Ringmaster

Greetings from a newbie. I just purchased what I thought was a Garmin GPS III Plus. It seems as though someone replaced the III Plus guts with GPS V guts. Welcome screen comes up as a GPS V and it has all the features of the V. I'd like to know if anyone has a dead GPS V who would be willing to sell or donate the rubber gasket which also contains the buttons so I can replace the III Plus buttons. Thanks.

MTalvola

Call Garmin. Seriously...

Ringmaster

I sent them an e-mail this AM even though there is no mention on the site about ordering parts. After filling out the contact page it said that it would take 3 days to receive an answer. Just thought I would give it a shot here also. Not complaing about Garmin. I believe they are a first class company when it comes to customer service. Also I'm guessing that it might wind up as being one of those deals where a twenty five cent part costs $10 and there is a $10 shipping and handleing charge for putting a gasket in an envelope.

MTalvola

Screw the Garmin contact page...it blows... I've NEVER received a response from it. Either call them directly (be prepared to hold 30+ min) or email them at: support@garmin.com. In my experience, they DO respond to those direct emails.

HumVee

My experience has been e-mail responses within 48 hours, but I have had a couple of non-responses as well (but they've always responded the second time I've submitted an e-mail).

HumVee

Ringmaster, I wonder what Garmin sees the device as.... Have you tried registering the device with them, or using Garmin Communicator Plugin to send waypoints to the device? I see that the GPS III and GPS V both are capable of data synching.

In fact, you don't actually have to try to send any data to your device. You can just go to the Garmin Communicator Plugin Test Page. If the plugin is installed and working, and you have your GPS unit connected to the computer, you should see your connected device listed. Mine shows "GPSMap76CSX (Unit ID xxxxxxxxxx)" when I have my handheld GPS plugged in. You may need the Garmin USB Drivers to make your older device visible to your computer....

Ringmaster

I'll give your suggestion a try. Today I did download and install the GPS V update that took it from 2.20 to 2.60.

Ringmaster

Well I'm pretty disapointed in Garmin. I heard back from them today and they refuse to sell me the gasket/button thing. They force you to pay them $89 to do a repair to get the part. I thought there was a federal law that forbad manufactures from refusing to sell consumers parts when a product was out of warranty and forcing the customer to pay them for a repair.

MTalvola

I think I'd just give up on that Franken-GPS. Old guts in an even older case...wrong buttons...blown/stuck battery. Time for a new one!

Ringmaster

Hey, I would trash it if it wasn't working but it works perfectly. The buttons are only a cosmetic thing. With 'V' guts I just thought it would be cool to have 'V' buttons instead of III Plus buttons. I only paid fifteen bucks for the thing and it came with a mount and a DC power cable.

HumVee

Perhaps you can find a non-working junk parts GPS V on ebay or craigslist....

MTalvola

Better yet, chuck yours and get a brand new one. Here's a GPS V with all the trimmings for $15 on ebay. Caveat emptor, though...as always...

Garmin GPS V GPS Receiver W/bracket and all cables - eBay (item 190369900441 end time Feb-08-10 08:01:28 PST)

Ringmaster

Don't need a new 'V' I'm keepng my eye out for a used 76CSX.

MTalvola

Never mind.

HumVee

The GPSMAP 76CSx (or 60CSx) would be a significant upgrade, so that's a good idea to save your pennies for that instead of spending it on your existing GPS III/V hybrid, Ringmaster. Hopefully, you and Airnut can work out a trade so you can get his old device with the bad display to use for parts. MTalvola, thanks for making suggestions!