Garmin Zumo 550 will not power up in the cradle

I had mine (550) poop out. The battery was flat and while it was in the cradle, it would get to the 'warning' screen and then go black. I called garmin and they told me to press on the bottom right of the touch screen (fairly hard) and then press the power button while keeping pressure on the lower right hand corner of the touch screen until a white screen popped up asking me if I wanted to reset the system. Of course I did since it was useless otherwise. It works fine now. It will wipe out everything you have but otherwise, what's the point of having it. So... that's my experience.

It was reset and the customer service lady was great. Of course, I live 8 minutes from them and that's too close for a disgruntled consumer so they may have been extra nice.

That worked

I had the same problem and determined that it was not the cradle. Tried charging through the USB on computer - no luck. Tried zoom and power reset - no luck. Removed battery as suggested - love you guys! I'm leaving on a 30 day trip in less than two weeks and did not need this problem right now! Thanks to all on this forum!

You guys rock!!! The wife and I are leaving in two days for a ride thru Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont. Removing the battery did the trick for me as well.

I'm on my second Zumo after using the $150 repair option when the first one failed a few years ago. My second one just failed as well I had basically every problem listed in this thread. I tried every solution with no improvement to my situation until I manually deleted all the files Garmin itself which cleared whatever failure was occurring internally.

My device would't start up regardless of power supply. On the cradle it would show the splash screen then shut down. If I tried the lower right hand corner hard reset I would get tot he point where I could see the button to erase the data ten it would quit.

The only way to keep it seemingly alive was to hook it up to USB power but in that case I would see the butting but could not interact with them at all. The 550 wasn't being recognized by my computer because it was locking up at 1% on the initial data mode screen where it tries to save the .gpx files. The cancel button on the touch screen would't work but I realized that the "-" hard button on the side would activate the cancel button.

Once that was cancelled I was still not able to see the device on the Garmin software (updater, Express, etc.) but I could see it in Finder (Mac version of "my computer"). So I went into it there and copied all the files to my hard drive then deleted EVERYTHING off the 550. You will NEED the "GarminDevice.xml" file later so make sure you copy everything and pay attention to the file structure that that file comes from.

Then I removed the SD card and power cycled the 550 and got it hooked back up to the computer. At this point the Garmin software won't recognize it as anything but the device has its own built in firmware that will create some folders in its own memory and bring the splash screen back. The key folder it creates is called "Garmin"

Once it was hooked back up I went back to Finder/My Computer and added the "GarminDevice.xml" that I copied earlier back to the Garmin folder now showing up inside the 550 which shows up as "Garmin" in finder.

Once i did that the unit would fire back up normally on internal or external power and it hooked right back up to all the Garmin software. Once that happens you just need to put the SD card back in and rebuild the maps on the device or the sim card the way you had them previously. Hopefully at some point previously you backup up your trails, routes, waypoints and such in one of Garmins software applications. If so they are easy to rebuild. If not, you can pull then directly back out of the files you backed up on the PC but you also risk importing whatever the conflict was that caused the initial crash.

Hope that helps folks out and saves a few people $150.

I've had a 550 for 7 years now and have found it to be pretty reliable except for an initial failure the year I bought it. The unit failed completely in OK. in 2008, Garmin sent me a new one while I holed up in Trinidad, CO waiting for fellow riders. One thing I have learned is the contacts WILL corrode if you have a hot cradle (power on all the time). Moisture will allow current to leak to adjacent pins and eventually the electrical path will eat the pins away or degrade them to the point of failure to power up. The best thing you can do is take an acid brush and paint the pins with dielectric grease, push the pins down to get the grease into their receptacles and wipe off the excess. Interestingly, I had a failure to power up yesterday while 4x4'ing in Ocala Nat'l Forest. Pushing power on and the plus or minus button simultaneously will get her up and running. Final thought: determine if your cradle is working by using a voltmeter. Ground one lead to the frame and "find" voltage by touching each pin with the other lead with the ignition on if you have a "switched" cradle. If all pins have zero voltage, obviously the cradle is dead either by a broken lead to the battery or failed cradle pin.

I had problems with mine charging. It kept either "flickering" between charging and not, or outright not charging. I cleaned the cradle and 550 with wd-40 and then put dielectric grease on both and never had a problem again.
Also agree with the pull battery trick. For awhile, I'm assuming it was fixed with a download patch, the damn thing was locking up every couple days. Then it just stopped locking up and works fine.

I'd occasionally had trouble with my Zumo 550 in the car mount, and (rarely) in the motorcycle mount. All I had to do was run my finger along the spring-loaded pins on the mount and wipe the contacts on the bottom of the unit and it would work. No cleaners of lubricants required, though I might have soon put a little contact cleaner on a microfiber cloth to get the pins and contacts clear of my finger oils.

I LOVE THIS WEBSITE!!! My 10-year old Sumo 550 locked up dead after coming in to Uyuni, Bolivia off the Salar de Uyuni, and a quick search led to this thread. I pulled the battery and reinstalled after an anxious minute, it fired right up. Whew! In Latin American cities, we depend heavily on it to find where the hell we are trying to go, such as a hostel or whatever. Those who have done the same will know why I was sweating this so bad. Thanks ADV!

Keith and Jalene
www.southonabike.com

Nice!

Did you have to buy new maps for SA? Going there next year.

Jean-Francois

I had the problem that my Garmin Zumo 550 would not charge in the car mount. The Zumo would charge in my motorcycle mount. I bought a new cord that went to the cigarette lighter and still no charge.
After reading many posts on the Internet of similar problems by many customers, it seemed many people sent their unit back to Garmin or bought new mount.

Here is what I did to fix my problem.

Prior to this procedure I did clean all the pins on both the mount and the Garman with circuit cleaner and a brush and that did not fix the situation. The problem was some very slight corrosion on the flat ribbon wire that feeds the pins on the car mount.

Peel back rubber cushion on bottom of mount.



Remove two Philips screws and remove cover plate exposing the connector and ribbon.



Gently pull the connector and ribbon apart leaving the ribbon on the mount.




Clean the Ribbon and connector with circuit cleaner spraying the connector cavity that accepts the ribbon. And work the spring-loaded pins on the other side while wet with circuit cleaner.




Reassemble make sure you seat the Terminal lock with the ribbon back in position and the connector centered. Rubber Cement the rubber pad on and you should be good to go.

Well done, Bville227!
Don't forget to take your BMW guy along, just in case ... :)

Hi Gang,
My Zumo 550 was on its last legs with the chip. Sent it to PalmDr. They fixed it in one day ($59). That was in 2014...so now, its FUBAR again. I've tried the resets, the battery, tried to get an update for it via GarminExpress, checked voltage to the cradles(3 of them) all to no avail. So I guess I'll ship it back off to the PalmDr and see if they can get er' up and running again. Stay tuned.
BG