Will say doctor for drive.

Just bought a refurbished 260w on ebay and it came with the most recent updates loaded. I have driven in MIlwaukee and Madison on many roadways and this unit pronounces "Street" as "Street" and "Drive" as "Drive" without any issues at all (it has never said "doctor" instead of Drive). Maybe they have fixed this glitch on their latest released 260's.

I've been going back and forth with Garmin Support on this issue... What follows is the thread of our discussion from latest to earliest. As you can see they are aware of the issue and working it..

Dear PJ,

Please click on the link below to download our WebUpdater program. Once
downloaded, connect the GPS to your computer with the USB cable. Launch
the WebUpdater program to update the GPS software; it will alert you of
any new firmware updates and install them to your device automatically.
After this, agree to the prompt to "Search for additional updates," and
make sure to check for any "Firmware" or "Chipset" files. You do not
need to select the additional voices or vehicle icons at this time;
these are optional.

http://www.garmin.com/products/webupdater/howtoinstall.jsp

This program will be in your program files on your computer in a Garmin
folder. I would suggest that you connect your unit and run the program
at least once a month. It only takes a few minutes to check for
updates.

With Best Regards,

Shari E
Product Support Specialist
Automotive Team
Garmin International
800-800-1020
www.garmin.com

----------------------------------------------------------------

I'm sure the solution is quite simple, but I still find it interesting
that such a simple programming error involving such a very common
map-related naming convention, made it through the product development
and test/debug cycle. I guess given the competitive environment, the
explosive rate of growth in these devices, and the seasonal demand,
there must be great pressure to move a product from development to the
retail shelf as quickly as possible. Still, I'm sure Garmin will move
quickly to fix what some might consider to be an embarassing error which
is no doubt now manifesting itself to thousands of Garmin's new
customers.

Back to the error. According to common usage patterns, 'Dr' as "Doctor"
usually occurs prior to a name in a title such as 'Dr. Smith', whereas
'Dr' as 'Drive' usually occurs after a street name such as 'Sherman
Dr.', although additional descriptive words such as 'east' might follow
in the the later example.

If I were developing the text-to-speech programming, the logic would
interpret 'Dr' to mean 'Drive' by default unless encountered at the
beginning of the text. Then, even if the street were named 'Dr. Smith
Dr.' it would still be prouounced correctly.

As you suggest, updating the map text database to replace 'Dr.' with
'Drive' would also solve the problem and be a quicker fix, but it would
increase the size of the database and make the affected maps more
cluttered and cumbersome to read. Either way, all of the affected users
are going to have to endure the not-so-easy process of registering the
product, iinstalling the various plug-ins and downloading the update.

Thanks again for your follow up. I assume Garmin will notify registered
users when the update is available. Just my observations, no need to
reply. As I said, I love the product.

Thanks,

PJ


From: "[email protected]" <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, January 5, 2009 11:20:11 AM
Subject: Re: Nuvi 260W calls Dr "Doctor"! (KMM11553139I15977L0KM)


Dear PJ,

We are aware of this issue. Basically the text to speech feature is
seeing Dr and reading it as doctor and not drive. The engineers are
working on the issue as well as possibly changing the data on the
mapping.

With Best Regards,

Shari E
Product Support Specialist
Automotive Team
Garmin International
800-800-1020
www.garmin.com

----------------------------------------------

Thanks for the reply.

FYI It makes the same error regardless of the voice I've selected. If
it is a voice issue, then it is common to all the voices I've tried.
Seems like it is programmed to pronounce 'Dr' as "Doctor". Looks like
the text names use 'Dr" instead of "Drive". I'm thinking that if the
text used 'Drive' instead of 'Dr', the word would be pronounced
correctly.

I created a report as you suggested.

PJ

Check for updates at Garmin. It is probably a problem with the software for that model and others are having the same issue. Hope this helps.