Garmin Optional Suction Cup Mount (Dascham 46, 56, 66W etc)

[Philip F]

At the beginning of this year I bought my Garmin Dascham 56 with the optional (and expensive) suction cup mount. This is convenient if you drive multiple different vehicles and of course don't have an unlimited supply of magnet mount disks. Now it works well most of the time, but it has two annoying issues. First one being, on video review, you hear a significant rattling of the suction cup mount against the glass, it seems to pick up all sorts of vehicle vibrations, for the idle or low rpm diesel engine vibrations, to slightly noisy tyres or rough tar.

But then the most annoying, and scary issue, I have had the camera fall off the windscreen a number of times on all of the vehicles that it has been used in. This seems to happen when a somewhat noticeable ring trace on the windscreen is left from the suction cup, it doesn't seem to allow the suction to remain stable and then the slightest bump or temperature change sees it fail and the camera goes tumbling, which is NOT what you want to have happen. So I have been taking care to clean the windscreen and the actual suction cup on a fairly regular basis, not after every use, but still often enough, and the suction cup mount and camera is never left mounted when the car is parked out in the sun for any significant length of time (has only so far been exposed to Autumn and Winter conditions so far mostly). On a recent road trip, which was the last straw for me, the camera fell off the windscreen 3 times!

So I have retired it until it has to be used in other vehicles and just mounted the standard magnet mount disks in my vehicles instead, which doesn't have any of these issues.

 

[lacibaci]

I am using suction cup every time I have a rental. Never had any problems.

 

[753951]

The magnet is on the mount side, not on the disc that gets glued to the windshield. I went to the Home Depot, bought 7/8" washers and 3M double sided tape. That's a lifetime supply of "mount discs" for pennies a piece. Whenever I rent car I stick one there and leave it at the end. It's not worth saving it for 5 cents. Imagine how many you can assemble this way for the price of one suction cup mount.
Just make sure you buy steel ones, not brass, aluminum or plastic.

 

[Philip F]

The magnet is on the mount side, not on the disc that gets glued to the windshield. I went to the Home Depot, bought 7/8" washers and 3M double sided tape. That's a lifetime supply of "mount discs" for pennies a piece. Whenever I rent car I stick one there and leave it at the end. It's not worth saving it for 5 cents. Imagine how many you can assemble this way for the price of one suction cup mount.
Just make sure you buy steel ones, not brass, aluminum or plastic.

Yes, I thought about that, that's probably the easier way, not to mention cheaper of course!

I am using suction cup every time I have a rental. Never had any problems.

It depends on how often you are doing this, daily? I was using mine daily before the lockdown, and it was fine till one day when it fell. Then I noticed it would fall while the car was parked, and then clicked that it could be caused by the dirty ring trace on the glass where its always mounted. That would sort it out for a while. Point is, you would think that it would be less fussy. A friend bought the same combination of dashcam and optional suction cup mount for the same basic reason, and same problem, except it seems like it has resulted in the death of his dashcam. So this is not great in my opinion, unless we have both bought duds...

 

[lacibaci]

Obviously the suction cup was not designed to be mounted and taken down daily
Do you actually change the cars every day?

 

[Philip F]

Obviously the suction cup was not designed to be mounted and taken down daily
Do you actually change the cars every day?

No, of course not, but there are times where I am using a vehicle other than my own. Point is, most other dashcams or other windscreen mounted devices do or have used some or other suction cup mount. This has got to be the first one that I've had to honestly has failed so much in terms of keeping a relatively light item mounted to the windscreen. Nowhere in the product description, unless I am missing it, does it say that it's only meant for occasional usage. I don't think it's a case of having not been designed for daily use or not, it's just not well designed period! But, this is why I am now using the magnet mounts, and this post was simply to inform others that might have had the same plan in mind to use it instead of the magnet mounts for normal regular use.