Potential public service announcement...... I found a company in Minnesota that does repair work on GPS units - and in particular - they are specialists in the ZUMO 550 repair category. SInce a lot of folks on this forum have these GPS devices - thought I'd share some findings.
I will wait to receive my Zumos back - and check out the work I had done, before commenting further on the end result.
Here's what I had to deal with:
I sent a Zumo 550 that wouldn't boot up past the home picture screen - and they were able to fix that issue, load North America maps (all of them), back fill the rubber buttons with urethane to stop them from cracking and allowing water in and install a new backup battery that is apparently hardwired (soldered) onto the circuit board. The other Zumo I sent had a back up battery installed, buttons back filled with urethane, and all the new North American maps installed.
The communication with the company was excellent, the owner was great on the phone and through emails, and the turn around time was crazy good. I think he received my parcel Friday - and they were sent back out today (Monday) in the mail. Price to do everything I mentioned above was $160.00 USD. I'm paying the shipping back to me as well. Considering these units were mucho $$$ when new - and new units are stupid expensive as well - this little reboot/ revitalization is a small cash outlay to extend the service life.
Apparently the back up batteries are important to keep an eye on - as when they die - weird things happen to the units - and that likely what happened with the one unit I sent that was basically DOA.
It should be about a week or so before they are delivered here - and I'll come back to follow up my findings.
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