Zumo XT Overheats

[BPMJim]

Did my first long trip (6 hours) with my Zumo XT which is wired into the bike. Temperature outside was ~ 75 degrees and the Zumo stopped working after about 5 hours of riding. The unit was warm to the touch so I assume it overheated and shut off. IT would not come back on. Next morning after the bike sat in the garage over night the Zumo worked fine. In July I am going on a 5 day ride and will be leading many rides which is why I bought the Zumo XT so I need it to work properly. Has anyone else had this problem or can recommend a solution. Many thanks in advance.

Jim Baird

[jfheath]

Welcome to the forum. Thank you for your post.

I have not had exactly the situation that you describe, but I have noted that the screen repsonse is sometimes hyper-sensitive to a finger coming anywhere near it, rendering it unusable. It repsonds to something that I didn't press.

This has happened when I have been sitting with the XT in my jacket pocket. Once in the cool air it returns to normal.
My XT is located behind the screen and out of rain / wind. It is probably also sheltered from direct sunlight as the screen has a slight tint and is angled - so some direct sunlight may be reflected away. There are stories of the curve in some motorcycle screens focusing the sunlight onto particular parts of the fairing, resulting in the plastic being distorted. I have never experienced this , but just wondering ....

I have never had it feel HOT when removing it from the bike. Warm, yes. That seems to be normal. Never hot.

Question - the cable has a little black block on it near to the +ve / -ve connections. Between the cable that has a black shroud and the cable which is black/red twin core. Is that black box still in place ? It is the device that reduces the voltage from 12v to 5v.
How is the unit connected to the battery power. I'm thinking of intermittent fault or a loose connection. I don't think that it is likely - you would have noticed some other odd behaviour - but always worth a check.

Get in touch with Garmin Support. See what they have to say. If they suspect a fault, they will replace it pretty quickly.
Save yourself some time by making sure you have serial number, date of purchase, software version at hand before you make the call.

Does it get hot when left to charge using the USB cable ? Does it get hot if you leave it operating with the charge cable attached. That might be useful info for tech support.

[BPMJim]

Thank you for your response. I will check your suggestions and contact Garmin on Monday.

Cheers,

Jim

[danham]

Always hard to diagnose from far away, but my vote is for an intermittent connection to the mount. My XT gets pretty hot when working normally and I'm just back from a 3000-mile trip on which it worked fine 99% of the time but lost contact once and ran out of battery and shut down. I could not find anything wrong with the pins or contacts, but made sure to be very careful putting the XT into the mount each time, lining up the lower edge first, then gently pressing until the top catch clicks, and it never did it again.

So check your pins for free movement and spring tension and the contacts on the XT for dirt or corrosion and be careful when putting it into the mount.

-dan

[FrankB]

FWIW

Last weekend we drove home from Germany to Holland with temperatures reaching 33 degrees Celcius (91 Degrees Fahrenheit according to the online converter) I have an XT, my companion a 660. His screen 'went black' a few times, maybe because of overheating, I did not have any problems with the XT.

Edit: It was a 450+ km (280 Miles) trip. Nearly 8 hours driving.
If you look at the manual page 19, your temperature should be well within its range.

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[Peobody]

My experience with suspected overheating was putting the XT in a fairing compartment during a lunch stop on a 90° day and not being able to get it started. Luckily I was in location where I knew interstate routes home but that was not what I had planned. The XT started up fine the next morning and has worked fine ever since.