs on them with the height in nice big letters. Just because a SatNav says you can get under it doesn’t mean you can. All the SatNav will do is give you directions it’s upto you wether you follow them. We use IGO Truck which is supposed to be one of the better ones but we still get sent down some strange short cuts. I was using CoPilot Truck when we went to Seahouses in January and we were taken off the A1 through Newcastle / Gateshead and back onto the A1.

You cannot just blindly follow the directions of Dashboard Doris you do have to engage your own brain as well.
 
Another vote for the Garmin Camper 770, although not the cheapest option.
An alternative if you have a suitable tablet is the CoPilot GPS app. I say tablet as I think a phone screen is a little small for use in a motorhome.
CoPilot GPS is the latest version of their app and you can input length, height, width and weight for the moHo plus you can switch it for use in car, bike or walking.
To use CoPilot you do need to make sure that any tablet has GPS built in, many do not.
Non of the sat-nags are 'bullet proof', some will still take you down narrow roads or long roundabout routes when you could have saved several miles. You need to plot the route then review it against a good map to check for daft routes.

I actually use a Garmin and CoPilot on an iPad and let them argue about the best route. :D

Richard.
 
Sat nav, bullet proof. :rofl: :rofl::rofl:

I know I’m sorry.:blush:
 
Write your height and width (in feet and meters) in big letters and put it on the back of your sunshade for reference.

The mapping data used by satnavs isn't perfect so you have to pay attention to the signage on each bridge as you approach. I know of one low bridge near where I live that isn't even on my Trucker's Road Atlas. It's on a busy rat run ... !

Give yourself an extra margin of safety by exaggerating your dimensions and weight when you programme whichever satnav you decide to get. It helps avoidance of those silly short cuts satnavs are fond of. I told my Garmin that mine is a humungous RV.

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SpeedyDux said:
Write your height and width (in feet and meters) in big letters and put it on the back of your sunshade for reference.
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Just what I was going to say! Really important that you can verify what your dimensions are quickly!

Mick
 
I still cant believe Aldi sold the Garmin 760 Camper satnavs for a week at £175 I think it was a couple of years ago. I wish I had bought half a dozen instead of the one which we have been absolutely delighted with since. Easy to use with loads of motorhome specific features good value even at double the price!
 
BobtheBass said:
I still cant believe Aldi sold the Garmin 760 Camper satnavs for a week at £175 I think it was a couple of years ago. I wish I had bought half a dozen instead of the one which we have been absolutely delighted with since. Easy to use with loads of motorhome specific features good value even at double the price!
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When I bought mine from Aldi they had reduced the final price even further to £149. :D

What an even better bargain!
 
Rob Turner said:
Garmin Camper 770
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We have one and after a few very dodgy routes I now check and follow the route on my phone as well. I often overrule it.
Some aspects of the app are useful but clunky. E.g. I send destinations to the sat nav from my phone so as not to disturb the use of it by the driver in whilst driving as he uses it as a speedo, but it would be really useful if I could also check the route it wants to send us on on my phone too. As it is I can only do that on the machine itself. Thus putting it out of use by the driver for that time.
It's quite disappointing for such an expensive machine, if I'm honest.
 
Our Benimar has come with a motorhome sat nav, and it does seem to navigate away from the more minor roads.

However, and a HUGE however, the quality of a motorhome/truck sat nav not only depends on the settings in the sat nav but whether the mapping program the sat nav uses contains all the required information you need such as bridge heights and weight limits. Currently this cannot be guaranteed, even for the UK.

As has been said the only reliable way is to look where you are driving and watch out for road signs warning of issues such as low bridges.

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TCG said:
Tom Tom 6000 truck nav - free map updates
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You only get what you pay for, I second the TOM TOM Truck put your MH dims in straight out of the box and off you go.

I have tried all the ones listed above and for me the TT is Top Dog.
 
See if you can try one on approval. I'm sorry to say that "bullet-proof" is not possible.
You need something that you can get on with, with unambiguous instructions.
Check the route before setting off and then there should be fewer surprises.

If you are under 3m, height restrictions should not normally be a problem but I can understand your fear. You could, of course, enter a much greater height into your satnav settings to be sure of clearing bridges but be prepared for longer trips and, possibly, less interesting ones. The accuracy of your route depends on the data and I've found plenty of errors in those that I've used. If you want free maps, don't expect the data to be accurate.
 
Having tried various sat navs over the years, including inbuilt ones in expensive Jaguar and Mercedes cars I have come to the conclusion that phone based ones are the best as they are always up to date.

As far as road widths are concerned no sat nav actually ‘knows’ the width of a road, it is only when a local authority specifically issues a notification to that effect that it can be recorded in the software. Initially relying upon a truck type navigation system proved to land me in difficulties when a road suddenly narrowed!

So in your case I would plan your route ahead and then use Google Earth to see if there are any features that would pose a problem.

I now use Sygic on my mobile and find it to be extremely accurate and it doesn’t use any data allowance on the phone.
 
Bought the Tom Tom 620 last May, great bit of kit and very simple to set up and use, hasn’t let me down so far.
 
Just finished updating and testing @Jaws trusty Chinese Truck Sat Nav, with recent iGo Primo mapping software and Truck maps, as well as adding lots of useful POIs. He's even got Wetherspoons on there now. :eek: ............... :rofl:

Cheers,

Jock. :)

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Hi I purchased the Co Pilote app onto my Ipad(it has a data sim) it cost under £30 with free updates, you can program in that you are in a motorhome. it also lets you avoid toll roads where practical as apposed to avoiding all together, I have found this very useful. You can also purchase at a small cost live traffic reports which can help avoid jams and delays. As the info is on my IPad screen I find it ideal in the van, but obviously you could just use your phone.
 
Offagain said:
We have one and after a few very dodgy routes I now check and follow the route on my phone as well. I often overrule it.
Some aspects of the app are useful but clunky. E.g. I send destinations to the sat nav from my phone so as not to disturb the use of it by the driver in whilst driving as he uses it as a speedo, but it would be really useful if I could also check the route it wants to send us on on my phone too. As it is I can only do that on the machine itself. Thus putting it out of use by the driver for that time.
It's quite disappointing for such an expensive machine, if I'm honest.
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The phone app “Garmin smart link” communicates with the sat nav to send the destination to it, there is no reverse communication. However. If you download the app “Inrix traffic” and put in the same destination you will be given pretty much the same, if not identical route which will also show traffic information and roadworks etc.
 
There is the Tomtom GO Camper, which is really a GO6200 or Tomtom Truck unit, which has additional campsite or Motorhome Stop POi's on it and you can input your Dimensions as well.

I have used the GO Camper and the Garmin 660 Camper and so far the Tomtom has been better at giving Traffic information and is better at routing. Around where we live, near the Dartford Tunnel, the Garmin is diabolical at routing either sending along single track roads or going for unnecessary additional miles to the same point from the same direction. Generally from A to B the Garmin is fairly good it is usually as you are nearing your destination that problems have arisen despite there being perfectly suitable roads. It is usually these situations where we rely on the GPS units to help us in areas we don't know which are off the main trunk roads.

All GPS units are liable to lack some accurate data such as road widths and it is not unusual for new roads to be built and the GPS units not being aware as the local authorities have not told them. Spain is particularly good at that I have heard. So as has been said keep an eye out for signs and try and review the route being suggested if you can as I am sure sometime I may find the GO Camper is not perfect but its not happened yet.
 

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