I have a 2009 superb elegance 170BHP & I am now towing a caravan with it.  The columbus sat nav is great, no problem normally, but regardless of selecting fastest, shortest or most economical route it will want to take you down a single track road, which of course is not much good when towing a caravan.  Been caught a couple of times, but managed to escape unscathed, so I keep a careful watch on the good old paper map and check the turnings before committing.

 

Probably not possible with this unit but does anybody know if there is a way of getting into the menu to prevent it from selecting single track and unadopted roads/lanes?

I haven't met any satnav with this option - hoping someone has! 

 

 

PS When we had Landies and our young daughter was getting to grips with OS maps, I used to let her do the holiday cross-country navigating.  She had a preference for just such roads as you now want to avoid!  But we never got stuck.....quite :peek:

I tow too with a 170TDi 4x4, regardless of what people say I love the Columbus SatNav too, unfortunately I dont think there is a way of setting it too avoid these types of roads, only thing I do when towing is check the route on Google maps before I go as they are normally very simular and if I see something that could be a problem is avoid it and let the SatNav reroute, also if the SatNav tell you its rerouting due to traffic listen too it, when I first got mine l was sceptical of this as I couldn't see the problem, I ignored it and then found the traffic around the next corner! lol saying that this feature is great for normal driving but I'd be wary when towing as it could inadvertently take you down the type of road you wanted to avoid!

Edited 9 October, 201411 yr by bryanp

You could try the nav free sat nav app on your phone, and select one of the larger vehicle types in the settings:

Edited 9 October, 201411 yr by JakeBlade

I normally only use Columbus as well and not had any problems so far . But also have Co-pilot on my smartphone which I can select RV Mode for. Then it picks routes on major roads and tries to avoid back roads or excessive turns.

I also tow and tend to find the route I want on Google then manually add way-points if necessary on the Columbus.  Common sense also helps and if I decide that I don't want to follow it's instructions when on the road I find it pretty quick at re-routing me.

 

Like every SatNav I've tried though the "make a u-turn" prompt can grate after the first half a dozen repetitions...

Single track roads,what a nightmare ! when towing or driving large vehicles.

 

I have used sat nav products from www.hgvsolutions.com    the procab range,i don't know if they are still in business but they have saved me many a nightmare.

 

I am not advertising or recommending the above company.

 

James.

There are aftermarket satnavs available for wider vehicles as I researched some for my sister when she had a large camper van. Try Garmin and Tom-Tom as a first pass. 

The Snooper Ventura is advertised every month in the Caravan Club magazine as being caravan specific. Bit spendy though!

You can use the following menus to choose roads you want to or do not want go on.

Tour Mode                                                                        Page 34 Columbus manual (11:2013)

Waypoint Mode                                                                Page 34l35 Columbus manual (11:2013)

Manually Exclude stretches of your journey                     Page 35 Columbus manual (11:2013)

 

I have used Tour Mode several times and Waypoint Mode several times.

They are not easy to set up first time but after many trips it becomes easy.

 

Manually Exclude can be used but so far have not tried it.

 

I always carry a latest Road Atlas ( at one time I taught map reading and Marine Navigation ) a few minutes looking at your route in an Atlas

will show you all the best routes for towing which you can then set in your Columbus or if the Columbus wants you to turn off agood road

ignore it and the Columbus will then re route you in normally 10 seconds. I am on my 5th. Skoda with Columbus and it is as good as any

other Sat Nav on the market. Sat Nav should be used as an assistance relying on any Sat Nav alone is ridiculous.

 

............... Skoda with Columbus and it is as good as any other Sat Nav on the market. Sat Nav should be used as an assistance relying on any Sat Nav alone is ridiculous.

Agree.  On my way to Dover from Brecon recently, I set Columbus for the journey - I know the way but it's useful for the ETA and also if there are problems and we're sent off the motorway, it'll take over and give us an alternative route.

 

On this journey, it was fine all the way except for only a few miles from home in Bwlch on the A40.  It told us to turn right down the old main road that has signs prohibiting all motor vehicles except for access!  A new road taking the traffic away from this steep and narrow short stretch of road is on the Ordnance Survey map of 1923, so goodness knows how long it's been open and this road hasn't been built since v10 (my current version) maps! 

Hi all.

In settings there is reference to using a trailer. We set it a few weeks ago and assumed it was not much good as it did not seem to make any difference to the route. We looked the other day and it was not set so would assume you have to set it for each new route. Has anyone tried this and does it make a differences?

 

[EDIT] Ah just seen the original post date! However:-

 

I love my Tomtom 5200, even with this car one you can avoid unpaved roads etc. However there is also a large vehicle version:-

 

https://www.tomtom.com/en_gb/sat-nav/truck-sat-nav/products/go-professional-6250/

 

Edited 19 May, 20188 yr by bigjohn
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