Garmin nuvi 3598LMT-D, Am I thick ?

[Redgate]

I recently purchased a brand new Garmin nuvi 3598LMT-D and used it for the first time yesterday. I have created an account with Garmin, registered the device and updated some maps already.

We knew where we were going but as I am planning a longish trip to France in a few weeks I wanted to get a feel for how it works and get used to the new features (I come from a 5-year-old Tom Tom One).

So, before we set off, I tried to use the in-built list of Points of Interest and have it point us to Thorpe Park. First disappointment, the nearest amusement park it could find was located some 165 miles away in France.

I made sure the right country was selected and tried again once with 'England' and then with 'United Kingdom' but the results were always the same. No Thorpe Park listed.

Since we were in a hurry I left it at that and started driving.

That is when I got disappointed for a second time. It looked like it could not pick up a clean signal and the display was showing us off the M25 when we were right on it. Basically as if I had been doing some off-roading alongside the motorway.

The weird thing is that somehow it was reporting the known spots for speed cameras on time.

Anyway, got to our destination without drama. At the end of the day I tried to give it another go. This time trying to use our home address to get us back.

Again, it would not let us do that. Checked the right country was selected. I wanted to write the name of the town but the choices of first letters was limited to only a few - when I suppose I should have found the entire keyboard available.

Same thing happened on the way back too with the Sat Nav informing us where the fixed cameras could be but still showing us way off the motorway.

Any ideas or suggestions of what I may be doing wrongly ? Or do we suspect there is something faulty with it ?

Thanks for your help.

[Geekman]

I had one of these before someone broke into my car and stole it

In general, I found it to be a great device. Never had any problems with signal, and I drove the M25 hundreds of times with it. I rarely used the POI feature as I've always found it to be useless on every sat nav I've ever used, so it wouldn't surprise me if it wasn't up to much.

Basically, as long as you had the postcode of your destination, it was perfect and I never experienced any problems at all. The speed camera warnings were the best I've had on any device, and the live traffic was pretty good as well.

Sounds like yours might need a full reset - should be fairly simple to do.

[Redgate]

I will look into that too but I find it strange as it as been powered up twice only so far.

Once to have it registered and to update the maps and then yesterday to properly use it.

I guess I could also bring it to Halfords and have someone look at it.

[dazren]

Do software and map updates using Garmin Express. If after this you still have issues call Garmin UK tech support. Mine didn't work properly straight out of the box in September last year. Did the updates and no issues since.

[marshalla]

It sounds like your update may have wiped all the detail maps and replaced only a few of them. This would mean that the unit is relying on a base map which only holds major roads for countries where detail isn't available.

Try the map update again - but install ALL countries that you need. Garmin tend to use a single file to hold all the maps, so updating just a few can wipe all the others.

[Redgate]

Thanks marshalla. I will give it a try tonight. Hopefully it should be straight forward.

[Redgate]

I reinstalled the maps and everything seems fine now. I need to buy a micro SD card though as there is not enough memory to install other European countries at the moment.

Thanks for all your help.

[marshalla]

Redgate said:

I reinstalled the maps and everything seems fine now. I need to buy a micro SD card though as there is not enough memory to install other European countries at the moment.

Thanks for all your help.

That sounds about normal. When you install the extra maps, try to avoid getting any overlap between what's on the device and what you put on the card. If the maps overlap, some of them get confused and refuse to boot up.