Garmin is one of the leading manufactures of consumer grade GPS in the world. They have many models that are at the top of their category, ranging from automobile navigation systems, to chart plotters, to golf GPS systems, to GPS tracking watches, to bicycle GPS.

As a result of this phenomenal success they have also release several different models under the "refurbished" title. But what does it mean for something to be called a "refurbished Garmin GPS"?

Let's take a look.

A product can be labeled for "refurbished" for all sorts of reasons. For example, a let us take a look at what the origins of a refurbished Garmin Nuvi 760 could be. Lets say that there is a Garmin Nuvi 760 going through the production line at a Garmin plant. All of its chips and wires are being installed successfully as it passes from station to station. But while on the belt that takes it from place to place it travels a little too quickly and bangs into the railing causing a scratch.* It continues along the process until all components are installed. It then gets mixed in with the products to be shipped and sent to the quality control people.

*This is a completely fabricated story, but it gets the point across that minor physical defects can be caused in lots of different ways

As it goes through this process, they realize that there is a physical defect on the case of the GPS. This is against Garmin's standards of quality so the item cannot be shipped out as new and laws say that the device cannot be fixed up and sold as new. So what is Garmin to do in this type of situation? Should they just throw away a perfectly good GPS that only has a minor cosmetic defect? By selling this device as refurbished they are able to make some money off of all their hard word (albeit at a lower profit) and consumers get a high quality GPS for relatively in expensive price.

Small physical blemishes are not the only reasons for something to labeled as refurbished. Sometimes there are actual mechanical or software problems with the device that prevent it from working properly. If this is the case then the manufacturer can simply destroy the GPS or they can fix it. If they decide to fix it they have to run additional test of the device to make sure that it works properly and then they are required to sell it as a refurbished GPS.

If there is a software or hardware problem that is fixed the device should not be considered tarnished because of these past problems. The device has been fixed and tested again to ensure that it functions properly. If it passes it is considered to be just as good as a new GPS because it now is just as good, it just had a problem that is now fixed.

It is my opinion that there is really little reason to buy new if the refurbished GPS is going to provide a better value for you dollar than buying new will. Generally speaking, refurbished items can be market down around 20% or more. This is fantastic for those seeking to get the same type of quality GPS navigation at a greatly reduced price.

There is one caution with going refurbished: sometimes manufacturers don't let you upgrade your map version for free. Depending on how much map updates cost it could be a wash between buying new and buying refurbished so make sure that you do some research (but last I heard the update cost $65 for a Garmin map update).