For about 2.5 years now, I've been using my Garmin eTrex in my Tacoma on the cheap - a 79 cent suction cup with a hook holding the unit upright on top of the dash. It's worked adaquately, but some recent changes in my Tacoma necessitated a new mount.
First, I moved my Delphi NAV200 navigator unit to the left side of the CB radio, the place where I previously used the suction cup to hold my eTrex in place. This makes reading the maps of the Delphi much easier. On the right side of the CB radio, I put in a basket to hold small items, like my cell phone.
I use my eTrex for point to point navigation while in the field. The Delphi NAV200, while showing many off road trails, isn't any good for off road navigation. Finding a Burger King in Reno, it's fine. But finding a turn on a maze of trails out in rural northern Nevada, it's woefully inadaquate. But it's OK for seeing where you are in real time.
My Garmin was forced to ride in the basket lately, which is no good for navigation, or even just checking your current elevation. There were no other places where the suction cup held the GPS securely - it often just hung crazily and spun around like a victim of vigilante justice; because the dashboard was shorter fore/aft in any other location thus the GPS could not set on it when hooked to the suction cup. Other negatives I've put up with these past two years has been the fact that using the suction cup and hook required that the eTrex be kept in its Garmin brand holster, the screen on which has no anti-glare properties; making reading while underway often difficult; and it wasn't really that easy to get the GPS, suction cup and hook in place without fumbling around for a bit. The window was also smaller than the screen of the eTrex, blocking some data at the top of the screen.
My plan was to purchase Garmin's own suction cup holder for the eTrex, but there's nowhere around here that sells them. So today, I was browsing the electronics section at WalMart and found what appears to be a good solution - the Sosche Grip-It mobile electronics mount. It cost $24.99, or about $5 more than what Garmin was offering their eTrex mount the last time I checked.
The Grip-It consists of a suction cup, gooseneck and head unit that rotates and clamps down on any device in it. The jaws are covered in thick rubber, a good thing, as the eTrex is covered in thick rubber on its sides. All eTrex controls are still useable while in the Grip-It. To keep the eTrex from sliding downward, two tabs swing out and allow the eTrex to set upon them.
I now mounted the eTrex over to the left side of my windshield near the A-pillar. The gooseneck is quite long with a pronounced curvature that was created for packaging; handy for helping to take up some of the leverage and weight of the GPS as this curve sits down on the dash top.
I haven't road tested or trail tested the unit as yet. In the driveway, I notice that the weight and leverage and length of the gooseneck do allow for quite a bit of up and down movement. If this will be enough to overcome the suction of the windshield mount will remain to be seen. I'll keep you abreast of this.
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