Home » Outdoor Articles » My Garmin’s bit the dust

My Garmin’s bit the dust

By Dave Roberts   

on July 22, 2011    2/5 (1)

My Garmin’s bit the dust

Do not follow any advice given in this article. It is for information only and you’ll be better off sending the watch back to Garmin! 

Well, not tonight, but last week. It decided that it initially didn’t want to talk to my PC, and who can blame it considering it’s still running Vista before switching itself off during my last run…  I decided to see if it came to (right….) and today, to my surprise it was still knackered. It even managed to switch itself off when you pressed the screen… Goner….

Any excuse for some new bit of kit, the more compact Garmin Forerunner 110 looked attractive. On further inspection I find it doesn’t have half the features of the 305, and that contacting Garmin for a repair would be the best bet. After figuring out their obscure form, I then find the link below (embarrassingly with the same theme as this site!):

http://blog.oobrien.com/2010/07/18/garmin-forerunner-305-battery-charging-failure-solved/

He’d had the same problem and managed to fix it himself. Well, despite lacking any practical skills in this sort of thing whatsoever I decide that a challenge is a challenge, and get my toolkit out. Well, OK, that’s obviously not my entire toolkit as I didn’t need the hammer (after, I’ll admit, much deliberation). The next thing I realised was that there’s no obvious way into the damn thing. Most online accounts say they merely prised the watch open, like a pistachio only less green. Obviously the operative who put mine together wasn’t shy when it came to applying the glue and was possibly distantly related to the guy who used to stick the Solvite guy onto the flying board. At this point, Homer’s expression on the mousemat was fairly similar to my own.

Eventually, i managed to cut slowly around with the razor blade, cutting the point twice while trying to lever it. Once it started to come apart, it was like opening a live mussel and kept snapping shut whenever I released the pressure, threatening to take my finger off in the process. Looking at the link here you can see that my 305 had obviously much more glue!

On opening, I find that it was the same problem as the original poster had, with a corroded point in the watch. There’s obviously a weakness in the design that lets sweat in, and explains why the watch stopped beeping a few months after I got it. Following the instructions given, I folded over the corroded point and, on putting the watch crudely back together again I found it charged. So far, with only some sellotape to keep it together, so good. I only need to get some proper glue now to put the watch back together!

It’s rather disappointing that a device designed for running isn’t designed to cope with the rigours you’d expect, and I expect runners to be sweaty (or ‘glowing’ if you insist). It has survived 15 months and 1701km, though i’d argue that the final 10 of that it failed and that the beeper failing on it was just the first step. If you’ve got a Garmin 305, and it stops beeping, it may well be worth returning it for repair under warranty rather than having to do a bit of a bodge!

Please rate this

Dave Roberts

Dave Roberts founded Walk Eryri in 2004, with the aim of providing routes that are off the beaten track. Walk Eryri is now part of Mud and Routes which continues to provide more off beat routes and walks in Snowdonia and beyond. Dave has been exploring the hills of Eryri for over thirty years, and is a qualified Mountain Leader. Dave also established Walk up Snowdon, Walk up Scafell Pike and Walk up Ben Nevis just to mention a few.

More Posts By This Author

Comments are closed.