Magellan RoadMate 9270T-LM Review

This is a car GPS that was labeled by Magellan as truck GPS. It has very few truck-specific features and the routing is very inaccurate for trucks. It tells you to take U-turns as if that was possible in a semi, it doesn’t recalculate routes and it takes you restricted roads. I can’t trust this unit.

I drive a semi full time and for the last year I have been using a regular Roadmate 3120-MU. This is the lowest priced model Magellan makes for passenger cars. It had no special options and would route you down side streets and roads where trucks are prohibited if you didn’t watch it. It still got me where I was going though and with a little common sense was pretty useful. Once it finally gave out I decided to go ahead and shell out the cash for a truck GPS. I went with the Magellan Roadmate 9270-LM for all of the additional routing and tracking options it includes. I was extremely let down by what I got for the extra $300.
First it was slow. I don’t mean just powering on or loading. There is a delay of 2+ seconds between touching the screen and the unit registering it. This makes every task beyond frustrating. It honestly seems like they took the internals out of their cheapest car model and tried to run 10x the software on a larger screen.
Second the latest map updates are years out of date on their information. This makes routing unreliable at best and dangerous at worst. There are entire roads and interchanges which are not even on the map and have been constructed for years. Even when it does have the correct roads it will do things like route you off a ramp down 20 miles of back roads and then back onto the same highway you just left ten exits up.
Finally the additional truck specific features I bought it for are worthless. When you turn it on it asks you for your truck info and to reset your logs. Once all of this is tediously set up, thanks to the crappy touch response, it forgets all of it. It routes me down the same number of small side streets and prohibited roads as my 3120. On top of all of this it will have many normal roads marked as prohibited and once you start driving down one of these mislabeled roads it will start having a U-turn fit. This very quickly overwhelms the inadequate processor and the whole unit has to be hard reset before it will unfreeze. Then you are back to square one entering information and setting up a route for another 15 min.
My advice is to either spend slightly more and get a real truck model or save a bunch with a cheap car GPS. Either way you will get better results.

There really isn’t much point developing a GPS for truckers and marketing it as having all these truck specific features when they don’t work. Marketing alone is not worth the premium price and a larger screen. That is really all you get with the Roadmate 9270T-LM. The maps are badly out of date even after updating the unit. The truck info apparently plays no part in figuring a route. And many roads are mislabeled as prohibited when they are not or vice versa. There is nothing about this product to justify the 350 dollar price tag. Magellan needs to start over from scratch with their commercial units and get some decent software.

I bought this thinking it would be a nice tool to have trucking around the country. I have been driving big trucks for over 40 years and this is the biggest waste of money I have ever walked into. The routes it chooses are absolutely unworkable even after setting up a truck and load profile and updating the software. It will still route you through restricted areas and residential streets and even when it doesn’t do that it takes the LONG way to get anywhere. There is no rerouting feature so if you don’t follow its directions it will just keep telling you to make a U-turn. It will keep doing this even when you are 30-40 miles past where it wanted you to turn. It suggests things like passing an on ramp for the interstate on your right then make a U-turn and come back and turn left onto the ramp you just passed. If the directions weren’t bad enough, who in the world programmed a truck GPS to suggest legal U-turns as a way to navigate? It is not exactly easy or really even possible to make a U-turn with a semi-trailer especially in busy areas. Seriously a paper map would serve you better since it would at least be likely to have most major roads and highways on it.

To begin with this thing is a hassle to get set up and updated from Magellan’s website. Once you get past that headache the real fun begins. My very first trip it routed me under a bridge with only 11 feet of clearance despite my having set up my truck profile as being well over that height. I called Magellan and they said they would get back to me. A couple of days later I get an email that pretty much says “our bad. We will mark that bridge for update in the software. Even after updating my unit a couple more times it is still not changed. It feels like they just programmed the appearance of trucking features over their regular GPS software and never worried about whether they function or not. This thing is completely unreliable and any company that would sell a product this problematic is not worth your time, trust, or money.

I like this nav unit even though the first one I received was defective and had to be returned to the manufacturer. I always register my products with the manufacturer as soon as I get them. It makes the claims and support process so much easier. Once I realized there was something wrong and called Magellan the whole process was smooth and simple. Since receiving my replacement unit, I have not ran into any problems. Everything works as advertised and the GPS is easy to use and configure. I do recommend reading the instructions fully and registering with Magellan. Registering is the only way to get the free lifetime map updates and speeds up the process if you ever need to call tech support. I recommend both this product and company as my experience with both has been great.

Horrible GPS. Will send you the wrong way then turn you around. Even getting on the interstate! Map up dates are wonky and unstable. Customer support is a joke. Basically your talking to a call center somewhere in India and they dont have a clue. Impossible to get the US support.

Unit crashes and will dispay low memory. This unit is the same as the others. The only difference is the screen size. Magellin also refuses to support their other modles once the release a new one. My other gps was only 2 years old and they said they dont support it any more. Bought the new one…..did all the stuff I stated above. Returned it and got my money back. I will get a garmin. Garmin also has state side support.