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Please can anyone advise on planning a route on a sat-nav to avoid narrow roads when towing a caravan?

Are there any downloads on the web to enable this? - I have a Garmin and a TomTom.

none of the units have this feature the best thing to do is set your route preferences to the fastest route as this should put on most major roads. you may find that the garmin has a vehicle mode but this does not plan the best route for your vehicle it only recalculates the ETA on the units

hope this helps

Quote: Originally posted by amarillo on 09/8/2008

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Please can anyone advise on planning a route on a sat-nav to avoid narrow roads when towing a caravan?

Are there any downloads on the web to enable this? - I have a Garmin and a TomTom.

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Always set the selection to fastest route, and then check that it is taking you the right way, if it is not tell it to seek an alternative route, if that does not work look for the itinerary planning section ( it is definitely there on the Tomtom ) and wtake it down the route you want to go. I have always found that combining my map book with my sat nav gives me the best routes, that way the sat nav simply acts as the prompter for all the turns and rroad changes along the way in the same way that I used to have a paper route planned out for long trips. Whatever you do always use the route into the site that is given by the site owners, never, ever use a route that the satnav suggests unless you have checked with the site that it is usable towing a caravan.

Maplins have just brought out this Pro Nav sat nav so that HGV / Caravanners etc can avoid width / height restrictions.

I would be interested to find out what they are like if anyone has used one.

http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=224464&source=1&DOY=10m8

The one thing I have learnt about Sat Navs (I use a TT710) is that it is wise to check the route against a map and if I don't like the look of the route I force the Sat Nav to an alternative route. You can do this by using the 'Via' function or 'avoid part of route' function. I have found the latter more successful. In the past, if I have known that the initial route is difficult and I know that TT will take me the way I don't want to go regardless of what I do to the settings I don't turn him on until I am past the difficult bit. Seems to save him going huffy!

David

I'd set it for the fastest route & then make my own mind up if it tried to route me down a road I considered to be unwise. I simply ignore the instruction & allow the device to reroute me. I've used one for years in my lorry & I've not had any serious problems so far.

It has to be accepted that a great number of sites are actually in plces where they're going to be difficult to access, albeit with a caravan outfit or a lorry. How some of the caravan transporters access these awkward sites is beyond me. Obviously they don't go in during peak season but, I often wonder how they do get there. Therefore, we'regoing to have no option but tow along some undesirable routes if we want to get to these sites whether we use a satnav or the wife with a map. I tend to get far less trouble from the former.

BB

I've got a Garmin Streetpilot 2610 ....... It's five years old now but I've just upgraded the mapping again so that it as up to date as it can be. I always use the HGV route option when I'm towing, it seems to work well.

The other big advantage with the Streetpilot is that I can plan a route on my PC making sure that when I get close to a site I follow the exact route suggested. I've never had a problem.