Garmin GPSMAP 178/178C

[homboyfsu]

Does anyone have a power cable and Update Card for sale or is there a local dealer who has these for sale?

[silverking]

You might try West Marine or a local Radio Shack. Both are listed as dealers on garmin.com

[reelhandy]

Garmin pretty much screwed over owners of units that use the old Bluecharts. The last update for that unit was Bluechart Americas 2008.5 version 10.5. Garmin quit providing unlock codes for regular Bluechart in 2011. So you couldn't update through garmin if you wanted to.
However if you have a garmin data card and programmer, or a data card and the GPS serial computer hookup, you could search around on the internet and find a hacked version of that latest update that has been totally unlocked. Load that into Mapsource and put the maps for any area you want onto the data card. That's about the best thing that you can do with that unit.
It's not a bad unit either.

[homboyfsu]

Thanks Guys for the information. It is a good Product and Garmin did drop the ball when they did not provide updates and service. This makes me think when I buy something and it's a good Product will the company continue to provide service?

[reelhandy]

I wouldn't expect Garmin to provide replacement parts, or make repairs indefinitely on any of their products. There is nothing wrong with the 2 - GPSMAP178c units that I own except that new updated charts aren't being made available by Garmin for the units. Garmin introduced the units in 2005, and by July of 2008 they stopped producing updated charts for the units. I know that the sounder technology has changed a lot since 2005, but I don't think there's a lot of difference with the look and function of GPS charts from 2005 to now. It's not like Garmin produced the charts and provided them to 178c owners for free anyway. A relatively small area of chart was sold by Garmin for upwards of $100. I still use both of my 178c's. On one of my boats I have a Humminbird 1198c along with the 178c. I don't have any problems navigating with the Garmin, and that leaves the whole 10" screen on the Humminbird for sonar. When I bought the Humminbird, I looked at the Garmins and probably would have bought their comparable unit if I trusted that they would continue to provide updated charts several years after I purchased it.

[reelhandy]

BTW, if anyone has one of the old Bluechart Garmins ands needs a chart for an different area, or wants to update to the 2008.5 v10.5 charts. If you have one of the old Garmin Data Cards I can probably help you with that. Shoot me a PM.