This Is What Happens When Your Car GPS Blows Up

Reading your 'Subject' for some reason I was almost expecting something funny, not so!

Nasty, nasty, nasty surprise!

I never leave my GPS in the car, but I guess this is another good reason to take it with you.

Does this mean we should remove the battery and always use it plugged into the 12V power outlet?

Whoa

Those lithium batteries are no joke!

I wish they had more info about this, like battery type, whether the battery was faulty, and how hot the temps need to get for it to blow.

Interesting

I have a 260 that sits in the car 24/7 since I bought it in 2008 (not in direct sunlight) http://bit.ly/pqecuF , it is almost hardwired and only comes inside to get new POI files, I replaced the battery in early 2011 and was wondering recently the same question if the unit could work with no battery installed (should have tried it back then)

Can one of the electronic gurus that frequent this site care to guess if the PND it will work with the battery removed?

My 885t and 765t sit on the dash of my two vehicles all the time. They have mounts integrated with the car. I try to remember to put the reflector in the windshield when parked in the summer time. Maybe this is another reason it would be a good idea. I mainly do it for me, the car gets really hot and it helps a little.

Airlines don't allow extra sets of lithium batteries on airplanes either. Apparently there is a small risk of this sort of thing. I don't think the probability is high enough for me to change what I am doing.

My nuvis use lithium polymer batteries, not lithium ion batteries. Lithium ion have metal shells and a liquoid electrolite which is flamible. Lithium polymer electrolyte is a gel and some sources say it is not flamible, others suggest it is. The cases I've found where a battery did the sort of damage illustrated were lithium ion, not lithium polymer, batteries. If the case is plastic and not round, then it is lithium polymer. They are in our cell phones and laptops. Hard to avoid.

Jim

It wasn't GPS but battery. Makes difference somehow. Can be one of those batteries that were recalled in last few years. Garmin had some series recalled as well. So it's rather hard to blame it on GPS. It could be phone, PDA, laptop or anything else that is using batteries. But I guess "GPS blow up" makes it sound more sensational.

Few years ago there was problem with capacitors. They had some design or manufacturing errors and were prone to brake or even explode. Caused some fires as well if I remember correctly. And were used in almost all electronic devices. You can have bunch of them in your TV, radio, car, computer, printer, etc. So basically you may be living on ticking bomb in you home.
(more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague)

Be afraid, be very afraid.

I would guess that it could work without a battery in place similar to a laptop. If not, then you may need to run a wire from the negative to the positive terminals to simulate a battery?

that's a real surprise when you come back from the market after an afternoon of shopping. I wonder what the chances are of something like that happening?

Why dont they make these things with the light silver cases any longer, like the 3XX series, they did not get as hot in the sun as the black models do...strange.

Out of how many units Garmin has sold? 1 out of several million would be my guess on the odds....

How about the obvious solution?

Don't leave the (bleep) thing on the dash, in direct sunlight... if you're not going to take it with you when you exit the car... put the thing on the floor, under a seat as much as possible where it's shaded? Can that be too much a hassle? Sheesh....

Even using a windshield sunscreen would be a big help keep temps down.

The writeups I googled up suggested the fires come from shorts developing in the battery. In a lithium ion, small pieces of metal float through the electrolyte and cause a short, which raises temperature, which causes the electrolyte to catch on fire. Lithium polymer are not supposed to do this.

I can't see how the battery being hotter is a good thing but I think that without the internal short, the fire is not going to happen. And with the short, it could happen regardless of the ambient temperature.

Jim

Does Homeland Security know about this ???

Ron

I leave mind in the glove box.
Might think of taking it out.
It is warming up here in SoCal

I guess you haven' read the whole thread or at least my original post...

I would really hate for that to happen while I was using the stupid thing.

I always take mine out when I get to my destination.

What made you think it was a Garmin?

Think of if it is a cell phone in your pocket.

Considering most devices less than few years old are all powered by Lithium batteries and the danger of explosion. Even post office is not accepting it if you have to ship air or international.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/13/us-post-office-lith...

He was just making a general statement on the odds of that happening to a GPS.

Don't think I'm at much risk from sunshine power around here!

It could have been a Dumm Tom or a Man Gellan

A small device causing that much damage... wow.

