garmin nuvi recall

[Chip]

don't know how many here might own the Nuvi, but here's the recall news.

 

[SAR-EMT40]

This might be political but I must ask the question. At what point is it ridiculous to have a recall? 1.3 million units sold and fewer than 10 cases of overheating, none of which produced any property damage or injury. I have a Nuvi. It is unlikely at this point that I will use the recall because I can live with a one in 130,000 chance that my unit might overheat. Actually, if ten of those units exploded and killed an entire family, I don't think I'd be excited enough to send it back. Life is a gamble, one in 130,000 is pretty good odds, especially compared to the actual risk of driving the car.

Keith

 

[Tom Rankin]

... 1.3 million units sold and fewer than 10 cases of overheating, none of which produced any property damage or injury. I have a Nuvi. ... Actually, if ten of those units exploded and killed an entire family, I don't think I'd be excited enough to send it back....

A GPS can lead you astray, but it should not be DIRECTLY responsible for KILLING you!

I'll send mine back, if they tell me my model is involved in the recall.

 

[MichaelJ]

The recall is just to replace the battery packs, and if they're Lithium-Ion (which I suspect) then they really do have the potential to burn to a crisp if not manufactured correctly. Such situations have happened with various vendors of laptops and cell phones. Sure, they sound like long odds, but if the battery pack vendor identified an actual problem with a given manufacturing run, it's realistic and worth it to have the recall.

 

[DougPaul]

The recall is just to replace the battery packs, and if they're Lithium-Ion (which I suspect) then they really do have the potential to burn to a crisp if not manufactured correctly. Such situations have happened with various vendors of laptops and cell phones. Sure, they sound like long odds, but if the battery pack vendor identified an actual problem with a given manufacturing run, it's realistic and worth it to have the recall.

The Nuvi 550 has a (non-user-replaceable) lithium-ion battery, probably also true for the rest of the line.

Lithium ion batteries are delicate and it only takes a speck of metal dust in the wrong place to set them up to catch fire. Given the liability and PR risks, a recall make good business sense and given the safety risk it also makes good humanitarian sense.

There are more robust and safer versions available or soon to be available (developed for use in such applications as electric cars), but all/most sold today for use in consumer electronics are pretty delicate.

Doug

 

[SAR-EMT40]

The Nuvi 550 has a (non-user-replaceable) lithium-ion battery, probably also true for the rest of the line.

Lithium ion batteries are delicate and it only takes a speck of metal dust in the wrong place to set them up to catch fire. Given the liability and PR risks, a recall make good business sense and given the safety risk it also makes good humanitarian sense.

There are more robust and safer versions available or soon to be available (developed for use in such applications as electric cars), but all/most sold today for use in consumer electronics are pretty delicate.

Doug

Yep. Lion batteries and NiMH batteries have the potential to dump huge amounts of current in a small time in a short circuit situation and cause a fire.

Point is, in the real world so far, the odds are 1/130,000 that one of the batteries in a unit might get warm. That doesn't constitute an emergency to me. You are correct though that in the last 20 years we seem to be of the opinion, as a collective that nothing might have risk, and the level of risk considered acceptable seems to be turning us into a nation of very neurotic people.

I wonder what if the odds were 1/1.3M or 1/13M. Is that low enough risk simply because one unit might get warm? Jesus, don't even get me started in the liability when kids are involved.

And yes, I'll stop now since I suspect we have wandered far from the hiking realm.


Keith

 

[Quietman]

You can check to see if your Garmin is recalled Here

The recalled devices include a small subset of the following nüvi model numbers:

•nüvi 200W, 250W, & 260W
•nüvi 7xx (where xx is a two-digit number

 

[DougPaul]

I wonder what if the odds were 1/1.3M or 1/13M. Is that low enough risk simply because one unit might get warm? Jesus, don't even get me started in the liability when kids are involved.

Actually, they don't just get warm. When a Lion battery (or just a small part of a Lion battery) gets above a certain temp, it enters thermal runaway--ie it just spontaneously gets hotter and hotter until it catches fire or the case explodes.

Probably not a happy event if one is driving down the road at ~60 mph and this doohickey sitting on the dash decides to catch fire...

Doug

 

[SAR-EMT40]

Actually, they don't just get warm. When a Lion battery (or just a small part of a Lion battery) gets above a certain temp, it enters thermal runaway--ie it just spontaneously gets hotter and hotter until it catches fire or the case explodes.

Probably not a happy event if one is driving down the road at ~60 mph and this doohickey sitting on the dash decides to catch fire...

Doug

I am well aware of that. The question is, what are the odds?

You are almost twice as likely to die from a lightning strike and 130 times more likely from driving your car. And again, no one has died, nor any fires started, injuries or damage reported from this. This is just a comparison of these odds, to date, to these units getting warm. The question remains. If you are willing to risk a 1 in 100 possibility of a gruesome car death, why would someone fret about the 1 in 130,000 possibility of a unit overheating from these devices?

Odds of dying table

Again, it seems like an overreaction by everyone involved.

YMMV

Keith

 

[Jay H]

Actually, they don't just get warm. When a Lion battery (or just a small part of a Lion battery) gets above a certain temp, it enters thermal runaway--ie it just spontaneously gets hotter and hotter until it catches fire or the case explodes.

Probably not a happy event if one is driving down the road at ~60 mph and this doohickey sitting on the dash decides to catch fire...

Doug

Well, you ever see an airshow where they trail blue colored smoke in the back.

Wouldn't that be cool driving up I-93 through Franconia Notch?

Case closed...

Jay