I live in Taiwan. I bought a Colorado 400T during June 2008. I used it for navigation during jetskiing (attached to the handle bar with it's handlebar mount) from the main island to nearby smaller islands. During my first ride only 2 days after it was purchased, we ran into a Beaufort number 7-8 wind and one of a friend's jetski perished and 2 good friends died (a father and his son). They didn't pack a GPS with them. It was a headline news here. Luckily, I had the GPS and I must admit it saved my life. However, after I reached the island just 34 Km from the starting point, the GPS died on me. No one else had any problem using older model of Garmin water proof GPS. I later found out that night, water had gone into the battery compartment. I had it sent in for repair and Garmin was kind enough to replace a new one for me. After receiving a new unit, I carefully inspected the unit and I found a flaw in its design. The O-ring (seal) that suppose to keep the water out of the battery compartment would be squished upward whenever I tried sliding the case up. That's why so many people in other forums that are discussion this are having trouble getting the cover completely slide up. You simply can not slide it up completely if there's detached O-ring getting caught between the main body and the CO. If you take a very close look, after the O-ring was pushed up, there are detached parts of the O-ring (supposely glued to it's bottom) that separates and allow water to seep in. I believei it's a design flaw and the company should solve this problem. The only way I can make sure that won't happen again is to buy some camera O-ring grease and allow the case to slide more smoothly so the O-ring won't detach and get squished together. Unlike Garmin's previous water proof GPS, they were manufactured so that the back plate was placed over the seal and tightened by screws. In that way, there's no sliding force on a dry detachable O-ring seal. Lastly, after using the grease, it's hell trying to remove the greased sticky sliding case off for battery replacement. I'm going to wipe the grease off completely next time I go out with my jetski. I'm sure water will get in and I'll get this GPS replaced with a new one. And again, I might probably get several new ones before this warrantee rans out next year. Come to think of it, it really angers me that Garmin doesn't even make a sound addressing to this problem.
That's how water got into the battery compartment
Garmin called me several times the immediate day aftter I posted this thread at another forum and told me they would gladly send a personel to pick up my GPS for O-ring replacement. I told them the reason I posted this thread was not because I wanted a new O-ring, but for them to recognize that there exist a flaw in its design to make it a waterproof unit, and this may result in a failure for a consumer during time of desperate need. They could not offer much more than a sorry and told me that the O-ring seal are OEM then glued on by an outside company. So much for that. The colorado 400T states that it's suppose to withstand up to 1 M submerged under water for 30n minutes. We ride out on the sea at speeds of less than 15-50 km/h. I did not submerge it in the water, it, however did received lots of splashes of sea water. Then again, so did others.
That said, I'm still very grateful to this unit that saved my life. To me, it's worth more than a million bucks.
Dr. James M. Shih
docjames1098@hotmail.com