Anyone who has tried to work with Garmin software knows that it is rather frustrating to say the least. I personally prefer the original Mapsource whilst others say Basecamp is much easier.

Whilst going over our route for the USA tour I noticed a difference in mileage between that shown on my computer and that on the Garmin unit. With all the software up to date and having the same maps loaded on both I could see no reason for this and so rang Garmin USA to see if I could get any answers.

Having waited the mandatory time to get through, they advised me that you must use Mapsource for the older 550 and 660 series units whilst Basecamp for the 590 and newer units.  In all the conversations I have had with Garmin (and there have been many) no one has told me this before.

Just to confirm what I heard I contacted Garmin and asked them if this was correct – see the answer I got below.

'' Hello David,

The Zumo 665LM is not compatible with the Routing Tools in BaseCamp, so if you wanted to create a custom route and send it to the unit you would use MapSource.

The Zumo 590LM is compatible with the Routing Tools in BaseCamp, so you would use it to create and transfer custom routes.

Now given those facts, if you don't want to spend time creating routes in both programs, some users work in BaseCamp to create the route, export it, import it into MapSource, and then transfer it to the Zumo 665.

The instructions for doing that are in the linked document:  Exporting user data from BaseCamp .

I hope this information is helpful.

Thank you for choosing Garmin and have a great day!

Warm regards,

Debi

Product Support - Automotive Team
Garmin International  ''

I did indeed reload the routes in the 660 using Mapsource and sure enough the computer and unit matched.

I actually always do the opposite to what they mention and make my routes in Mapsource, which I find much easier,  then save a copy as gpx files which then opens them in Basecamp. I then check and recalculate for any errors.

If you have lifetime mapping for your unit when you update, update the computer and Garmin unit at the same time and it will update Mapsource/Basecamp maps at the same time.

Hope this helps a little with what I consider rubbish software.