Garmin 910xt giving crazy elevation readings
My last two bike workouts my Garmin has given me ridiculously false elevation information. Anyone had this happen to them? Any idea how to fix?
Thanks
David
Thanks
David
0
Comments
By crazy do you mean it is at 65,000 ft or 20,000 m? If the answer is Yes, you likely have a blown barometer. Follow the below instructions to troubleshoot and if it is that Garmin will likely issue a warranty replacement. I just had this happen on my third watch (same problem for the previous two) and I'll see if they replace it again. Each watch I've had has lasted about 6-9 months and then the barometers break.
My second watch was out of warranty and they still replaced it because this is still an existing issue with the watch. I'm hoping they will do it a third time.
As a stop gap, if you loaded your data to Garmin Connect you can just enable the elevation correction and correct the data, but this still doesn't solve the issue with the watch.
Copied from Slowtwitch:
To determine if your barometer is faulty. go in to the diagnostics mode:
1. Power off the 910XT
2. While first pressing and holding down the Enter button, press and hold the Power button.
3. Continue to hold both the Enter key and Power button until the diagnostic screen appears.
4. Release both buttons.
Now that you are in the diagnostic screen, press the Mode button, exactly 7 times. The 910XT should beep each time the Mode button is pressed.
If the third line called “Baro Alt” shows 65,000 ft or 20.00 m and the fourth line under “Baro Pressure” shows 0, then your unit is faulty.
Power off the 910XT to exit out of diagnostics mode.
Call Garmin at 1-800-800-1020 with this information provided and they will send you a new watch.
If you are out of the warranty period, as I was, they will send you a factory refurbished unit, even if the warranty period has expired.
If you want to keep you existing unit until the new one arrives, Garmin will charge you $199 on your credit card as a deposit and when refund you when they received the old unit back.
If you stumble on a support rep who will not help you, simply call back until you get one who is more sympathetic and customer focused
I called Garmin and after waiting on hold for 30 minutes I talked to a very pleasant rep who verified that the unit is faulty and are sending me a replacement. I opted to hold onto my current unit until I receive the replacement and gave them a deposit of $213.84 (includes tax) which they are supposed to refund when I get them my old unit.
I asked the customer service lady - "Let me see if I understand correctly. I buy a $400 watch from you that breaks in less than a year...and you're charging me to return it to you."
Her response - "Yes..that's correct. Garmin covers the cost of the replacement watch, and ships it to you but it's your responsibility to send it back."
Total customer service fail.
Thank you David for posting your experience with Garmin and getting a replacement! I am dealing with this issue currently and will call Garmin tomorrow. However, I used Darren's post to see if my watch is faulty (thank you for posting Darren), and when I get the screen it just has a dotted line, so it says Baro Pressure -----------. I assume this means it is faulty. My watch also started with some funky vibrations lately....it always vibrates when I press start, but now the vibrations last a lot longer.....anyone have that happen before? It also used to vibrate when I turned it on or off....now it doesn't.
My Garmin 910 just started doing this today and I used your procedure above and yep....65.62 k ft.
so I will call garmin on Monday.
Thanks again,
I am back again with another story of the blown barometer on a 910xt. This makes the fourth or fifth time I've replaced the watch due to a barometer issue. The only thing is it is a completely different problem this time around.. Details below. For background my last watch was replaced in May 2014 which puts it in the ballpark of when it would crap out again at about three to six months.
Long Story:
So, the other day I started noticing the barometer giving crazy reading. Today I was getting ready for a run and confirmed the barometer was toast. So I ran back into my apartment and check the diagnostic screens from the instructions I previously posted to this thread and Baro Alt was pegged at 37k ft. Called Garmin as it was about 7pm and an hour before customer support closed at 8pm.
Apparently since my current watch was issued in the last six month (May 2014) Garmin has been issuing a newer version with a gold plated barometer which solved the previous barometer issue.. (I think the old barometer might have been nickel plated. just a guess). Yet, not so fast. The customer service person asked to check my firmware of the watch which was version 3.00.. As a result apparently the first lots of this new watch (500 to 600 watches issued in the last six months) with the new gold plated barometer caused a software failure to occur and they need to replace the watch yet again.
