Garmin rant has this happened to you?

[Andrew Br]

I'm on my 4th Garmin. I've bought two and had two "warranty" replacements.
My original Etrex (yes, I'm that old) had a battery/circuit board problem.
Garmin acknowledged that and sent me a replacement which had exactly the same problem.

Despite this, I bought an Edge 800.
After a few months, it started "freezing" so that ride info wasn't being recorded; there would be a straight line from where it started its strop to where I noticed it. The track on Garmin Connect was like a rainbow "High above the streets and houses" ...........
The replacement 800 has a different problem (progress from the Etrex days then).

My conclusions:-

• Garmin's designs aren't always that great.
• Their manufacturing quality is suspect.
• They don't sort out their soft-ware before they release new products.
• We do their beta testing.
• When they work, they're great.
• If only they worked more often.
• What else is there ?

.

 

[Keith Oates]

I must admit my 800 packed up on me and since then it stays in the drawer gathering dust !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[bpsmith]

Tbh, my 510 has worked very well aside from the elevation issue. Fingers crossed that the replacement doesn't have different faults.

 

[w00hoo_kent]

What I've found with the car Garmins (I've used Garmins since the Garmin 3 when I was long distance motorbike rallying so I see your Etrex and call it new fangled :-) ) is that the cleverer they make them the more liable to errors they are. I think they have a habit of stuffing too much software in to them and not checking compatibilities particularly well. It's why I'm a bit wary of the 1000 and one of the reasons I went for a Touring Plus rather than an 810.

That said, as a GPS they have always been superior to the other companies out there, they seem to know that bit of the tech. I've always presumed because of their longevity in the field.

I have a lot of dead Garmins (probably more than mobile phones) and view them as kind of consumable hoping to get 5 years out of one. Part of the consolation is that mine have tended to die long enough in to their life to be too obsolete to warrant repairing, I think I've had one die early enough for that. I suppose it's handy that they aren't a necessity.

 

[Dogtrousers]

just a general comment on Garmins ... I've had a 60csx since about 07 and had a 76s for a few years before that. The 60 has taken a lot of punishment without any problem apart from loose battery contacts requiring a bit of packing paper around the batteries. The power switch is beginning to fail so I'm getting an Oregon 600. I'm most impressed by Garmin. Fingers crossed for the Oregon.

 

[John the Monkey]

Only happened when I forgot to press start after a stop or when the ride tcx file was corrupt (which has happened a few times but I have managed to recover it).

Same here (on my Edge 800). I don't always hear the "Movement Detected, Start Timer?" beep.

 

[w00hoo_kent]

just a general comment on Garmins ... I've had a 60csx since about 07 and had a 76s for a few years before that. The 60 has taken a lot of punishment without any problem apart from loose battery contacts requiring a bit of packing paper around the batteries. The power switch is beginning to fail so I'm getting an Oregon 600. I'm most impressed by Garmin. Fingers crossed for the Oregon.

Oh yeah, I might have a fair number of ex-Garmins but I wouldn't buy anything else. I just think they suffer a bit from bringing stuff to market too early.

 

[TheJDog]

Happened on my Bryton when the memory was full - no warning of it, it just didn't record the ride. You also have to plug it in to a PC to delete data. I missed a very important segment up Church Road in Holywood where (I rode a similar time to my chum) I smashed my PR by several minutes. (Church Road is a hill you really don't want to be doing all that often :S)

 

[confusedcyclist]

So completed my first sportive today and using my my trusted garmin 810 i recorded the ride and get home and think right time to upload to strava. On plugging the device into the computer i found that the device randomly recorded just under 4 miles of the ride (not even the beginning of the ride) not the 63 miles i cycled. Frustrated is an understatement as this is my longest ride by 20 miles.

Not quite the same as an expensive garmin failing, however I hate it when I forget to log my commute, usually because I'm bleary eyed and fresh from bed...