Garmin Schmarmin
January 6, 2008
So my wife was nice enough to get me a GPS for Christmas. This was a really welcome gift, as I have a terrible sense of direction and get lost readily. I also travel a fair bit, and have this long, involved ritual of researching and printing out the directions to every drive I will have to make on my trip. From the airport to the hotel, from the hotel to my client’s building, from my client’s building to the hotel, and so on. So I was thrilled to get a GPS, a Garmin c530.
Two days after Christmas, I took it on some local errands and then used it on a drive out to my brother’s house a few towns away. I was looking forward to the drive home, when I would let the Garmin guide me instead of taking the same, somewhat roundabout way I have always taken to and from his home. Back in the car, I plugged in the Garmin and… nothing. I checked to make sure the power adapter was correctly plugged in. I let it sit for a while. Tried it again. Nothing. I got home, read the manual, tried a few more things. Nothing.
So I plug “Garmin c530 failure” into Google and look what the very first post, in a forum on Amazon, tells me:
Santa brought this unit for my wife. Worked excellant (sic) for a few hours, then died. Acted like the battery went dead and charger wasn’t working. Fuse checked OK. Returned unit to Amazon and the problem was handled quickly and painlessly. Amazon shipped a new unit immediately. This new unit worked one month and died. Acted just like the frst failure. Amazon has advised that the problem is more wide spread than first thought and has offered a full refund.
Oy vey.
As if this review isn’t damning enough, check out the date—Feb 5, 2007(!).
So this was a widespread problem almost a year ago, and the company is still shipping these turkeys? How is that even possible?
We took it back to Sears. They were great, provided an immediate refund, and we got a TomTom One XL. So far, I am really pleased with it.
Posted by Bill Trippe at January 6, 2008 8:30 PM
