I have a garmin hrm3-ss ( that came with the garmin 520 bundle ) that I can't get to read.

I've replaced the battery, did the trick where you connect the terminals to reset the unit, and at best I can occasionally get the unit to connect to my 520 ( all other sensors work and connect fine ) but still can't get a reading.

I've tried new batteries, new straps, and seemingly everything but the unit itself.

Is there anything I could be missing or are they just generally crap?

( I bought it at performance bikes, so i'm going to contact them to see if I can get an exchange as its less than a year old )

Others have made this mistake, so I have to ask, were you wearing the strap? I've seen two other posts in Garmin's forums that the users were not wearing the strap when they tried to get HR info.

That said, I just bought another HRM3-ss last month for my son. It wasn't working at all. I changed the battery and still nothing. I messed around with it and other batteries for a day and a half but nothing worked. So I called Garmin. While waiting for the garmin rep I left the battery out of the unit. Probably ninety minutes till the Garmin rep called me back. Upon putting the battery back in the pod, it worked perfectly. So I felt dumb.

Maybe leaving the battery out for a while might work for you too. I did know about the "shorting the battery terminals" trick and have done that in the past with two other units when I changed batteries. But it evidently didn't work this time.

If all else fails, call Garmin don't email them. The strap and pod are covered under warranty too. Garmin support in the USA is pretty good. If they are busy, the phone system will let you enter your number and they will call you back. I have seen poor reports about garmin's support in other countries however. Might be just people slamming them unfairly.