written by bigphatwhale on 17/06/2009
I have a Nuvi 250 and for one year and a day it woked fine across the UK and on a drive over to the french Alps. However it has now chosen to disengage from the sattelite, I've re-booted without any sucess.
Have tried phoning many times no answer, I actually don't think they have anyone in the UK to help. half a dozen emails and no answer... pretty crap all round. I'm not going to shell out £60 on a map upgrade as I have no confidence the unit will work.
written by Superplonk on 11/06/2009
The Garmin nuvi 660 works reasonably well, not had any unexpected detours.
Map updates expensive and often do not work, check it on google. Paid for lifetime map upgrades and followed instructions to the letter and ended up with corrupted and unusable GPS. As an experienced computer repairer and builder I have some knowledge of these matters however have tried everthing I know and cannot repair map software.
Garmin support in the UK is non existant at the moment; 3 emails unanswered and for a whole week of dialing every couple of hours could not get past "Experiencing higher level of calls at the moment"
There are far better companies supplying sat nav suggest you give Garmin a miss!
written by on 06/06/2009
Garmin Nuvi 660 is not to be trusted - it will randomly take you on detours which will add hours to your journey! Always have a map and a mental idea of your journey before you set off!
This sat nav has performed reasonably well (I have owned mine for about 2years) and it is great for finding houses etc. at the end of your journey. It's also quite good with the traffic updates although not to be trusted !
My main disappointment is the price of the updates. It is cheaper to buy a new sat nav than it is to pay for map and speed camera updates which I can hardly believe! So, be prepared to fork out over £100 a year after purchase and every year from then on to keep up to date!
written by romofsoton on 14/09/2008
My Garmin nuvi 660 started to display intermittent loss of satellite signal after about 14 months. I am disappointed at the way they treat their customers. I purchased this unit for UK £400 because of its rich feature list and so called lifetime traffic updates. The traffic updates hardly ever work, they are absolutely rubbish. The problem with signal loss has become more and more frequent and I have been researching a fix on many GPS websites. I have even backed up the unit and reformatted the internal memory and then re-installed the software but I can't repair the unit. Sometimes it will give me a signal and then, more often than not, it will lose it. I am very frustrated because a GPS unit needs to be reliable, its really annoying when it packs up in the middle of a journey. Garmin refused to look into the problem unless I paid them UK £130, and I have heard that they just send out a reconditioned unit, well the new Garmin nuvi 770 costs only £160 now, but I will never ever buy another Garmin product, its not fit for purpose and, if all the articles I have read on this problem are true, then this is a major fault and Garmin should replace all affected units shipped. I can't offer any bright solutions as I am convinced that there aren't any fixes that work (and I've tried them all), the unit is just not up to the job, it does not do what it says on the box, Ronseal it definitely isn ' t. A very disgruntled ex-Garmin customer. Don't buy a Garmin.
Written on: 16/09/2011
hi the same thing has happened to me no sat signal sent them a email and they gave me stuff to do and then do a reset which made me lose everything that i had stored on it .final i phoned had to wait 45mins be4 getting through and they said to send it back with 42pounds a another unit with 12 months warrenty
written by Mr Pepperman on 02/08/2008
I had my first Garmin Nuvi 660 in December 2006, all was good until the speakers just produced an audible distorted mush, Garmin promptly swapped units at a cost to me p+p but that was ok a new model arrived about a week later, a few months in other problems started, bluetooth sync with phone kept failing meaning had to restart both the phone and the Nuvi, then on start up bluetooth installing new software would come up this would take a few minutes, this happened every time got rather annoying, also the spinning blue balls would appear, contacted Garmin we went through a complete reinstall of unit a couple of times still no joy, so this time drove to Southampton a round trip of about two and a half hours returned with another new Nuvi 660, third time lucky.. unfortunately not after a few months, spinning blue balls, bluetooth sync problems and yet again the speaker failure, have tried to contact Garmin via the U.K. website, through the U.K. press office and the press office in the U.S and no reply. I am not impressed.
Written on: 10/08/2008
Just to update, had a reply from the U.S. press office, and the following day Garmin U.K. contacted me, my nuvi is being returned to Garmin, fingers crossed for better reliability from this new unit.
