Fuel for Thought

Garmin Desl 560

The Garmin Nuvi 755 that I’ve been using for primary navigation finally became too unreliable for daily work. Last week while trying to input address information for a shipper, the touch screen started misentering the data I was entering, so I gave it notice and ordered the Garmin Nuvi 560. The 560 arrived yesterday, so the 755 is officially in retirement. I’ll keep the 755 as a backup.

I saved about $70 by ordering a refurbished model from an Amazon reseller. Garmin’s desl family of gps caters to larger vehicles like RV’s and trucks, therefore allowing custom profiles that consider vehicle weight and dimensions and creates routes accordingly. The LMT designates “lifetime maps and traffic.”

The 560 is the middle sized desl model which is the size I need. It fits the mount that the 755 used on my dash. The larger, desl 760, would have taken too much dash space. The trade offs in features that I was interested in were the eco route and mile marker information. I want both, but 560 has the eco route, and 760 has mile marker information.

Things that work. This model lets me turn off automatic time zones, so the unit stays on eastern time. It also gives arrival times beyond 24 hours. Both of these settings were misprogrammed on my nuvi 755. I also like the trip planner. I can enter start and end points with waypoints independent of my current location. This feature makes the desl a usable trip planning tool. It will save fifteen of these independent routes.

The less than ideal. Eco route only works in automobile mode. When the unit powers up, there are four nag screens to punch through before getting to the home screen.

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