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I have bought a satnav unit with a suction mounting system and the device is not reliable....ie it kept falling off the screen despite careful application. An engineering mate of mine utilised the sprocket and mounted this on a baseplate and attached it to the dash....problem solved. Anyone else found the suction system unreliable?
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Nope been fine 4 months so far without falling off.
The windscreen does however need to be the cleanest screen in cleanland before you apply it.
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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When I first got mine and stuck it on it was solid. Then I started taking it off and it got a little dirty and kept falling off.
My uncle made a bracket on an adjustable ball joint think cleverly mounted to the dash. It's great but has the disadvantage of being on show all the time.
As RF says, just clean the mount and the screen and leave it on overnight before putting the sat nav in it.
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For some time the valeter at the van / truck hire company I work for has complained about windscreens with loads of circular marks on them. It's turned out to be marks where a satnav has been attached, fallen off, and re-attached. Judging by the number of 'rings' one falls off every five minutes.
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You may have a dodgy mount. The one I got with my TomTom at Christmas was rubbish, took it back to Halfords and got a replacement which is so strong it'll stick firmly without even being locked on.
However, I do have issues on cold mornings if the screen has condensation on the inside, but this is due more to my lazy cleaning than the mount itself.
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One other thing - have you tried it on a normal glass window (eg in your house) in case it's the glass in your car? Some windscreens have sharp curves in them, particularly near the sides. Mine won't stick on the right hand side, I have to have it in the middle.
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Judging by the number of 'rings' one falls off every five minutes.
Either that or the owner has sensibly removed the mounts to avoid advertising the possibility of an expensive gadget being hidden somewhere in the car.
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Maybe it's my "friendly" test station but they never even mentioned the sat-nav when I last had the Landcruiser MOT'd;
The mount's sucker is attached in the lower centre of the screen just above the digital multi-function display - certainly within the swept area.
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Good advice TVM. This also reduces the risk of any low life noticing the rings on your windscreen and breaking in looking for any toys (which of course won't be there, will they...?)
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The windscreen mount with my satnav kept falling off again replaced by Halfords and no problems since. I suspect a pinhole defect in the suction pad would cause this to happen.
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Yes,mine was unreliable!!.It stuck so well, I snapped it trying to get it off.oops.
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I snapped it trying to get it off.oops.
Beware of cheap imitations o Auction Sites. SWMBO broke hers (in a fit of frenzy) started bidding on what was to all intents and purposes a pukka TomTom mount. A "friendly" fellow auctioner contacted me to say that the seller had a record of selling pattern units (presumably JerryJerry !).
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Hmm. I've bought a TomTom car mount off eBay for 21 quid, looks identical to the old one and sticks better too.
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Round here the police recommend you take the mounts off when you leave the car. Spate of break ins to cars with mounts on the screen - the thief assumes either camera detector or sat nav will be in the glove box.
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I've had my Sat Nav 12 months and it has never fallen off the windscreen yet. I have removed it from the windscreen on several occassions to clean the windscreen and when refitting is given a little bit of spit to stick it firmly in place.
My instructions with regards fitting to the suction mounts actually say clean the area you wish to stick the mounts to.
Maybe with my windscreen being clean on a regular basis that this is the secret.
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From my most recent dealings with the Police, they informed me that the most sought after thing to steal from cars these days are satnavs. They reconned car thieves aren't even all that interested in Radio/CD's now, as satnavs are so much smaller and more valuable for sale on the black market.
Also, although one would be very ill advised to leave a satnav mounted in a vehicle when leaving it, even having the empty mounting bracket on show is like an open invitation for someone to break in. They assume, rightly or wrongly, that the owner won't have bothered to take the device with them but will, instead, have hidden it somewhere inside the vehicle, so it's there to be found.
I expect that, at some future time, satnavs will cost about £10 and it won't be worth the trouble of stealing them. However, until then, please do be on your guard.
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>>I expect that, at some future time, satnavs will cost about £10 and it won't be worth the trouble of stealing them.>>
Based on the example of CD and DVD rewriters which used to cost between £180 to £200 or more three or four years ago and now range from £12 to £30 for a straightforward model, that could happen quicken than we may think...:-)
Certainly the Garmin i3 is a good example of falling prices from those of even a few weeks ago.
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What\'s for you won\'t pass you by
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