Garmin recalls 1.25 million navigation devices due to battery overheating

Garmin announced Wednesday to recall approximately 1.25 million Nuvi personal navigation devices, concerns about overheating batteries prompted. Dell Inspiron Mini 12 Screen Dell Inspiron Mini 9 Screen

Affected systems would have the 200W, 250W, 260W, 7xx and 7xxT (where xx is a two-digit number) model numbers. To find out if your GPS device is affected, go to Garmin’s recall Web site, and enter your nuvi’s serial number. If your device is affected, Garmin will replace the battery and insert a spacer on top of the battery next to the PCB free of charge.

About 796,000 of the affected devices were sold in the United States, Garmin said. At issue are batteries developed by an unnamed third-party supplier during a certain period of time, which have a specific printed circuit board (PCB) design.

Devices with these batteries could overheat, which might lead to a fire hazard, Garmin said.

Overheating has been reported in less than 10 cases with certain nuvi models. The problem did not result in any damage or injury, but Garmin said it is proactively recalling the devices anyway. Dell Latitude D620 Screen Dell Latitude D630 Screen

It said the battery supplier has agreed to share the cost of replacement packs.

The recall comes in the backdrop of a steep decline in PND sales, hurt by the growing popularity of navigation-enabled smartphones.

The maker of navigation systems that use Global Positioning System technology had seen tepid revenue in recent periods. Garmin also faces increasing competition from free smartphone mapping applications as well as peers such as Dutch rival TomTom NV.

“I don’t think it means much. Product recalls in the consumer electronic space are not unusual and recalls involving battery issues are fairly common,” Yair Reiner, an analyst at Oppenheimer & Co said by phone. Compaq presario V5000 battery Compaq Tablet PC TC1000 battery

He added that a problem with Apple’s 3G iPhone’s power adapter in 2008 did not seem to quell demand for the product.

PND sales accounted for about half of Garmin’s total revenue in the last quarter. The company sold 4 million PND units in the last quarter.

The battery overheating problem has been identified in fewer than 10 cases and none of the reported incidents caused injury, the company said in a statement. Compaq presario V2000 battery Compaq presario V4000 battery