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I Have A Garmin Legend-will It Withstand The Abuse


Team HHD1

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Well, not sure about the Garmin, but my Magellan SporTrak has taken some serious abuse.

- Fall from hand/top of rock/from pocket to ground- 100+ occurances (we don't have much foilage here around Las Vegas, it lands on rocks)

- Fall 60 ft off cliff - 1 occurance

- Fly 50 feet into pile of rocks - 1 occurance (daughter twirling by lanyard and lanyard broke)

 

It still works fine.

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It kinda depends on how hard-core of a dirt biker you are. Perhaps we need to see your resume :unsure:

 

How many end-o's have you had in the past year? > 1 & the Garmin's at risk.

 

How often have you bent the bars or snapped/twisted the clutch or handbrake lever? > a few & the Garmin may be at risk ;)

 

Whenever people hear you're going for a trail ride, do they all show up with lawn chairs & coolers to watch your antics? If so, the Garmin may be at risk :D

 

Bottom line, most any GPSr will cease to function given a firm direct smack with a hard surface, especially if the weight of a motorcycle is pushing it into/onto that surface lol.

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I have been known to do an endoe or two, a possible no hand lander or a can can, superman, one hander, you know the basic stuff... I don't plan to do that stuff while geocaching though, but if the terrain suits the ride then... well, I hope it's a tought gps! lol...

 

I have a handle bar connector for the Legend, I just don't want to vibrate it to death!

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I've taken my Legend snowmobiling. I like to record tracks so I can upload them later to track all the trails we ride. At first I strapped it on the engine cover in front of the handlebars, and it worked fine. But I wasn't real thrilled by how much it was vibrating and getting shaken around on rough terrain.

 

Then one time we were heading out and I realized I forgot to strap it down to the sled. I didn't want to slow down everybody, so I just stuck it in my jacket pocket. I was amazed at how well it worked. I got a very accurate track with plenty of samples. One time I stuck it in backwards, with the antenna facing my body, and I got almost no samples. When I realized this, I turned it back around, and it worked great. Now I just stick it in my pocket. It doesn't get vibrated that way, and it receives a lot less impact on rough rides.

 

So if you have a pocket or can somehow strap it to your arm or chest, you might want to try it. You can even pad it, as long as you don't hinder the little metal square that is the antenna. Good luck and have fun.

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My Vista was dropped and bumped so many times I lost count, and the dog even tried it out as a chew toy one day. Eventually (over 3 years) it started acting up intermittently (blank display, lines, click stick not working, etc.), which turned out to be bad connections between the display/click stick to the electronics. To fix the problem I opened the case, re-seated the ribbon cable in its clamp, sewed it back up and it's been fine ever since. This is the only vibration-related problem I've had with it.

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mine liked to shut off while it was attached to the front rack on my ATV.Called Garmin and they said that the batteries are possibly vibrating loose. I put a piece of foam in between the batteries and the cover to help. I like the pocket idea. I'm going to try that

Edited by Repod
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I wear my Garmin Venture around my neck using the standrad lanyard while riding my Dirtbike. I usually wear a t-shirt and a jacket or sweatshirt. I tuck the GPSr between the two shirts to keep it from flying around as I'm navagating the rocky/muddy trails around New England. I usually get fairly good satellite coverage this way with few if any droputs. I obviously can't look at the GPSr while riding this way, but I'm supposed to be paying attention to the trail anyway.

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Many have said what their Legend survived; I'll say what mine didn't survive. It fell off of the seat of a golf card onto the blacktop cart path. This it may have survived, what I think really killed it was subsequently being run over by said golf cart. :laughing: It may have done better if the screen weren't against the pavement. I found it with a cracked screen and case, but based on the parts of the screen that were still functioning the guts were still working. When I connected it to a pc it all the electronics worked. So basically the screen was killed but everything else was good.

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I have a legend, that died, the screen went south, but until that time it took all sorts of abuse. Dropped, steped on ( I think the stepping did in the screen ),got it good and wet. I think you'll find anything that might harm the Garmin, will also harm you. Be careful, you can break too.

 

By the way Gaarmin wanted to charge me $250.00 to replece the screen, a new one was selling for $159.00. Hmmmmmmmmmm. So I spent the $250, but bought a 60 CS instead. Its great, keeps a signal to.

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> By the way Gaarmin wanted to charge me $250.00 to replece the screen,

 

$250!?!? When I had my screen replaced there was a flat refurbish fee of $99. What Garmin actually did was to take my unit transfer all the data to a different unit (I can only assume that it was a return or they have a pool of units that have been repaired that it was grabed from) and sent me a completely different unit than I sent in. I know it wasn't mine because the serial number was different and there were some topo maps loaded on it which I didn't have on mine.

 

What the heck are they going to do for $250??

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