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who here HASN'T had a problem with their etrex?


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I had a Venture (actually a Mariner) for a year and sold it to my brother-in-law two years ago. He still uses it with no problems.

 

I had a Legend for a year and half before the display went bad. Garmin fixed it and next-dayed-it to me for free.

 

I gave Dad a Camo three years ago - still no problems.

 

I bought a Vista a couple of months ago with no problems yet.

 

________________________________________________

 

Garmin eTrex Vista, Legend, and GPSmap 162 with Bluecharts/Fishing Hotspots/POI/Road & Rec

 

Ducks - flying geocaches of meat

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Well, I haven't had mine for a year (I don't think), but I live in the climate that would be most abusive to the glue holding the rubber to the unit. I left it attached to the windshield mount most all the time, only adjusting to keep direct sunlight off the LCD when not in use and in the sun. The glue is still holding strong.

 

The only other problem I had was <2 months old when the windshield mount failed (lost suction) and the GPS fell in the mount and hit the little doo-hickey that holds the floormat in place. A nice star crack spread across the entire screen, which Garmin promptly replaced for me.

 

forumsig1.jpg

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Bought my Legend initially for wardriving nearly 2 years ago.. May be longer than that, but I have had no problems with it what so ever. I keep it up to date with latest firmware. I even took it apart to look at its guts and its still working good. Just not as waterproof as it use to be. Bought my bother a legend for x-mas last year and it had problems with the display right out of the box. Exchanged it and his has been working just fine as well.

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I to owned the Venture for over a year and never had a problem with it. I bet if I had not lost it, it would still be working as good as the day I bought it. I also feel I should mention that the one I purchased was the floor model, so you know many folks played with it before I bought it at a discounted price.

 

Kar

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I have an etrex Vista - 380 caches in a year and a half, so it sees plenty of use. I had to send it to Garmin to replace a broken battery clip, but that was a freebie repair. They replaced the entire case, which was nice as the screen had some major dings in it. Recently the screen would go completely blank, unless I turned on the backlight, in which case the screen went completely BLACK. Since it was intermittent, and I could make it happen by tapping the GPS in my hand, I tightened and cleaned the battery terminals - problem solved. Haven't seen a blank/black screen in over a week now. Garmin quoted me a $125 flat rate to fix the screen problem, BTW.

Overall I'm impressed - it's seen hard use, bouncing off rocks, sitting on a hot dashboard, guiding me to caches in the pouring rain and when it was -20F outside. It even got dunked in a stream once and it just keeps going. If it ever decides to die I would not hesitate to buy another Garmin GPS.

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My Vista had black lines in it and the rubber band was loose, but somehow, it has acted normally for some time now. I just checked the rubber band, and it pulls right off. Quite squishy.

 

Had my Vista since July 2001, and I think it is worth fixing, than buying a new one.

 

I might keep it, and sell my Platinum.

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Pictures of the insides of my Old GPS V

My Home Page about what is GPS

Strange

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I've had my Vista for at least a year and have had absolutely no problems with it. But, as long as I have a GPS 12 I don't see any reason to even keep batteries in the Vista. I don't even know where it is. Hope I took the batteries out of it. If both my GPS 12's break or something I may have to try using the Vista. I better go see if I can find it and keep it in shape for a back-up GPS.

 

Of all the things I've lost.....I think I miss my mind the most.

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My first Vista started malfunctioning four months after I bought it due to repeated falls (the unit, not me icon_smile.gif) The store I bought it from replaced it without question and since then my Vista have given me problem free operation for over a year and a half now.

 

Have GPS, Will Travel.

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Had a Legend for 2 years. No probs. My Vista has a line across the top of the display, which occurred after it fell from the roof of my car onto concrete. It's still under warranty, so I'm sending it back.

 

"You can't make a man by standing a sheep on his hind legs. But by standing a flock of sheep in that position, you can make a crowd of men" - Max Beerbohm

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We have 4 Vistas in the family (two for over a year), with no troubles. I keep them all updated with the latest firmware from Garmin.

 

On our summer vacation, we met a couple fromm Canada with a Vista, and the screen went on the fritz while on the road. Tries to re-default the settings didn't help. (It looked like a VGA screen when the monitor guesses the wrong sync settings...) Finally, someone gave it a good,

solid rap against a table, and it looked just fine after that. (If it had been my unit, I might have tried a good rap, but it wasn't mine, so I didn't try it...)

 

Good luck with your, eh? [icon_wink.gif]

 

-Z-

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Had a Summit for a couple years now... Did have one weird problem one time -- unit would mysteriously shut down for no apparent reason while following a route I'd devised and downloaded (from Maptech). Contacted Garmin, but "we can't duplicate it"... Never had another problem, BUT just recently noticed that a recent upgrade "corrected a problem of unit shutting down when points in a route are very close together" (or something like that). Anyway, it described my problem perfectly, and as I said, I've never had another problem. Great little unit, if you ask me....

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