Garmin Street Pilot Battery Warning (probably other GPSs too)

by RoyS
(Sacramento, CA, USA)

I have a c330 (actually the 3rd one in 15 months).
I love it BUT: Beware, leaving the GPS sitting on the dashboard of the car in the hot sun will destroy the battery in a fairly short period. You may think that after a while, the GPS is taking much longer to acquire satellites than it used to, but what is happening is that you are running from a cold start because the battery is dead.

Here in the central valley of California, there are many 100F+ days and LiIon batteries do not like heat. I now know that I can probably keep this third one happy for a long time by simply taking it out of the holder and putting it under the seat when I park. Even though the car may get to 115F+ inside, at least the GPS will not go above 150F as it probably did when it was on the windshield holder. Fortunately, I bought an extended warranty and have paid nothing for the replacements, but the hassle of waiting without the GPS is not worth the ounce of prevention in this case.

I love the c330 by the way. It has been a real help in 12 out of state trips and dozens of local trips in California. The voice prompts are excellent. My friend has a Nuvi 360 and IMO, text to speech of street names is overrated and makes for a much harsher "computerized" sound.