Garmin Forerunner 110

Has anyone run into the same problem that I have had? I bought my watch three years ago. Due to my 1 year old nephew getting hold of it for just a few seconds, I was quite surprised that he was able to create a tear in the plastic of the watch strap - which has now grown and means only half the strap is keeping it in secured in place. 

So I phoned up Garmin today and was sure they would despatch a replacement strap for a nominal fee - they must get these problems from time to time I imagine. I was surprised when they said they would exchange it for another watch - but for a fee of £59. The reason for this, they explained, is that the strap and the watch are moulded together and the strap therefore cannot be replaced separately. Of course, they are right. The watch and strap are moulded together and I have no problem if that's the best design for a watch/strap like this - but I wasn't really thinking about that when I bought it. The tear is across the "pressure part" where after tightening the strap the metal buckle then holds the strap in place; so I guess the plastic had started to weaken over time so I can't really blame my nephew for doing what he did.

The fee Garmin quoted is a percentage of the retail price at the time the watch was sold and as it's out of the warranty period, that fee is due and they won't discount it. I love the watch, but I don't need a new one and getting a new watch won't help bring my marathon times down. So I'm really not at all impressed that I can only fix the strap by paying for a replacement watch. Setting the fee at this level will make me think twice about buying another Garmin in the future. In the meantime I'll try superglue and hope that works! Be warned!

So you bought it three years ago. I don't know what the price was then but let's guess at £150. That's £50 a year for the time you've been using it. £1 a week. 

A small child (not the intended user demographic) manages to chew or break it or whatever. Well, shit happens. Garmin offer to replace it for rather less than half the current typical retail price.

Seems a good option to me. I don't get what the complaint is about.

Muttley wrote (see)

  I don't get what the complaint is about.

Nor me.

I bought a 305 years ago, it stopped working properly just outside the warranty period but they exchanged it (on their refurb/replacement programme) for free, turnaround was 3 days and they couldn't have been nicer. 

It has now just died so I contacted them yesterday about a refurb/replacement - again, nice, friendly and helpful bloke on the end of the phone and excellent service. 

But I only had to pay £51.63.

Perhaps that was because I was  rather than .

Just get a generic strap from your local cobbler's shop.

Take it to a watch repair shop, they are always really accomodating and most will be able to do something for you if not they can recommend someone who will.

I had a similar problem with a Timex ironman. I know really specifically look at the design of the strap and try to buy ones where the strap is user replaceable wherever possible. I'm sure this design feature is just to rip off customers as the strap is almost always the first thing to break on a watch.

I got round it by following some instructions to make my own watch band (through repeatedly knotting some guy line, which I managed to get to fit through the remaining pieces of strap, but I don't know whether that is possible with the design of the forerunner or not. You could google "make your own watch strap" and see if any of the things that come up look like they might fit.