Garmin Nuvi woes :(

[CodyRoxGeo]

Having troubles with my lovely pink Garmin Nuvi 250 that gets me to cache site before I start using eTrex Legend. On a road trip 2wks ago I looked up and the screen was a thick smokey grey/white and I couldnt see anything. It is now 5 days shy of the 1yr warranty. I've been to Garmin.com and looked thru FAQ and no help there also called supports 800# and says I'll have a 35min wait for the next available person grrrr. Emailed them last week and they told me to call 800# grrr

 

I've also read that they will want me to send my unit to a repair centre in Quebec which I keep reading DO NOT DO THIS as they are terrible and will keep the unit for a months and it still won't come back fixed.

 

Can anyone out there tell me maybe how to fix or reset my unit or where I SHOULD send my unit or a better number to call tech support.

 

Thank you ....Roxanne

[CodyRoxGeo]

UPDATE: Finally got thru to Garmin support after waiting on hold for 15min for them to give me the phone # of Raytek? in Quebec (because Im in Canada) who does repair work. I thought I was on hold to get an RMA#?? The man walked me thru a "master reset" that did nothing

 

Anyways I called Raytek and got thru right away and spoke with a nice woman who is emailing me a form to fill out and send with my unit. They apparently will replace with a REFURBISHED unit... not too sure about that. They have them in stock and when all is said and done I should get it back in the mail 4wks from today....we'll see skeptically optimistic.

[-Oz-]

I have a refurbished (US) unit that works great... so I wouldn't fret about that too much.

[+jmd65]

I wouldn't be afraid of a refurbished device. I have frequently bought iPod refurbs and a few other factory rebuilt electronic items and I haven't been able to tell the difference from a new unit.

 

jmd65

[+DavidMac]

I've used refurbished units (sent directly from Garmin to replace GPS under warranty) and they're generally fine and seem to be no different from a newly purchased unit. The only exception I've seen is one Colorado they sent me had a few light scuffs on the plastic casing (but was still better in appearance than the one I sent them).

 

You may want to check to see whether your warranty will be extended to cover the refurb. Here in the states if you are within 90 days of your warranty expiring, Garmin will extend your warranty to 90 days from the date on which they ship the new one. I think this is because several states have laws which require this. Canada may be different, and you'll want to check that if they extend the warranty, they do so from the date that they ship it back to you (four weeks? Seems like a long time ), not the date of the RMA.

[CodyRoxGeo]

My understanding is that the refurbished unit will have a 90 day warranty on it and I'm assuming that date begins when they ship it out to me.

Yes 4wks, but from what I've heard that is good for Raytech as I've been hearing they seem to have peoples units under repair much longer than that.

I'd really like to know what made my screen do what it did.

[pkdmslf]

If you purchased/installed newer maps, you may want to save all of your current Nuvi files to your computer to upload to your replacement unit when you receive it.

[CodyRoxGeo]

...and my woes continue!!! (unit sent off yesterday) Well I had presence of mind enough to write down for Raytech that I had software version 4.10 in my unit thinking they would make sure one came back to me that way. Shortly after I got my Nuvi I was away on a trip and staying in a hotel with highspeed and loaded my free one time only map update. That took all night long to do on high speed. Here at home I am on dial up!!

 

I didn't even realize I could take the map software and load it back into my computer???? I'm going to loose my mind if it doesn't come back to me with maps loaded in it.