Garmin Edge 520 owner adds to criticism of firm’s out of warranty support

Hmmm, a warranty is there for a reason... how many of us have ever bothered to read the terms and conditions of a new product warranty. In my experience Garmin have been excellent with service. I had a three year old 500 that simply stopped finding satellites. Sent it to Garmin and they sent me a replacement free of charge. Can't complain about that.

Batteries are a relatively easy fix, no need to throw away that 520...

Yikes! The amount of people here who don't understand a warranty period....

I get it if these complaints are had of a company within the warranty period, but outside that you are lucky they've even given a discount on a new unit. Their legal obligation to you has been fulfilled, and al this talk about wahoo, they will do the same. Not sticking up for Garmin, my 820 is atrocious, but that's life. Product longevity wise, never expect anything outside of warranty from any company. How is it financially viable to support hardware indefinitely? Get a grip....move on. If you want more support, look for a third party retailer who offers extended warranty plans and pay more initially. 

Sorry to sound harsh, but some people need to be brought back to reality. Enough of this fake news. 

Unfortunately,it has become acceptable to give poor service in the tech industry. It's very lazy. No instruction manuals,poor backup,poor service and 12-24 month warranty. We,the customer,have ALLOWED this to happen over time. I just let my money do the talking, purchase another companies products. Garmin and apple are no longer purchased by myself,their poor customer service during warranty period is the decider! It's also not ethical to force customers to purchase a new product and throw a serviceable item away...after all, isn't it why we cycle??

Similar dispicable strategy to that of Apple - put in the lowest/cheapest possible components and sell at a premium price made possible only by strength of brand. I saw this with the Garmin 1000 - their top product a few years back. It was utterly worthless, in particular with navigation. It is by far the worst tech I've ever bought and I still get mad when I think about it. Sad state of things.

Got an 800 myself, more than happy with it, had it since they first came out so that's 9 years now, replaced the battery very simply about 5 years back, and battery life goes all day (about 10 hrs).  I believe all the complaints about poor software (so fear replacement), but the 800, when set up just right has been faultless with the odd power off to sort glitches aside. The rubber is deteriorating now ,so i feear water ingress thru the power button, and the screen has a crack at the bottom edge, so i got a bit of tape on that.

I didn't have a silicon skin on mine at the time and dropped it a few years ago.
Which caused a rattle inside the unit.
It no longer picked up GPS signal.

Sent it back for repair and got a refurb unit for £95.
Was a bit of a high price to pay but was happy with the unit and performance up until then so paid it.
Bonus - I got all the mounting kit as well with a new upfront mount.
Been working great ever since and has a silicon skin on the unit.

This is a non discussion. It's out of warranty, what happens when someone takes a car in out of warranty,  the garage offer a discount? Nope. Everything has a life and I personally feel this is totally fair on garmin's part. Plus these can be picked up on cex for less than the garmin replacement price with a 2 year warranty so not sure what there is to complain about. The battery problem could be down to a myriad of problems and a company cannnot mitigate for all potential problems beyond a certain period.

It was only last Friday that Road.cc reported a 34% increase in revenue for Garmin's fitness division, also has a 20% operating margin when I looked at the source article.

My 2015 purchased Garmin 1000 picked up some damage on the USB port, and stopped taking a charge early 2018. Contacted and sent it back to Garmin who replaced it (with a refurb unit) FOC. More than happy with that.
Sounds like it's different now.

I've never had a phone last more than 2 years without having to replace the battery, go and ask Apple or Samsung if they will do anything for you with your phone, I think this criticism of Garmin in this instance is utterly wrong, this is the life of modern electronics and batteries.  You could argue that Garmin should offer you a batter replacement service and I think that is perhaps a fair point, but a 90 day warranty is actually fair, why should they give you the same warranty as a new device when you have got something for a fraction of the price of new, if Apple replace your battery on your phone you don't get another 12 months on the phone, this is just Gamin bashing for the sake of it.

For what it's worth I've just swapped out the original battery in my Edge 520 for an aftermarket one supplied by NewPower99.com.

It's a bit of a fiddle, and I had to buy a glue gun and a pair of the correct size wire strippers, but the new battery went in ok. The battery was £40'ish and the tools another £25. I have to say I'm underwhelmed by the length of charge I'm getting - around 5.5 hours hours over 5 days / 3 there and back commutes. I'm yet to go for a long ride to see how it performs.

Was it worth the bother? If it extends the life of the unit for another couple of years I would say yes, especially considering how much a new head unit would have been.

I think we're all guilty of not asking the right questions about battery life / replacement cost when considering new gadgets. And the manufacturers should be more up front about it too.

To all Garmin owners. I have 3. BUY a WAHOO. Just save yourself worry, They all eventually let you down. 2 years in... and not a blinker to the wahoo. I got that i was bringing 2 Garmins with me touring, for when the first one had a kitten.

Garmin treat customers like trash and then wonder why people are moving to Wahoo.

I got an 810 which's USB port started wobbling and not charging consistently. I got in contact and they told me that since they didn't do this model anymore the 'best they could do' was give me a 20% discount on a new Garmin product.

Yeah nah m8 bye.

I had exactly the same off them. Edge Touring that, after a long time of me putting up with it's myriad foibles, I eventually contacted them, listing the faults and explaining that it essentially was not a reliable unit and they offered the standard £95/90 day or new unit.

I suppose it saves them the issue of plugging in every single unit, running diagnostics, working out which part of their atrocious software is the problem and in some ways provides a quicker easier option for the customer - lets face it the customer doesn't care what's wrong, they just want a working GPS - so in that respect it works. 

However having dealt with companies like Exposure who go above and beyond to fix any faulty/damaged products for minimal charge, Garmin's approach smacks of a "we'll fix it but we don't really care" attitude. 

With the best will in the world, rechargeable batteries don't last for ever. As mentioned, battery replacement is a job you can do yourself. It's a bit fiddly. There's a thread on weight_weenies about it, I detailed my experience on p6.

https://weightweenies.starbike.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=122698&sta...

As for 12 hours or 15 hours or whatever, yeah... nah. I've managed 12 hours or so on an 820 by running it in screen off mode. The 520 can't switch its screen off until it drops to low battery state.

15 hours battery life... I don't think I've ever had more than about 7 hours, even when new. 

Jonnie McCrea wrote:

After three years this device is effectively scrap as the feature of 15 hour battery life is but a distant memory

Nonsense. 30 seconds of Googling reveals myriad Garmin 520 battery replacement kits costing between ten and twenty quid. Some of them will improve battery life beyond the original 15 hour spec too.

If it's scrap, I'll have it off Jonnie - I'll even pay postage.

Good to know this sort of stuff - so I don't make the mistake of giving my custom to a company that doesn't value it.
However unless you bought directly from Garmin then they have no legal obligation, that rests with the retailer where you bought the product. Google your statutory warranty rights, they last six years, but there are various caveats and limitations. But just don't be fobbed off with "24 months" or let the retailer tell you that you are beholden to Garmin for warranty conditions - it's the law, not their T&Cs, that holds the trump card.