Written on: 03/09/2008
I am now the owner of a newer model, thanks to the US and the UK press office, they were great and organised the exchange.<br/> <br/>The new unit is superb and fingers crossed all will be well.
written by on 18/06/2008
I know its out of warranty, but 18 months for a piece of kit I think is great, or was, now 400 plus 130 plus 20 say for p & p, works out at about £30 a month, I would love to give it a 10 but 2 is all I can muster, I ' m really disappointed with the time its lasted, and to be told its out of warranty nothing we can do, is it worth the gamble, I ' m going to write to the product support manager at Garmin, Southampton, I will let you know how I go on.
Written on: 02/08/2008
I have just posted my comments about my nuvi 660, I am on my third one in 18 months, now Garmin don't seem to want to reply, to my emails, if you manage to get a contact name please let me know, as just sending a letter to ' The Managing Director' will probably not reach the desired destination, Good Luck.
written by TerenceWatts on 30/04/2008
Garmin have a poor assistance policy; when I finally do get some response from them, they told tell me that the problem is in my PC because of a Java fault - and finally had the unit back to replace it. The second one - and the third - had similar faults. Eventually, there was a screen sharing session in which Garmin could see that my PC would not recognise the unit. Working remotely, their representative reinstalled Java, said that I had to use a different browser because IE 7 wouldn't work with it (nothing about that in their advertising) and installed Firefox. The unit then was recognised and downloaded the database... but returned to no recognition problems only two days later.
This time, Garmin told me that I have a Java problem in my PC and they cant help.
The problem has existed since one month after I purchased the unit in July last year and there is no option of a refund or replacement.
Garmin are disappointing as far as after-sales support I have ever met!
written by dean pedley on 22/03/2008
Superb sat nav 100% recommend. I'm a class 1 lorry driver and the Garmin Nuvi 660 has got me out of more scrapes where normally I might have been lost. Its a cracking system which loads up very quickly indeed. I've noticed recently too that more and more lorry drivers are using sat navs and which one do 99% of lorry drivers I've seen choose the Garmin Nuvi either the 660 or 670.
written by on 12/02/2008
Excellent sat nav system, fully loaded with features.
written by on 23/01/2008
Have Garmin for walking & very good but looks like a tom tom has the features I want & at that price you want it right first time.
written by tonyhic on 22/08/2007
Now that I have the Garmin nuvi 660 I will keep it but if I had known beforehand that it did not warn of exceeding the current road speed limit I would have gone for The TOMTOM units which do give you this option.
written by jalwebster on 03/08/2007
Fantastic screen, easy to see even in bright sunshine. Very easy to use and picks up satellite signal very quickly. Garmin sandbag docking stand a great extra and well worth paying extra for to use system on dash rather than attaching to windscreen. Great for someone with varifocal glasses. Easy to carry around and use on foot as well. Idiot proof, which for the technically incompetent (ie. me) is a huge plus but has additional features to keep the techie amused.
written by cbgledhill on 17/07/2007
As the Garmin Nuvi 660 is one of the most expensive sat nav's on the market I really would have expected better quality sound and this really does let the Garmin n vi 660 down. On the whole, however, I am still impressed with it's navigation capabilities. I was disappointed by Garmin's after sales care - I wrote to their customer services department about the speaker problem and never even received a reply!
If your primary requirement is for a quality sat nav system, then I would recommend this model but if like me you need a handsfree phone system that will enable you to hold a conversation I would recommend that you check out alternatives before buying.
written by AdamoCelo on 23/05/2007
The is Garmin n vi 660 great value for money as its an excellent user-friendly and helpful gadget to have, I even took it out on a walk one time when I needed to get somewhere quickly and had parked my car in the West End. That was unique and very useful!
written by robinhunt on 02/01/2007
As I said, the Garmin Nuvi 660 is the first Sat Nav I've ever owned, so I have nothing to compare it with, but I can't fault it either. The screen's bigger than most, and it is beautifully clear. It's not cheap admittedly, but I can't see any reason why I'd ever need to upgrade to a "better" unit, even if I started to travel across Europe on a regular basis, as it seems to cover just about everywhere, in road by road, street by street minute detail. One big plus it that it contains free upgrades of traffic and speed camera information for the life of the unit, which is a subscription cost on everything else I looked at.
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Bigphatwhale's Comment
Written on: 17/06/2009
I agree with this review because...I've suffered the same frustration