Remove the GPS from dash

Ouch! Still I would think that If this were more than a random occurrence we would've seen more articles like this

We live in the desert. Ever since we've had GPS receivers in the cars I've tried to convince Mrs. Krull that she shouldn't leave it in the car, much less on the dashboard. But she didn't think it was a big deal.

I just heard her "WOWWWW" as she viewed the link I sent her. I think I may have changed her mind at last. Thanks for the OP, Gadget_Man.

my old school Lowrance GPS from 10 years ago. Built like a small TV and weighed as much!

I figured the same as you on this one, completely taken out of context. Oh well, it happens.

I figured Garmin is the most popular, so I went with it. It could easily have been any other brand. Either way, I'd say the odds of something like this happening are quite low.

It may need the circuit to be completed, something I may have to try perhaps adding a dummy plug in place of the battery.

I read a posting on a competing web site where the same question was asked and a couple people responded it was doable by just removing the battery.

I will keep you and others posted so those who choose to leave the PND in the vehicle 24/7 may know there is a way to do it safely.

I have mine on a sandbag so I just sit it on the floor when I'm out of the car.

I'm not impressed by either the article, or the damage.

The article (tracing it back as far as I can) isn't even conclusory, and doesn't contain enough information to make up an insurance company report.

Yeah, something evidently cut loose in the interior of a car and got hot enough to cause partial ignition in the interior...

Which seems to have extinguished itself (also conclusory, but that's what the materials are designed and treated to do).

Try again -- if you want to cause hysteria, you need something like a crater, or at least melted windows. You should at least raise the spectre of loss of life -- "somebody coulda died! What if there had been little kids in the back, or cute cuddly kittens?"

Oh, and be sure to offer simplistic nonsensical remedies -- like don't drive with electronics in your car (leave the battery in the garage).

Better yet, take the bus. On the bus you can read supermarket tabloids, where stories like this belong.

(grumble, grumble, grumble...)

That is funny, I agree with much of what you wrote.

Just for the heck I got a recording thermometer inside the dashboard console next to my PND, going to leave it there for a week to see how hot does it gets inside, then I'll decide if I'm going to remove the battery from my Nuvi 260 or just leave it be as it has for the last 4 years.

I agree with you on this. What proof indicates it was in fact a GPS that caused this, none that I could find. Just because somebody posts something doesn't make it fact. I'd say 90% of the emails I receive from friends with stories are false. I always check snopes.com to verify before I forward the email to others. Most of them end up in the trash since they are false and I don't want people believing something that is not true.

I never leave my NUVI in the car, but not for this reason. I am more worried about it being stolen

-jgracey

Don't trust snopes when it comes to anything political. Verify with other sources.

Is this for real? Does this really happen?

I closely looked at the 4 photographs in the news article and was able to determine the photo's were of one and the same vehicle.

Nuvi1300WTGPS

Just remember we are going to die from global warming, and a multitude of other nonsensical crap we are told about everyday.

It is to record temperature in some factories I work in and is to verify company equipment temperature extremes. With that said, I recorded 120 degrees last summer and it mis-shaped (melted) a nalgene bottle I had on the seat.

After 3 days recording high and lows inside the center console compartment it shows the highest at 122ºf I will leave it there for a full week to get a better average.

If that is the case it may not be that bad as far as the PND is concerned according to Garmin specs.

I didn't expect that.

I had a Garmin 750 that was stolen from the wifes car. I hope that one blows up in the thiefs car.

Interesting. We used to worry about the GPS displays being damaged by extreme heat or cold--now it's the battery.

My first car was a 1968 Dodge Dart with an all-black interior. I parked it in the summer desert sun in 1976 at Carlsbad Caverns NP in New Mexico, and when we got back to the car, it wouldn't start. I opened the hood and was astonished to see that all the wiring under the hood was burnt up. Called AAA, and they came out and they towed it to the Dodge dealer in Carlsbad. They told us that these Darts had an unusual horn design that was quickly discontinued because in high heat the contacts for the horn would expand, the horn would start blowing and keep blowing, and with no fuse to stop it, the wiring would overheat and burn up. They saw it all the time.

I'd be pissed if my 765's battery blew up the dash in my new Volvo.. Good thing my unit wasn't on the recall list..