But orange doesn't really go with my bike. LOL. Thinking about a Garmin Zumo myself since Costco sells them and I'm assuming their return policy is much better than trying to go through the HD dealership and/or Garmin direct. However, I have not checked into the "wiring" differences you mentioned. Can speakers can still be run through an auxilary port with the Garmin version? Anyone deal with Lake Shore Harley-Davidson? There prices appear to be better than both locally and Costco.

 

I was given a Nuvi 50 that I'm going to try out this year. Think the wife got it for 60 - 70 at Walmart. I'm not planning to use it much, so didn't want to invest $600 into the bike specific ones. If I really fall in love, I'll do that. I don't use my phone because 1. I hook it up in the saddlebag for music and 2. if I ruin a $80 GPS by getting surprised by the rain, I'm not going to be heartbroken as compared to my phone. I'm not sure I *need* a GPS on the bike, but for short money I'll give it a shot.

I put it on a RAM mount and will be trying it out this year. Cost for the whole solution was like $130. I could buy 4 of them for the cost of the Zumo....

 

I bought this one from Amazon at Christmas time for $79.99. It has a 5 inch screen and works great with a ram mount to the clutch perch.

 

You should be ashamed of yourself. Spending so little $ on a GPS when you've spent soooo much $$$ on your bike. Ditch that $80 unit and go buy one for $700 that will lead you to the same destination.

BTW, I use a 4yr old nuvi 265WT that cost me about $125.

 

You could fork out $60 for Garmin Street Pilot software for your IPhone. It downloads the maps to your phone, so you don't really need to be in cell tower range. I think that's kinda pricy myself. I heard rumors that Google may be coming out with downloadable maps for your smartphone before long.

 

I have a hard enough time trying to follow the maps on my phone while I'm walking. Don't need to kill myself on the bike trying to look at my phone. I have a Nuvi 1450 that I paid about a hundred bucks for. Works great with a ram mount. Besides, I'm in lots of places where there is no cell coverage and the phone doesn't do squat without coverage.

 

My zumo 660 went skidding across a road landed in the center, I was doing about 50 when it fell out of the mount, my fault for not fully putting it in the mount, but I have used it for 8,000 miles after that , got some battle scars on the back, but works fine. I use it as an MP3 player mostly, but I used it today in the truck on a trip for work, comes with a mount for a car, and the bike.

 

EXACTLY!! Go take a Midol or something

 

I have 25K miles on my $100 5" Garmin Nuvi with a RAM mount. Screen is very bright and easy to see even in bright sunlight. A sandwich sized Ziplock bag and a rubber band make it waterproof and you can still use the touch screen through the bag.

I have considered the ones which are waterproofed and made for bikes, but they have smaller screens and are 5X the price. For that I would rather buy a new unit every few years and get the latest maps, faster processors, and newest features.

I have the 5" nuvi on my bike, on my wife's bike, and on my brother in laws bike. All have lasted more than 2 years.

One word of warning: On my very first GPS I used a cheap micro USB power supply. After about a month, the vibration caused two parts to short together and it fried my GPS. After that I only use a real Garmin power supply and haven't had a problem. You could probably use the cheap ones too if you wanted to go to the effort of opening it up and filling it with Silicone.

 

I have the Garmin nuvi 40LM. I love it. Mounted it with kuryakyn's new tech connect line of mounts. If its raining I'll do the sandwich bag trick.

One nice thing about going with the Garmin is you can add the HD dealer database to any of their gps units for free. The database is available on their web site.

Which ever you choose really concider getting the LM or lifetime maps version of the unit. It will save you a couple hundred down the road for a $20-$30 upgrade in unit cost.