Good Ole Garmin on the fritz

I just bought a 22 GW seafarer with a 2019 Garmin GPSMAP 942xs, and I was going to pick it up tomorrow. The seller just wanted to check everything one last time before I picked it up tomorrow morning and brought it home to take the wife on a little ride on Easter Sunday. Well… the Garmin keeps intermittently shutting off after about 15 seconds. Everyone’s saying it’s a voltage issue. So the guy has checked both batteries, and re ran a completely new circuit to the Garmin for power and has measured it many times for 12v with a multimeter. Power shouldn’t be the problem Garmin is closed for good Friday.. 😕 so he doesn’t want me to come get the boat until he can see if it needs to be repaired or he has to just buy a new one and mount it. They aren’t open til Monday. So unless there’s some crazy way to reset this thing (it only has a power button)… doesn’t look like my weekend is shaping up all that great. Any ideas people? The difference could be a 200 repair vs. A 1500 unit. And obviously he doesn’t want to lose 1500…

With 15 seconds, he should have enough time to do a total reset. Worth a try

Check the ground also not just the +12v. Also if it runs through a ACC switch on the dash those have caused me problems also.

So it turns on, tries to load, doesn’t really give you the chance to select anything on the menu, starts up and tries to go straight to the location and blacks right out after about 15 seconds. I was hoping there was some kind of magic button hiding in a pin hole.

Hey Daryl, where are you located?

Congrats on the new boat sir, and you’re welcome to swing by my house to troubleshoot (I’m near Forest Lake, MN). I have a 208 Grady with a 942xs as well, it would be easy to plug it into my boat to see if it’s a wiring problem or a problem with the plotter itself.

B-man wrote:

Hey Daryl, where are you located?

Congrats on the new boat sir, and you’re welcome to swing by my house to troubleshoot (I’m near Forest Lake, MN). I have a 208 Grady with a 942xs as well, it would be easy to plug it into my boat to see if it’s a wiring problem or a problem with the plotter itself.

Nice offer B-Man!

Daryl,

I’d ask the seller if he would consider keeping the Garmin and reducing the price. You’ll have to replace but you’ll be buying newer technology with warranty.

Good luck!

If there’s any SD cards in the unit maybe try removing them and see if that makes a difference?? Maybe making the unit crash??

B-man, I’m in cape cod MA, so it’ll be a little trip to get to MN. That’s awesome though, I appreciate it. I also asked about the SD cards as well. He’s tried it both ways.

Dandorn, I asked the guy about that but honestly he’s a pretty stand up guy and wants to sell it like it is. Either he wants it repaired for 200-500 or he’s going to buy another 1500$ Garmin.

Doesn’t look like I’ll be getting the boat mid week or so next week…which is too bad but hey, win some lose some. Thank you guys for all the ideas!

Is it flush mounted?

Do you have room for a bigger unit?

I bought my 942xs new for $1,000 a few years ago (head unit only) brand new on Amazon.

I see you can get a 1042xsv head unit for $1,600. If you have the room and he’s spending the money, I’d go that route. Also worth looking into, if he was the original buyer of the 942xs he would likely get a deal on a new unit even though it’s out of warranty.

I’d push for a 12″ GPSMap if you have the room and he can do the bartering with Garmin He might be able to get 10-20% off on one of those baby’s if the 942 is toast

Also curious if that boat was the 228 recently listed on FB on the Grady White Owners page? If so it looked like a dandy boat

It’s mounted to a bracket. So this guy is set in his ways…has an idea and is not going to stray from it. I couldn’t get him to budge 500$ on the asking price. I feel like I’m just lucky he called me and is trying to fix it before I actually tool the boat out and was like hey this thing don’t work!