Garmin fenix 5 not charging & out of warranty

My Fenix 5s no longer charges – dead screen, nothing lights up etc. I’ve tried a different cable and multiple sockets / usb chargers. It’s also 4yrs old so out of warranty.

Is there anywhere in the UK that repairs Garmin watches?

Or does Garmin it self offer a repair service? I can’t find much on the Garmin website and I’ve emailed tech support (being a Sunday). Is it even worth repairing baring in mind I can pick up a similar watch for less than £200 now.

Just try this before going any further….

Get a pin and probe around in the top brass (or similar goldish coloured metal) headers on the back of the watch. Each of them has a tiny pit that fills up with dust/body fat/skin/grimnesss. Whilst you are at it use the pin to scrape around the channel around the charge port as its possible for crap to build up in there high enough for the charger not to fully engage. If you’ve got some isopropanol to hand put some on a cotton bud and give the port a good wipe over with that too.

I’ve had mine apparently die and brought it back to life with the above. The first time charge after cleaning can be underwhelming as nothing happens until there is a bit of charge in the unit and then the little blue triangle appears- it won’t vibrate or whatever like it might normally have done when starting charging.  Mine is pretty temperamental – I find licking the back of the watch (I know, I’m not proud) be fore plugging it in helps. I also have times when I charge it and it looses the whole charge in 3 or 4 hours doing nothing other than being on my wrist. Love it and loath it in equal measure.

Thanks @convert – I’ve just tried all of that, just tried sticking it on charge again with no luck.

Contact their online support. They’ll probably just replace it.

I’ve never had any out of warranty freebies from Garmin but they have offered some extremely decent offers for a replacement that I’ve taken them up on, so +1 for contacting them.

I had a Garmin descent mk2i fail earlier this year, contacted garmin support they asked me to try some stuff which failed, and as it was out of warranty they offered me a new replacement for 150 euros, given this was an 1100 euro watch new I was reasonably happy with the offer.

My Etrex 35 touch died recently – also out of warranty – and Garmin offered a replacement for £75. The alternative was £300 for a non-equivalent new item, so I took them up on the offer.

Excellent service, IMHO.

They’ve been pretty decent to me with replacements, even out of warranty, though a couple of times I had to press.

Just recently they replaced my Venu 2 which was a couple of months out of warranty, after I contacted them about some weird battery drain behaviour. I didn’t even have to ask – they just asked a few things and said “Soz, we’ll be needing you to s2nd it back so that we can replace it.”

A few years back my Vivoactive HR screen just stopped responding to touch at all. That was also out of warranty, and they initially offered a cheapish refurb. I said “no way, warranty is on top of my rights, a £x00 watch should surely last longer then 2.5 years, so I shouldn’t have to pay for this”, to which they eventually agreed. Similar tale with an Edge 820 that was pretty OK until a particular firmware update sent the battery life down the drain. They agreed that their firmware update had buggered it, said that they had no ETA for a fix, and offered a refurb unit for a fee. Obviously I said “(a) You broke it, and you want me to pay for a new one!? and (b) Are you sure that the new one will work fine with the current firmware!?”… again they decided that the only reasonable thing to do was to send me a refurb unit for free.

So overall, they sometimes need a nudge, but eventually treat their customers pretty well provided the customer stands up for themselves!

With some things they seem to have an automatic replacement policy – I had a heart rate strap that died within about 6 months (all others have lasted indefinitely for me, I don’t seem to kill them like some people) and pretty much as soon as I contacted them they said “we’ll replace it, no worries.” The replacement has lasted years, so no complaints from me there.

Sounds promising – got back from cwmcarn this afternoon to find it still dead. I’ve another spare cable arriving tomorrow so I’ll wait for an email response from Garmin and see if other cable makes any difference.

I’m reminded of money saving expert Martin Lewis’s SADFART rules and ‘warranty shmarranty’.

if it’s not that old then hopefully Garmin will see you right.

So, this has happened to my watch now (Fenix 5plus) that’s 5 years old – it won’t charge regardless of how much cleaning I do of the contacts or wiggling the cable about. Garmin’s answer to that issue is to ask me to spend more money with them for a new watch. Not massively impressed, let’s see what they come up with.

Depends how much money they suggest you spend…a refurbed watch will be cheaper than a brand new one…5 years is a ‘long’ time for a wearable electrical device, so it isn’t beyond the realms of expectation for Garmin to say they can’t do much to help.

Not really defending Garmin here as I’m sure when my Fenix 6 Pro dies, I’m also going to be hoping to get something from Garmin for not a lot of money, but I suspect I’ll get nowhere…I think my first one was almost 3 years old and I got a refurbed version as the charging slot stopped working, this one is almost 2 years old – still going strong, but it will die at some point.

Yeah, nothing you’ve said is unreasonable @DickBarton. They’ve offered a 30% discount on a new watch, the equivalent to mine is another £500 ‘investment’ for a product that I’m going to have to assume will last no longer than this one did.

Ah, that is a very large chunk of cash…I’m not looking forward to the day my 6 does eventually die and Garmin aren’t going to be willing to offer me a (to me) good price on the replacement.

There are some good deals about at the moment for Fenix and Epix. Check out the STW discounts…

e.g.

https://amzn.eu/d/00Kro7iL

I’ve had excellent service from Garmin over the years with a couple of refurb replacements as the originals were out of warranty. To be honest the “refurbished “ units were indistinguishable from a new item, the only thing you don’t usually get is any accessories with it. They ask you to send a watch in without the strap for example. Just ring them up and talk to them.

Yeah did that, that’s what they offered. No repair, no refurbishment replacement, no new cables available, just buy a new watch with a bit of discount. It’s not massively impressive TBH.

I had a instinct that started crashing earlier this year – year out of warranty at least. They initally were going to just give me a new one, then they didn’t have stock so gave me a (blue – no other option) instinct 2. I guess this was a smart move on their part, as I was both pleased with garmin, but also didn’t like the colour so a month later bought a fenix 7 sapphire pro lol – as per their company report the profit margin on watches is greater than 33% so they’re probably quids in there.

They also offered a new watch at a discount for me, but I thought I’d take a punt first and try another cable rather than shell out hundreds. At worst I’d have a spare cable for the new watch.

So bought two cables from different sellers and low and behold my old watch now charges perfectly!

ah, that sounds more promising. Where did you get the charge cable from?

Just a cheap one from Amazon tbh – surprised it worked tbh as I’d only bought a new one about 2 months ago which also failed to charge, now in the bin along with the original Garmin one.