Hi Guys, I fried my Garmin Quest this weekend. It's OK, because I fell like I got my moneys worth out of it. It was my first personal GPS, so I bought a reconditioned one from the GPS warehouse for $299 a few years ago. I have used and abused this GPS for about 2 years. It was a great learning tool. Now that it is dead, I am thinking of buying another reconditioned Quest2 for only a few dollars more than first Quest. I am thinking this is the way to go as I have my bikes already set up with TT mounts that fit the Quest models. Has anyone used the Quest2 and the original Quest? Can you tell me the differences other than cost. Is it much better than the first? Thanks any input would help. FB
The only difference between the two that I am aware of is that fact that the Quest II has the full us detailed mapset loaded. Thats good, as if you go for a morning ride in Rhode Island and suddenly find yourself in Los Angles, you can find the phone number for the nearest McDonalds. Thats bad, in that routing and finding and other things have been notably slower because of all the extra map data, that poor little Quest CPU is being pushed to the limit. What'd you do to your original quest? Is it repairable?
Well, the first obvious difference is that the 2 has all City Nav pre-loaded. No more choosing an area to load, no more using a PC if you don't want to. Other than that, they operate the same. There is a bit more extra memory on the Quest 2 if you want to load maps from another product, like Topo or Roads & Rec. One thing to note; you do not get an AC adapter with a Quest 2 like you did with your Quest. Keep your old one.
No, It's not repairable. It's beat on pretty hard and last weekends rainstorm (12+ hours) did it in. It started by locking up, rebooting it, would work for little while, then that stopped working. I am sure that is got soaked and shorted out the insides. Now it that it dried out, It won't even power up. I can get a replacement for less than $200, but was thinking on upgrading to the 2 for a few bucks more.
There are some software differences too. For example, the Quest 2 is compatible with Garmin's POI loader, whereas the Quest is not. It's the only difference that I know, but it leads me to believe that there are others. As pointed out already, the Quest 2 is noticably slower than the Quest. Since I have used only the Quest 2, I can't compare, but it's clear that the Quest 2 processor is overworked. My opinion is that the Quest 2 isn't so much of an upgrade as simply a slightly different model. If having the entire US preloaded is important to you, go with the Quest 2, but if you don't mind uploading maps now and then, I'd suggest staying with the Quest. Jamie
By the way, I'm not convinced that your Quest is not repairable. Mine gave me similar symptoms as you describe at one time and wouldn't turn on. I think I'd run the battery all the way down, because it wouldn't turn on, and it wouldn't charge either. After fussing with it for a while, it came on and I did a hard restart (Hold OK, Page, and the power button, I think) and the GPS worked again. Then again, you may have fried something. Hard to say. Jamie
I've heard good stories about garmin support. If you really think the rain killed it, then I would call garmin. The quest is supposed to be waterproof. Maybe they will be sympathetic.
You should probably keep it for parts, but ping me offline if you want to sell the flip up antenna. It basically snaps off after removing two screws. It's not worth much, as I am using an external eBay antenna instead ($25 shipped from ebay) and it works much better then the built in thing... but I would probably give $25 to have one I don't have to build a special short cable for, and that would fit in a pocket better when I am moving it a lot.
