To think that if a car comes with built in sat-nav...

[MummySparkle]

It should actually be able to drive on the roads the sat-nav suggests?!?!

[SistersOfPercy]

We bought my lovely late fil a sat nav for Christmas one year. He was a lovely man, though overly paranoid and as such refused to take the sat nav out in the car in case it got stolen.
Not wanting it to go to waste he'd walk the half a mile into the local village with it in his hand and vary his route back. He'd only lived in the village for forty years so it wasn't like he knew every route anyway.
Some evenings he'd sit in his armchair and plan routes all over the UK just to see where it took him. To the day he died it never went in a car.

[NotCitrus]

Another rec for GoogleMaps, especially for assessing London traffic. Had a Garmin that got nicked a few years ago, and despite the insurance actually paying up, never bothered to replace it.

Though it is convinced there's no road through Avon Heath near Bournemouth, and gets upset when unexpected roadworks happen or if it thinks they haven't finished yet, so the NotCitrusNav (tm) is still called for regularly. And as I tell MrNC, I have a much nicer user interface...

[MothertotheLordsofmisrule]

CantChoose

I swear I can hear the rising tone of huffiness in my sat navs voice when I ignore the "Turn around when possible" bleating.

I sure she will eventually fold her arms and slump back in her holder saying"Fine! Go your own way. Why bother asking me!?!"

My gps for geocaching sometimes has a wobbly and tries to send you in various directions until it goes "Ah! This way" but is less stroppy about it.
But then I also have a map and a vague idea of where I'm meant to be going when using it.

[CantChoose]

I hate to admit it but LBOCS2 in right - Google maps app is way better than my expensive sat nav and does traffic for free...

I go to a particular place a few times a year and use my sat nav to remind me the way. I have to drive over a lake on an unmarked bridge when I get there and the little car icon just spins helplessly and tells me to 'turn around where possible' until I reach dry land. Bless it... I think it's worried it will drown...

[Quoteunquote]

We get this a lot on our green lanes (devon), some sat navs are a collective learning(tom tom) which means that if you want to cross a city centre at rush hour it will give you a different route to one that it will give you at 3am.

Because a lot of uses the green lanes, our sat navs tell yours to do the same.

Sorry.

[ItsAllGoingToBeFine]

google maps is great till you have no reception...which is usually the point at which you are in the middle of nowhere and ermm lost

If you are using the car GPS feature it stores the route, so if you go out if reception and stay on your oute you will be fine.

[AnneSansTete]

Mine always heartily objects to the route I take home after coming off the motorway. I'll be pulling into my drive and it will still be insisting I need to go back 5 miles to the motorway junction and DO IT PROPERLY.

[emwithme]

On one trip with DH's old satnav, it told us to take the 63rd exit off the (four exit) roundabout. We declined its kind offer to make ourselves dizzy.

[Theoretician]

advice

[Theoretician]

I read about someone who turned right at a level crossing and went up the bloody railway line because the sat nav told her to!

During the very early days of TomTom, it advised me to turn off the M25 onto the M4 by making a 90 degree turn on the flyover, driving through the crash barriers, and landing on top of the traffic passing below.

(I didn't follow the advise.)

[Watto1]

DH once turned into someone's drive by blindly following the satnav.

[WhoTheFuckIsSimon]

I read about someone who turned right at a level crossing and went up the bloody railway line because the sat nav told her to!

[RB68]

google maps is great till you have no reception...which is usually the point at which you are in the middle of nowhere and ermm lost

[Watto1]

Ha! Lorries not Tories!! No idea of the political persuasion of the drivers!

[Watto1]

I live near a very narrow lane which is often closed due to Tories getting stuck in it. Massive sign at both ends of the lane saying it's not suitable for large vehicles but obviously the drivers/sat navs know better. It was shut for hours the other week as a lorry was so wedged, a crane had to be sent to lift it out.

[ItsAllGoingToBeFine]

You need to use the google maps app. Because it's online and so many people use it, it's really really accurate - and great for calculating traffic time as well.

This^ Although make sure your.phone is plugged in as it munches through battery pretty fast.

[WeShouldOpenABar]

I followed the in built sat nav in the hire car around Cornwall and into St Ives. We arrived in the dark and the thing had us circling the one way hilly system around and around again with people walking in the middle of the narrow roads moving out of the way for us again and again giving us funny looks like did we not just see you?!

It had me turn down at the docks and it didn't feel right to me but it was dark, I inched forward to see what was coming with my lights and it had tried to send me down a slip into the sea! We nearly cried with relief when we got out of the car at the first car park with spaces still not knowing if we were close to our accommodation.

We found that in St Ives you have to do that anyway, you really had to consider whether your day trip was worth losing your parking space for

[MummySparkle]

We had to reverse it out. DP had to push the side of the car to stop it falling into the ditch and guide me because the wheels were spinning.
He's recorded him coming around the corner to find me 'and on this track we find the missus. Stuck. Fuck sake! ' and has just sent it to his mates.

[PedantPending]

I have never used my sat nav, I have had my car for nearly 12 years. If I don't know where I am going or how to get there (by looking at a map beforehand and working out my route) then I shouldn't be driving.
I once tested the route to my house via sat nav, the suggested route diverted drivers up through the vineyards, well there are tracks and I might be allowed to use them as a resident, but I am pretty certain they are for the people who work the vineyards, not the general public. It was a good laugh finding that out, though!
Hope you managed to get pulled to safety oK.

[LurkingHusband]

I was using a SatNav at night

That is the weirdest experience ... MrsLH and I drove 100 miles into darkest Wales for wedding a few years back. We decided to travel at night, and got there no problem, despite a lot of the roads being unlit.

It was only driving back (Sunday afternoon) that we realised we had no idea what the terrain we had driven 100 miles through was like. We saw valleys and hills we had no idea about. If we'd been driving following a paper map, we'd have seen the landscape ...

[LBOCS2]

You need to use the google maps app. Because it's online and so many people use it, it's really really accurate - and great for calculating traffic time as well. I did a job where I was driving all over the south and it did me proud the whole time.

[slicedfinger]

Ours is eight years old, and gets really really really upset every time we drive up the M6 Toll road. Makes us laugh every time though, so we don't want to update it!

[OzzieFem]

I was using a SatNav at night in a works car and approached a roundabout, the SatNav told me to take the fourth exit, while I was circling it and it suddenly hit me, yep, that was the road I had just exited!

Driving on a weekend to start a hobby and had been informed by the tutor that if using a navigational aid, to take no notice when it told you to turn left into xxxx road; it was wrong and I would end up deep in the state forest. Apparently they had quite a few students go missing in the past and mobile phones did not work that far out!

[MummySparkle]

Nope, no dirt road option to turn off - it's a really basic bit built into the car. We got the extra package for something else (rear electric Windows?) and the sat nav was part of it too. Can't say I'd have chosen it, and I'd be really annoyed if I had paid extra for it! It constantly takes us bizarre routes, no idea what algorithms it uses. We've tried all of the different route planning options for it and it's still shit!

[BernardsarenotalwaysSaints]

We have a ford near us that goes round a couple of bends. Sat navs tend to lose signal just as they enter it & the river runs diagonally across it so cars that don't know it are regularly driving up the river & getting stuck.