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Little confused when I was looking what all I needed but once installed has been doing well. I got this to use in my other car so I could swap out my Garmin without moving mounts - should just have gotten another Garmin (downside with my swaping method is having to move the charger back and forth - slight pain but not this products fault). If you only have one GPS I still prefer the window mount.
Small overall form factor for a dash option, compared to using a friction base.3. Garmin's dire warning about the permanent pad being 'truly' permanent was sufficiently discouraging even for my 14-yr-old car.2. I love this about Garmin mounts, compared to other devices where you need to both remove the unit from the mount as well as unplug the power supply from the unit.5. Recommend ensuring proper adhesion at least at the rear part of the disk rather than the front, given the highly forward center of gravity for the mount-and-gps combination.3. The mount tends to lean forward with the gps unit on it, if you don't attach the base firmly enough to the dash at the rear of the base. Some frustrating hours searching online revealed that the part I'd lost was the only part that could not be replaced separately, without purchasing another complete mount :(This was the cheapest complete mount I could find, so getting it was a no-brainer.
Most of the mount can be easily unlatched leaving just a small oval plastic base on the dash. This is cool, though there's no reason you'd want to do this since the ball joint arm is non-standard and useless without this plastic base.Cons:1. My biggest gripe is the inclusion of only one temporary adhesive pad, and the lack of options to get more pads if you need them. That gives sufficient positions for most purposes. Easy to remove just the GPS unit leaving the power cord attached to the mount (like any other Garmin mount).
But I soon realized this wouldn't work. The plastic oval base that sticks to the dash using the adhesive pad is very rigid. I'm using the 'temporary' pad though I've never moved the mount since I first set it up. This could have been easily countered by either making the base heavier or by shaping the ball-joint arm to curve backwards before coming forward and thus bring the overall center of gravity closer to the center of gravity of the base.4.
I imagine that you should be able to use 3M command strips, but its not going to be very pretty.2. My friction base has flown off my dash on occasion when cornering at higher speeds; this mount hasn't done that yet, and takes up much lesser dash real-estate. My initial preference was to attach the mount on a vertical face of my dash rather than on top of it (less conspicuous). I thought mounts were supposed to allow every imaginable orientation.6.
However, I recently returned from a trip with the Garmin in my backpack and realized that I'd lost the connector that mounts onto the ball joint and holds the Garmin unit and its power supply. Unless you have a perfectly flat dash, which is rather unlikely, only a part of the base is going to be sticking to the dash. Has both a permanent and a temporary adhesive pad. The tilting angles are also narrower than they could have been.5. The rotation locking mechanism in the base uses a thin plastic lever that doesn't look very resilient. I use it very carefully (if at all) for fear of snapping it and ending up with a freely rotating mount arm.7. No rotation or tilting orientation of the mount would have the unit viewable to the driver with the mount attached to a vertical plane in the car. Though I had originally intended to just use the missing part, I ended up switching to this mount completely and no longer use the friction mount.Pros:1.
The ball-joint allows tilting and the mount base allows 360-deg rotation. The mount is practically useless without the pad, so if your pad loses its adhesion (which wont take too long if you move the mount around), you're on your own. If anything, it should be smoother so that lesser strain is placed on the mount base from tilting the unit around the ball or removing the receiver from the ball. Even in the locked position, the arm on my mount has about 2mm of free play, which can get very annoying when you're entering addresses into the unit.Overall, though, its a decent dash mounting option for your primary vehicle, provided you stick it (very) firmly to the dash. I've been very happy with the stock windshield mount that came with my Garmin 660, paired with a Navgear ME201133 Universal Dashboard Mount for Portable GPS Units. The rotation can also be locked, which is a neat feature.4. The ball joint is a very tight fit for the receiver that latches onto the ball, significantly tighter than the one that came with my windshield mount.
I have experienced relief courtesy of the aforementioned and the Garmin Nuvi 660 is now a functioning part of my travel itineraries. The product was unsatisfactory as received and i waited a bit long on my return rights but both AMAZON and GARMIN were most accommodating. I am most grateful to both of the aforementioned and would be happy to let anyone know that fact.
He absolutely loves it. I purchased the Garmin for my husband's birthday. He is not computer or software adept but has mastered the Garmin extremely well.
You can't just buy that part alone, you have to buy it as a component of a whole kit. This was the least expensive way to buy a replacement for the connector that the wire plugs into. Wish that Garmin would sell it individually to avoid buying parts that you don't need.
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