My Garmin heart rate monitor has been flaky lately. It's been reading over 200 when I first put it on and other times really low, under 100 when i'm riding. I replaced the battery even though the old battery still showed 3v. I regularly clean the strap, wearing it into the shower.

So i called Garmin customer support to ask if I need to replace the strap. I explained that it was 5 years old and i used it with my 510. The service rep couldn't say if replacing the strap would fix the problem so he offered to send me a free replacement.

So today it arrived and he sent a complete unit, strap and HRM.

Now that's what I call service.

I find the Garmin customer support people are very empowered to make things right. I've talked to sports, marine and automobile support and I've don't recall a bad experience. When my 510 failed they offered to send me a refurb for $75. When the refurb showed up dead they sent me a brand new 520 overnight. Treating them like humans seems to pay off.

I busted the little dog ears off my 800 and before embarking on a home made solution, I figured I'd call them - $29 and they sent me a refurb.

I replaced the battery myself when that died though.

Their policies look bad but the reality has been pretty good for me.

Garmin customer service is excellent. Their product, thats a different matter. I'm already on my third Garmin 520.

Odd... i've had my 510 for 4 years.. not a single problem. My son's 500 is 7 years old.

What issues with your 520? Mine is always flaking out mid ride. I've hard reset it twice.

Last ride I disabled BT on my phone, and was able to complete my ride without further incident.

I've been using my 800 for 5.5 years now. Going to use it tonight when I do hill repeats.

So the thing with Garmin is that it takes about 2 years for the firmware to stabilize. Once that happens you're basically good. During the first ~18 mo, every other update with break something else. My 510 had some issues (always firmware related) but it's been like a rock ever since Garmin moved on to the 520 for development.

My first 520 worked flawlesly until one day it wouldn't turn on. The second one refused to connect with my cadence sensor. Yes I changed batteries and even a different sensor. The third one is still sitting in a box. Too nervous to try it out.

I wonder if in the shower is a bit too much? i expect they are water resistant not water proof. and if the little gasket for the battery wears out or is damaged it will leak. cleaning it with a wet cloth or quick rinse of the elastic while keeping the computer dry might be better?

My 500 sits on 100% battery indicated until it dies. AG's has eaten multiple rides and used to take hours to upload (multiple computers, including mine which could take the upload quickly from my 500). My 610 (running watch) would drain its battery like lightning on the charger unless it was placed just so. It also ate a run at one point.

Their newer toys seem to have gotten flakier. The howling from the tri geeks about all the issues with the 910XT was deafening.

I'm in Southern California

Garmin has been pretending to work for three years now to get the Edge 810 turn by turn navigation to work problem free. After three years of failure on Garmin's part I have come around to thinking that they know what's wrong with the Edge 810 they just refuse to take the financial hit to fix or replace their customer's Edge 810's and are just running out the clock until no one cares.

I remove the HRM and only wear the strap in the shower.

D'oh.

Tri geeks have to swim in them for every race and they're supposed to stand up to that use.

You gotta keep it out of the bathtub.

I love good customer support stories, I also really like Garmin.
I have a Garmin 1000, Vector 2 pedals, vivofit (original), Fenix2 for running, Virb EX and I'm sure other Garmin things I forgot about. I love having all of my data in one pace.

Hmm, I had one that just started doing something similar but had a backup monitor so didn't pay any attention and just tossed the old one in a drawer. Maybe I should call, having another backup wouldn't be a bad thing.

I've found that Garmin support is hit or miss depending on the rep you get. I've gotten warrantied on units where the warranty has expired and times where they did not want to give me anything short of sending my unit back and a 20% discount on a full MSRP 810.

the regular Garmin heart rate strap and their Tri heart rate straps (they make one specifically for running and one specific for swimming) are completely different units...

The tri-specific straps are new. Tri geeks have swum in all the Garmin straps back to the classic "hard" strap. I swam a ton in the original soft-strap, along with their classic original "HRM" unit before they added run dynamics and swimming and all that.

If that replacement doesn't work, check out the guru of electronics / biking gear: DC Rainmaker's web site. Great stuff. And he'll answer your question if it has wide appeal.