So rode through monsoonal rain event coming back from Barber Vintage Races.:dog Apparently my old 550 has developed a leak and is now not working correctly. It still powers up, but the screen is very light, basically unreadable. Anyone had this problem and fixed it? I know I can send it off to Garmin and spend the 150.00 for a refurb. But, being the cheapskate that I am, I was hoping to try and fix it myself. Does this sound like a digitizer replacement screen would fix it or am I doomed to send this off to Garmin. By the way, it looks like water entered through one of the buttons, so those need to be waterproofed too. Any ideas as to how to fix would be appreciated.
Spend the $150. Imagine that pretty soon 550's will no longer be available for replacement. Buttons not available unless you buy another unit and scavenge parts off it. Sure,you can replace the screen/digitizer,with no guarrantee that would fix the problem.But for under $30 you could find out. If you had water intrusion,more than that could be damaged. JR356
Just my 2cents: A couple of times I have warmed up an oven and put a water logged cell phone or gps in and it worked to dry it out. Not hot, just warm. This is an old sailors trick for drying out wet electronics on a boat! Good luck. If it doesn't work, I would seriously consider the $150 exchange considering the original cost of the unit.
Well, I tried a similar trick. Used the wifes hair dryer. Still the same. I guess the damage is done. I'll be sending it off to Garmin on Monday.
Just so everyone knows, Garmin is no longer accepting non working zumo 550s for repair/swap. They say they are out of them. They offered me 20% off any of their new units.
Stick it in rice for a couple for a day! It will absorb any moisture Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
Yeah, by the time I discovered the malfunction the damage was done. No amount of rice was going to fix it. Sent the unit out to Chris Short in MN. He is refurbing it. New digitizer/screen, and reseal buttons 100.00. Not bad as Garmin is no longer servicing these. We'll see how it turns out, should get it back next week.
A friend of mine has a Zumo 220 and it started malfunctioning after riding through a heavy rain storm. Upon trying to get a replacement from Garmin, the company fought him hard stating, while water resistant, they do not state the unit is water proof. He actually made them change their labeling of the Zumo line but won his case and got a new one. However, with that noted, if you should get your unit to work properly once again - the go forward solution - a Ziploc sandwich bag. Put it over your unit - no matter how lightly it is raining. only way to protect them from having this happen and avoid the cost of more expensive rain proof covers. Good luck - hope you can get it fixed. They're great units otherwise.
I've not ever had a problem with this device. I got one of the early units and have used it for many years. The problem with mine stemmed from the buttons. They will lose their waterproof abilities over time. Mine actually gave me a warning and it's my fault for not heeding it. The screen button on the left side looked like it had moved about a month ago. If I would have investigated it further instead of ignoring it, I would have found out that it could have been fixed easily. At the time it didn't even occur to me that moving button = water intrusion . But you are right Dualsport Chic, a ziploc bag will be carried from now on. I do believe the water entered the gps while the bike sat outside overnight, not while moving though.
Sorry this is so late. So I received my zumo 550 back from Chris Short. It was a quick turn around. He replaced the digitizer/screen, replaced the internal battery, and resealed the buttons. Cost was 112.00. The unit functions and performs as new. I've had a chance to use it most of the week on the bike and I'm happy with the results. His contact info is : http://palmdr.com/cart/index.php?main_page=page&id=1 Please note he doesn't guarantee the unit to be waterproof when he's done. However, I got MY GPS back not a trade in.
