You know there’s a petrol station somewhere near the end of your route but you to fill up earlier than that.
Pretty much all TomTom’s should have pre-loaded “Points of Interest” files (POIs). These are categorised groups of locations that TomTom thinks could be useful to you. A bit like permanent “Favourites”, already chosen for you. If you’ve noticed little icons on your TomTom as your driving along, they will be markers indicating these POIs. One of the POI categories is Petrol Stations. The icon looks like this.
Find a Petrol Station – Method 1 – “Ad hoc”
This one’s pretty obvious, but probably only going to yield results if you’re in a town/village/more built up area and travelling relatively slowly. Just keep an eye out for the Petrol Station symbol on your TomTom, and then head towards it.
The example below shows my TomTom following a route, as indicated by the red road. To the left, the, off of the planned route, is a Petrol Station icon
Simply peel off of your planned road, and head towards the point where you can see the icon, and you should find petrol. When you’ve filled up, you don’t need to do anything to your TomTom or the itn file you are following to get back on track. Your TomTom will automatically have replanned your route, from your petrol stop, back to towards the next Waypoint.
Should you be stopped (lights/jam, etc.) and want to quickly see if there’s petrol near you, using this method, but looking a bit wider than the view currently on screen, press the “ – “ (minus) symbol in the top right hand corner of your screen. This temporarily “zooms out”, allowing you to see more of your surroundings, and possibly locate a petrol station. You don’t need to “zoom in” again, your TomTom will do that automatically after a few seconds.
Find a Petrol Station – Method 2 – “Planned”
So what if you’ve tried Method 1, or you’re in the middle of nowhere and so that isn’t really helpful, or you want a bit more control over where you get your petrol from?
Again, you don’t need to do anything with the itn file you are following. This will stay “loaded”, and active, whilst you find petrol, which you do firstly by going to the “Navigate To” menu
Press “Point of Interest”
You will most likely see different sub menu options to me, these change according to if and how you have used Points of Interest before. But, you should always see the “POI near you” option in the top left hand corner, press that (or indeed any of the POI on/near/along options will do if for some reason POI near you isn’t available)
Ignore the sub menu options that now appear, again these can be different each time you get to this point according to your previous POI usage.
Press the forward arrow
That will take you to the list of POI categories on your TomTom, in alphabetical order. Either press the down arrow to view and scroll up/down through the whole list, or press the first letter of the category name to jump forward/back,
and then press the down arrow to view the whole list. Press Petrol stations
According to how up to date your TomTom’s software is, this will either take you straight to a list of petrol stations, in order of distance from your current location (older software) or, if you have the latest software and/or subscribe to TomTom’s fuel price updates, you will see another menu like or similar to the one below
“Find by Distance” returns a list of petrol stations sorted in distance order, as per older TomToms, but with price as well. The other options return the same list, just sorted differently. The list shows the “brand”, so you can judge if you can make it to a BP/Shell, etc., if you need to increase your likelihood of get super unleaded for example. “Unknown” brands, when you’re in the back of beyond, could well be single pump, attendant manned stations with a low turnover/small capacity. We have come across these a number of times on Road Trips. Bear that in mind as well. Scroll up and down until you find what you want, and then press your selection
You will get a preview of your choice’s location, press Select
And your TomTom will then go through the usual remaining navigation screens, i.e. route type (fastest, etc.). The time/distance countdown shown now will relate to your petrol location. Follow your new route and get your petrol.
With this method of finding petrol, it is important that you pass through the destination that your TomTom has navigated to. If you do that then, just the same as the way it would do for the first method, your TomTom will automatically resume navigation using the itn that you were following when you broke off for petrol, directing you initially to the first unvisited Waypoint/Destination. The time/distance countdown will revert to relating to the first Destination in your itn.
What happens if you cannot pass through the petrol station destination (for example, this might be right where they’ve closed one of the pumps) and your TomTom cannot automatically resume the itn?
Go to the Itinerary Planning menu option and press it
Your part complete itn will appear. Just press “Done”
your TomTom will then go through the usual remaining navigation screens, and you’ll be back on track.
A Word About Petrol Stations if You Haven’t Updated For a While/Ever
Petrol stations have closed over the past couple of years, particularly in more rural locations. If you don’t connect your TomTom to the internet, via TomTom Home, and update it and it’s map, or haven’t done so for a while, then your petrol station info. will be out of date. When selecting your choice of station, if using method 2, bear this in mind if you intend to head to what could likely be a “single pump” venue. If you get there, and can’t see it, that’s probably why. This might inform your choice in the first place.