How do I know I have the new issue:
1) Watch was issued in 2014.. (They can tell from the serial number and when you received it)
2) Firmware version 3.00
3) Barometer values is all crazy
4) Barometer diagnostic screen values as below
a) Raw Baro Temp is fixed (not changing) and/or
b) Baro Temp is a crazy high number (hundreds)
What do I do this time around?:
The exact same thing as before.. I called customer support and ask to warranty replace the watch. They will confirm the problem and then proceed with a replacement. Since they consider this new software issue a different problem from the previous barometer hardware issue they will want to charge you $100 if your watch is out of warranty. Apparently they extended the warranty on all the watches with the hardware issue since it occurred so frequently.
After speaking with the customer service person I was able to get them to cover the out of warranty fee ($100) for this new problem. So since I am leaving for IM Mont Tremblant on Tuesday (Aug 12th) next week i wanted them to also express overnight the watch to me so I would get it either Friday or Saturday (Aug 8th or 9th) before I leave for Canada. The support person then wanted to charge me the shipping which would have been $28 overnight or $18 two day delivery since they can only approve up to $100 which was used on the warranty fee. Since this has happened so many times before and I never paid for shipping previously I insisted that Garmin needs to cover the overnight shipping as well.
Support person puts me on hold and spoke with their manager and was able to get the approval to also cover the additional one day overnight shipping in addition to the out of warranty fee. Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner!
Final Points:
1) Insist that Garmin cover the warranty replacement fee and the shipping
2) They will still require a deposit of $198 if you want the replacement unit before you return the broken one.
3) Garmin customer support still rocks.
Oh, one more thing.. The customer service person seemed to indicate (but not confirm) that they won't warranty replace any more watches after this new barometer software issue resolved. I questioned this as it could be a reoccurring problem maybe, however they also stated that hopefully Garmin will have a new, NEW watch that they would upgrade you to in the event it failed again for some reason. So expect to see a new triathlon watch from Garmin in the future.
That is all.. hope this is useful and not too long to anyone reading it.
I was kinda hoping they'd say "oh man...that stinks...how about we send you the new Garmin 920xt as a way to say sorry!"
...but they didn't
Yep, this is a well documented problem, however you may be able to fix it yourself by cleaning out the barometer ports. We have two in our family, both went wonky at thte 6-8 month point and both were fixed with a Sonicare and some compressed air. Sure, it shouldn't happen to begin with but saves you from doing the Garmin return runaround. The link below goes into more detail.
Good luck!
http://www.alananna.co.uk/blog/2014/fixing-altimeter-garmin-forerunner-910xt/
I think one of the issues might be that water is getting caught in the barometer ports when I do my swim workouts. What I do now after every swim is rinse the watch in clean tap water and blow into the ports to clear out any water that might be there and usually there is a bit that comes out. Since I've started blowing the ports out after every swim I've no longer had a problem with the barometer giving crazy number.
I had my first 910XT for close to a year. It went haywire just under the 1 year warranty expired and Garmin replaced it with no charge. I chose to hold onto the old one until the new one showed up and left the required deposit. Received the replacement 910, returned the old one and got my deposit refunded without a hitch. Score one for Garmin customer service.
But recently I noticed some elevation issues -- elevation readings were working or not and if working most were way off. I took my usual stance with technical issues -- if not bursting into flames, ignore -- until I finally got fed up and decided to look into the problem and turned to the Forums for help -- I knew there would be a thread on point.
I first walked through the diagnostics laid out above on my own and concluded that barometer is probably blown. Called Garmin and they concluded the same. Garmin then wanted to charge me $100 for a replacement since it is out of the warranty period (by about a month). As suggested in this thread, I asked if Garmin would cover the out of warranty charge and shipping since the barometer issue was well known. After a brief pause to talk it over with customer service management, Garmin offered me a couple of replacement options. For the $100 out of warranty fee, Garmin would send me a NEW 920XT in black/blue or a refurbished 920XT in white/red. Neither option included a new HRM band but I was assured the band I have for the 910 would work. At some point, I'll have to/want to upgrade/replace the HRM band but I would eventually have to do this with my 910 band anyway. I was never offered a replacement 910XT probably because there is an upgraded model and because of the existing barometer issues, but for the price of the upgrade, I don't see why I wouldn't upgrade.
After about a minute of sales talk/questions while I looked at the 920XT on-line, I concluded that this was a pretty good offer (even without a new HRM band) and opted for the new 920. Like before, I chose to hold onto the old unit until the new one arrives and paid the deposit. So, in the end, I bought a 910XT a little over two years ago, had it replaced once (new unit with renewed 1 year warranty) and now get to upgrade to the 920 for $100. In my opinion, Garmin customer service scores again.
btw, they should start selling these as rentals or leases given the way that we have to replace them. Clearly one needs to trade them in every 10-24 months...