Dose Garmin ever reuse a cradle?

NO is the answer to your question.
Each series has it's own cradle, for example my 660 will not fit my 775T. Besides most of the newer units don't even have a powered cradle, the 12V power plug is inserted directly into the units USB port.

The cradle for my nuvi 760 works just fine with my 765t so sometimes they do reuse cradles. But I don't think any newer models use the 765/760 cradle. The power cord of the 760/765 also works in my 885t. I am using a traffic cord with lifetime Clear Channel with my 885t right now. It originally came with the 760 (and I upgraded it).

You should be able to look at the newer units (if you can find a retailer that stocks them) and see if there is a chance it will work.

The cradle with the power connection is a "higher end" Garmin feature. They still do it from the reviews I've seen but only on the more expensive units.

The ball mount that Garmin uses never seems to change. So you should be able to snap your 765 cradle off and snap the cradle of a new unit onto the same mount. My son has a couple two series Garmins and my daughter has an older 350 and at least amongst these units, the ball is the same.

Jim

Yes, we have different 7XX units and they all work in the Nissan cradle fine, just hopeing they will come out with a new model that would fit that tray without too much remoding. Thanks

I've never seen the Nissan cradle. Can you describe it? BMW has a couple mounts I am familar with for re-branded Garmins in their 1 and 3 series vehicles. One is a tray mounted into the dash. The one I use is metal bracket attached under a hood over the gauges. Both the BMW systems still have the "normal" Garmin ball mount. So another cradle would snap on. Can you un-snap the Nissan cradle from a ball mount? BMWs have wiring that is part of the cradle and changing it would be a little involved but should be possible. Power and audio and the antenna go through this atypical wiring arrangement. A little time with a soldering iron should allow all those wires to be switched over.

I googled the Nissan tray mount and I think I found what you have. The installation pictures seem to show only a power connection and clearly show a normal looking cradle (except wires aren't danging off it). If sound comes out the Garmin speaker and you don't have traffic, it would be just 2 wires and would be simple to switch to another cradle. In the worst case, you could do what I did in my Suzuki and get a non-traffic power cable, cut it, and solder the wires onto the connector that hooks to the nuvi or cradle (depending on model) and just plug it in. Snap the new cradle on the mount and you could snap your new nuvi in.

Jim

JimD1, I noticed in your post that you have an 885t that works with Clear Channel.
I have an 885t that came with LIFETIME MSN and as everyone knows, lifetime is over, so i was wondering if I could move to Clear Channel, and if you can list the benefits to using Clear Channel, cost etc. Thank you.
This post is open to any who has any helpful addition to this subject matter.

I posted this earlier hoping to get some feedback on Clear Channel, but so far no response?????

I have an 885T in which I replaced the traffic receiver. The GTM20 plugs directly into the cradle just as the MSN one did. I purchased mine straight from Garmin and it comes with no ads.

If you can find a Nissan Frontier some where it will have either a tray in the top middle of dash or a flip-up tray for a Garmin 7XX GPS. Nissan used to offer it as a option for most of the Frontiers starting in the early 2000 years and up. There are two styles, old style is flater, newer style is more of a hump since it has built in speakers. You could get it with the Nissan Garmin 750 GPS for only $800 that had Nissan logo on start up and would not let you over-ride safe mode. My first one I made that mistake, now I just buy the Docking unit ($110) and install install it myself, then pop in any 7XX GPS

http://www.clubfrontier.org/forums/f24/install-guide-garmin-...