Tom Tom Maps

[Mrs Trackside]

I bought my Tom Tom seven months ago, but it seems that the map is already out of date!

I was driving along the Barford Bypass just past Bedford yesterday, but my TT One Europe V2 seemed to think I was in the middle of a field!!

Now I know they've been building the bypass for at least three years, so TT must have known it was going to be finished by the time I bought my Tom Tom. Why then do they think it's OK to make me pay 40 something euros to update my map?

What a bloody scam!

[motco]

It can be a problem, I had trouble in Kent a little while ago. It's the map suppliers that are responsible, not TomTom I assume

[V7TTE]

I bought a map of France less than a year ago, and it seems it has been updated 3 times since I bought. Something to do with the fact that they are stil building roads over there, unlike here

[Mr Sweetchuck]

Just bought a Tom Tom One Europe today, V4 I think.

Excuse my ignorance but don't they give free updates for existing maps or do you have to pay for them? I thought it would be a bit like anit virus updates if you seem what I mean, free for a period of time and then you have to pay a subscription.

[Raify]

You have to pay for map updates. Which is a bit cheeky IMHO. I've seen the same problem, with a brand new Tom Tom not having 1-2 year old roads.

Apparently, there are only 2 map suppliers to the Tom Tom / Garmin etcs of this world.

[Mrs Trackside]

Mr Sweetchuck said:

Just bought a Tom Tom One Europe today, V4 I think.

Excuse my ignorance but don't they give free updates for existing maps or do you have to pay for them? I thought it would be a bit like anit virus updates if you seem what I mean, free for a period of time and then you have to pay a subscription.

You have to pay for them. SIXTY EUROS a time!!!! I have no problem having to pay for them, but having paid £250 for the unit, and then another 40 quid is a bloody rip-off!

[off_again]

Mrs Trackside said:

Now I know they've been building the bypass for at least three years, so TT must have known it was going to be finished by the time I bought my Tom Tom. Why then do they think it's OK to make me pay 40 something euros to update my map?

This is the biggest complaint against satnav and to be honest its a bit unreasonable really.

I am not being 'orrible here, but take this example - so they have been building the road for a year. But when was it opened? Do they mark the road as open even when it isnt, thus getting the "it directed me onto a road which wasnt open" complaints. Or do they resort to the "wait until it is open" option and then get the complains of "it was open early, why isnt it on my map?" complaints.... and of course, roads are always built to budget and on time arent they?

Also, its not TomTom's responsibility to do anything with the maps. They buy the maps in from two of the largest providers - NAVTEQ or TeleAtlas. Both of these companies rely on the maps created in the particular countries in the first place. So they will have bought the base maps from the Ordinance Survey and then added on top the Points of Interest and updates accordingly. However, they do not check each and every mile, they have to take the word of others, who may have got it wrong. How many hundreds of thousands of miles of road are their in the UK? How much is added each year? Its not a simple job.

Other sources for getting the data is from your local council planning office and the highways agency. Since neither of these particular agencies can be trusted with a particularly shitty stick, maps and updates often go for some time before they are actually completed. Also, they quite frequently get the location of some roads incorrect anyway - again though, sometimes the road builders get it wrong by a few feet and that can throw out some satnav systems!

So when you are relying on the likes of your local council planning department, the highways agency, the ordinance survey and a mapping company - what do you expect? Its not TomTom's fault that the maps are not up to date.... just pay the price and get the update.

Oh, and finally, some retailers hold stock of satnav devices and many of these will be slightly old. There was / is an update to TomTom at the moment and it was released a weeks ago. You should have the very latest version, but as is often the case, the retailers shove out the oldest stuff first at a discount in the hope that no one sees it. Be warned, buying the satnav of your choice at the very cheapest price might not the best option......

Personally, I would take it up with your retailer and get them to see what the hell is going on. Find out how old your unit is and why you got shipped an old one to start with....

[off_again]

Oh, and the new version of TomTom for the 520 and 720 come with something called MapShare which allows YOU the user to make changes to the maps. You can then even share these with the community of users and get consensus on updates etc. The idea is that it is simpler for a bunch of users to correct maps than rely on a company to do it.

Lets be honest, TomTom recently shipped their 10M'th unit and the users will be travelling and checking things much more often than a company with a few thousand people working for it! TeleAtlas employ people to drive up and down roads across Europe. This is all they do day-in-day-out and they cover hundreds of thousands of miles a year, but even then they still cant cover all the roads.

Mind you, the whole MapShare thing does concern me. I mean, if a campaign to get the religion "Jedi" official recognised on the UK census a few years ago is enough to skew the data, what the hell will happen if a bunch of users get together and start cocking up the maps....

[Raify]

That's a great idea. I could 'delete' roads with speed bumps and update all the 'new' (ie finished 5 years ago) roads.

It'll be like a map printed by Wikipedia!

Oh....

[Mrs Trackside]

off_again said:

loads of relevant stuff

including

off_again said:

just pay the price and get the update.

I don't mind paying a price, but I do mind 40 quid a time for an up-to-date map, especially as they may be updated twice a year.

I am going to write to Tom Tom about this, but I'm going to try it out in France first!

[Mr Sweetchuck]

Why can't they run it like anti virus software - free updates for 12 months and then charge a subscription fee per year for further updates.

Agree with Mrs Trackside - takes the edge of it for me.

[Matt172]

just had a mail from TOM TOM, know its not much, but there is 20% discount on maps at the moment.

the other problem is you need to buy a new memory card too as the upgrade is 1Gb

[mRsTrAcKsIdE]

Matt172 said:

just had a mail from TOM TOM, know its not much, but there is 20% discount on maps at the moment.

the other problem is you need to buy a new memory card too as the upgrade is 1Gb

I've noticed that my Western Europe map (which includes the UK) is the current version. So, in order to have an up to date English map, I need to buy the current UK version! But it is worth noting that I tried out the TT at Le Mans and on one part of the road, that existed LAST YEAR when we went, and probably the year before as well, Tom Tom thought I was in the middle of a field!