Garmin recall: Is your Nuvi GPS unit affected?

Garmin recalled upward of a million Nuvi GPS units today, saying the devices were at risk of overheating.

Garmin, an electronics manufacturer headquartered in Kansas, announced today that it would recall 1.25 million Nuvi GPS units, 796,000 of which were sold in the US. According to Garmin, the affected Nuvi units use batteries – built by an unspecified third-party manufacturer – that could cause the device to overheat and possibly even catch on fire.

Only a select range of Garmin devices are affected. They include Nuvi units bearing the model numbers 200W, 250W, 260W, 7xx and 7xxT – xx in this case being two digits. Garmin has set up a site where you can check whether your Nuvi device fits the bill; US and Canadian customers can also contact Garmin at 866-957-1981.

More from the release:

None of the reported incidents has caused significant property damage and no injuries have occurred. Nevertheless, given Garmin’s longstanding commitment to safety and customer satisfaction, Garmin is proactively recalling nüvi units with the specific PCB design and with batteries from the specific date code range out of an abundance of caution.

If the model numbers above match up with your Nuvi device, Garmin will replace the battery, "insert a spacer on top of the battery" – presumably to lessen the chance of overheating – and ship the unit back to you.

Garmin's sales figures have slumped in the past year, partly due to the widespread availability of mapping and GPS applications on smartphones such as the Apple iPhone. But at least one analyst doesn't think the Garmin recall will further affect the company. "Product recalls in the consumer electronic space are not unusual and recalls involving battery issues are fairly common," Yair Reiner, an analyst at Oppenheimer & Coy, told Reuters today.