Zumo 550 falling apart...

[Pastor John]

The rubber buttons have started falling off of my Zumo 550. I wrote to Garmin and they offered to fix it for $150. Questions to them as to correcting a "manufacturers defect" remain unanswered at this time.

Has anyone else had this happen?  Gotten it fixed? Satisfied?


Thanks in advance...

[Misfit]

I never touch the buttons. I use the touch screen. Am I missing something?

[dreamaker]

Probably the problem is UV, it loves rubber and plastic. My rubber cover for my contacts fell off from the sun. I had a problem with the touch screen and my Zumo was out of warranty and they replaced it at no cost.  I just happened to talk to the right person. Generally they stand behind there product. If you are out of warranty it is hard to say. Now of day things have UV filters in them like plastics, paints and things made to be outside.

Dan

[Serk]

I'm on my 3rd Zumo 550 now... The first one lasted until well after the warranty expired, and then the touch screen started acting up, acted like someone had a fat thumb right in the middle of the thing all the time, made it totally useless...

Called 'em up expecting to get fleeced since it was way outta warranty, and the guy said it was outta warranty, but "For what you paid for that 550, it shoulda lasted longer than that, send it in, and we'll send you a replacement on the house."

Got the new one, it worked great for about 1.5 years... About a month ago the replacement started doing the same thing... Called 'em up, and they said I'm WAY outta warranty, but I fully expected that, they'd already taken care of me once outta the warranty period... They replaced this one for a flat $100 charge... While $100 was more than I WANTED to pay, I use my Zumo so much and rely on it so much as well, it was $100 well spent... Figure I'll start saving my pennies, and when this one dies look at getting one of the newer ones...

IMHO anything made by the hands of man will break, and my Zumos have been used and abused a LOT..... Thousands of miles in the Texas sun, rain, snowed on, dropped a few times, you name it. It's not that something breaks, it's what the manufacturer does when that happens that counts to me, and for me at least Garmin's been more than fair, IMHO...

[Serk]

I never touch the buttons. I use the touch screen. Am I missing something?

The square button (Second from the bottom I believe) is wonderful, it cycles through common screens... So while riding if I wanna get to the MP3 page, I don't hafta (dangerously!) click menu, then try to hit the music icon, etc... I know I just hit the square button 3 times and I'm there, then hit the Back in the lower left and I'm back where I'm at... So yeah, you're missing something IMHO by not using the buttons...

Play with 'em, you'll start to learn the sequences to get to the places you wanna get, and IMHO it's a lot easier and safer hitting those big side buttons a few times as opposed to fumbling through the menus with gloves on.

[Pastor John]

UPDATE>>>>>>>>>>>

A few days after I posted this one of the pins fell out of my cycle mount, taking the sound to the AUX feed with it. I was beginning to think I'd give in and send it in and get everything fixed.

I was poking around on E-bay and found a case (buttons intact) and a new MC cradle. I ordered them both for about $100 total and they came over the weekend. I mounted the new cradle (which also has a rubber cover for the pins that rotted off my first mount in the first three months) and....yup....audio restored. Then I took the unit in the house (much cooler) and sat down at the dining room table and swapped out the faceplate from the case I'd bought.  (The case also came with a fresh battery, BTW.)

It's not "good as new" but it is "functionl as new". I spent $100, didnt pay shipping and wasnt without the unit any time.

YMMV, but as much as I love and use this thing, I've probably bought my last Garmin product.