sticky finger repellent navigation

I had to go get some service done to my car, and a standard thing I do before I go to the shop is take out my newer Garmin navigator and purposely use an older one before going there.

There are three reasons I do this.

First is the whole "not responsible for what happens to items in car" thing that every garage states in their documentation. That's a not-so subtle way of saying, "We can and we will steal stuff out of your car if we think we can get away with it."

Second, none of my favorites are saved on the older one I use. If anybody that gets in my car goes snooping around my Garmin, there's nothing there to find.

The third reason is great both as a theft deterrent and keeping people out of the device:

It's old.

The mechanic or car tech or whoever sees this old, small matte screen thing, and they want absolutely nothing to do with it. It's not worth stealing because they have nobody to sell it to, nor do they have any use for it themselves, nor is it even worth their time to snoop around in the device.

What I took with me for the drive was the nuvi 44LM, an ultra-basic 4.3" model. It worked just fine as usual.

If I really wanted some sticky finger repellent, I could have used the 1100LM, a 3.5" model. Anybody who sees that thing goes "Eww!" immediately just because it's a square. On top of that, it's a model that has Garmin Lock where I can set a 4-digit PIN.

The earlier models had the ability to set a PIN, then Garmin removed the feature for over a decade, then finally brought it back for newer models (just this year, actually).

It's all well and good that the newer models have the PIN again, but believe me, the combination of old + small for a navigator makes anybody that sees it give it a miss instantly.

You're probably wondering why I don't just use my phone instead. It's because all phone nav apps suck, and the GPS signal on a phone drops whenever it feels like it. Even if I had a brand new phone, it would legitimately have a problem keeping a GPS signal lock. Very common problem.

The only real knock against the 3.5" is the ABCDE on-screen keyboard instead of QWERTY that you get with 4.3"-and-up models, hence why I used a 44LM. Small, old, works, nobody wants it, works for me.

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Published 2025 Sep 30