Wow, just watched another bug-thread on the German board:
With active Smartlink the XT recalculates an active route forcebly over receiving a [blocked road warning] without even prompting the user; in doing so it ignores all set shaping points and routing preferences given in the settings menu, hence ruining the entire route shipping you off to the motorway etc...
That seems about right.
If you have the traffic receiver turned on, I think it assumes that you want it to route you around any build up of traffic. If you turn the option off, then it won't. There are a number of settings realting to Traffic; Current Provider; Subscriptions; Optimise Route; Traffic Alerts.
I suspect - but it is difficult to prove one way or the other - that the rider's profile that is built up over a number of rides, is used in a similar way. If the route gets the chance to recalculate it takes into account the riders perceived preference for certain types of roads. I believe that this is built up from the track logs - not the ones that you have deliberately recorded, but from the Travel History Setting - Settings->Device->Travel History
You can turn this off, but it will not then keep a track of where you have been. Personally, I like to have this as a record - I download the GPX files and they will plot onto OS maps or into Basecamp maps. Its very handy for remembering where I went on those long tours. But it can be cleared out - either by deleting the gpx file, or by using the Rest menu item - just under Travel History. If I go on a long trip, I'll download my old tracks and clear them all out, so that my riding in towns etc does not affect how the satnav routes me on tour.
But I do feel that the XT has gone a number of steps too far with this kind of stuff. It has a brilliant bright screen and a battery that lasts significantly longer than the 59x models (Ie a few hours rather than a few minutes, which is when my 590 dims itself). But much of the later stuff is a step in the wrong direction. One nice feature of the 595 was the live track facility. Start a trip and it will cause an email to be sent to everyone that you set up previoulsy containing a link to a website that contains a live map of where you are now. The XT doesn't have this unless you buy the satellite device - for some serious money.
I would take things that people say on other forums with a big dose of salt. It is very easy to blame the software for something that the Zumo seems to be doing, but it takes quite a bit of testing and teasing out what it is actually doing, and not many people are prepared to do that. I'm intrigued by the suggestion that avoiding traffic cuts out ALL of the shaping points on the route. Or does it actually miss the ones where the traffic is, or the ones up until the next Via Point. Knowing precisely what it does will help when planning a route in the first place.
@ST1100Y - would you mind PMing me the website address please ? I'll see if I can find out. I posted some stuff on one of the German sites a while back, and some of them will know me from that.
Personally, I loved the 660LM - it behaved sensibly and logically, and it was most forgiving when you went off route. People didn't like the fact that it would allow you to take the wrong route in a figure of 8 route - but you had to be half asleep to let it do that. But it was low on memory and it was slow. But is was an excellent bit of kit otherwise.
