1.25m units of Garmin Nuvi recalled for ‘fire hazard’

Well over a million of Garmin’s Nuvi GPS system have been recalled globally, due to a “fire hazard” associated with the model.

PC World cites a battery vendor as the suspected reason behind the device’s issues:

The faulty devices have batteries from an unnamed third-party supplier. Used in conjunction with a specific Nuvi printed circuit board (PCB) design, these batteries can “in rare circumstances, increase the possibility of overheating, which may lead to a fire hazard,” the company said in a statement. Only batteries from an unspecified date range are impacted.

About 800,000 of the units were sold in the US, and it is believed that fewer than ten of those units experienced problems with overheating. No “significant” injuries or damage resulted, but Garmin says they’re exercising an “abundance of caution” with the recall.

Below is the full text of the recall notice posted on Garmin’s website:

Garmin is voluntarily recalling certain nüvi devices that contain a specific battery that was manufactured by the battery supplier within a limited date code range. Garmin has identified potential overheating issues when certain batteries manufactured by the third-party battery supplier within a limited date code range are used in certain Garmin nüvi models with a specific printed circuit board (PCB) design. It appears that the interaction of these factors can, in rare circumstances, increase the possibility of overheating, which may lead to a fire hazard. Although there have been no injuries or significant property damage caused by this issue, Garmin is taking this action out of an abundance of caution.

The recalled devices include a small subset of the following nüvi model numbers:

• nüvi 200W, 250W, & 260W
• nüvi 7xx (where xx is a two-digit number)

You can determine your nüvi model number by looking at the label on the back or bottom of your nüvi.

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