Originally Posted by
byte_speed
Hmmm. Maybe I got them. Care to elaborate a bit?
I had my first Edge 305 fill with water (at least enough to quit) in a rainstorm on my 2nd ride with it. The lady in customer service at Garmin asked if I was swimming with it, like that was very unusual.
Recently I wase trying to mount the unit wearing cold weather gloves. Dropped it and shook the battery loose (still worked, but rattled).
Your post is the first I've hint I've seen that these are not uncommon problems. To Garmin's credit, both times they fixed it (almost) no questions asked and it was back in my mailbox eight days from the day I dropped it in the mail.
MotionBased has a forum outlining every conceivable thing that can go wrong with the 305's. Someone actually has a series of steps for taking these apart. Only don't do it because there is nothing there to fix.
Search the BF and you will find more.
Bottom line: the interface between the screen the and the case will leak and the compression fitting between the battery and the case/pcboard will weaken. The second scenario causes interrmittent off cycles during your ride that will not go away. The first scenario is catasthropic in that your sweat seeps in and shorts out the display. You get a black display upon the special boot up that Garmin reps always have you do before they have you send it in...
Garmin has excellent customer service, they just keep on sending you new ones. I've said this before, all field testing on these units is being done by the consumer. If I had to do it over again, I would have purchased mine at REI. Just for the ease of return.