I decided I want to buy a Garmin c340 GPS for my car, however I found out it is now discontinued.?
Thursday, June 17th, 2010 at
12:25 am
Can this cause any problems in the future as far as map updates (would I not be eligible for free map updates on a discontinued product if it comes loaded with the old map)?
Will the manufacturer warranty still be good?
Anything else I am not thinking of that could be cause for concern on discontinued product?
Filed under: Garmin GPS Discussion
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The warranty sheet will say exactly what the rules on the warranty are. I would be surprised if they stopped the warranty when an item is discontinued, though it’s likely, now, that they won’t be able to replace your GPS with the same model (if that time comes).
Customer support can be an issue, but the employees now already know about that model, so you’re good for a while. (That is, new employees will not likely be trained on disco models.)
There may be a time where the new maps are not compatible, which is probably the biggest concern. I don’t think even customer service will know when new maps will stop working on a specific model, but maybe they can interpolate information based on when previous GPS models stopped working with new maps.
Far as I’ve seen (working at Radio Shack, 3 brand names) new maps are not free. If you have something like a free map update, I know you’ll want to save it for as long as possible. I can see problems if your GPS no longer works with new maps, however.