Mounting Solutions ???

[GarCor]

I realize this has be talked about before and have seen a few different solutions but I am wondering if anyone has come up with a super duper fix.

I started out by putting my mounting plate on my dash with about 1/4 " overhanging the front edge of my dash, that worked fine but suction mount still fell off from time to time sometimes within minutes other times it would be 4-5 hours later. I then glued the suction cup to the flat disk and that worked fine but the other day I was parked at a friends house in the sun and the adhesive from the back of the mounting plate separated from the plate and guess what, the unit with the suction cup and plate fell to the floor GRRRRRRRRRR.

Never the less my unit has fallen on the floor more times than I care to remember or like. I feel one of these days it won't survive the fall.
I have been looking for a better solution and have come up with this one and wondering if anyone else has tried it.

I am going to order a ram flex mount and affix the suction cup base to the top of it and semi permanent attach the other end to my drink cup holder in the middle of my dash. (2000 Honda Odyssey) I hope this will keep my unit from falling but not sure how steady the unit viewing will be.
http://products.ram-mount.com/rammount/productdetail.aspx?partnumber=RAP-105-6RRU

 

[Blister72]

Dealing with this issue myself...

With the summer sun, and temps warming up, I myself have been dealing with this issue of the unit coming un-suctioned to the disk. I think now that the black, heat absorbing, dash disk was a stupid idea.

Who hasn't seen VHS tapes and CD's warp during summer. Granted, I never leave my XLS in the car overnight, but when driving and it falls, it is a royal PITA, and that chincy suction cup is junk.

I'm looking at RAM too, as I have seen them used on many a bass boat (permanant mount) to hold Lowrance and Hummingbird units, which would be even more costly it THEY failed, plus they have to withstand a serious beating on rough waters, and 60-70MPH, while being exposed to the elements.

I'm not keen on the permanant mount with screws to the dash for vehicle use, and like the portability of the suction base, but suction cups always break free and cause more trouble, money wasted, and time lost dealing with it.

Maybe I'll consider some "stealth" mount home made solutions...Hmmm???

Good luck, but I'm leaning towards RAM.

 

[GarCor]

With the summer sun, and temps warming up, I myself have been dealing with this issue of the unit coming un-suctioned to the disk. I think now that the black, heat absorbing, dash disk was a stupid idea.

Who hasn't seen VHS tapes and CD's warp during summer. Granted, I never leave my XLS in the car overnight, but when driving and it falls, it is a royal PITA, and that chincy suction cup is junk.

I'm looking at RAM too, as I have seen them used on many a bass boat (permanant mount) to hold Lowrance and Hummingbird units, which would be even more costly it THEY failed, plus they have to withstand a serious beating on rough waters, and 60-70MPH, while being exposed to the elements.

I'm not keen on the permanant mount with screws to the dash for vehicle use, and like the portability of the suction base, but suction cups always break free and cause more trouble, money wasted, and time lost dealing with it.

Maybe I'll consider some "stealth" mount home made solutions...Hmmm???

Good luck, but I'm leaning towards RAM.

That is why I considered going with this Ram mount. I figured I could make it semi-permanent by securing the suction cup to the top of the ram mount. Then by drilling 3 small holes in bottom of cup holder and with using small diameter bolts with wing nuts for easy removal I could have a decent setup. In my case the cup holders are in a slide out drawer in the center of my dash.

I also looked at this on e-bay.ca as an alternative.

http://cgi.ebay.ca/Flex-Mount-for-T...meZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem#ebayphotohostingT

This looks like a decent mount that would be a cradle like your home cradle as well as a mount.

 

[ficxer]

mounting

I bought velcro with self adhesive backing, you can but them at home depot or wal-mart mine is about 2 inch square and I attach one side to where I want it on my explorer and the other to back of round suction disc plate, I live in sunny florida where the heat gets pretty high no problems with it coming loose, of course when I leave the car I take tomtom go 720 with me.hope this info helps.

 

[Outcast1968]

Hey here is a link to a mount site to take a look at, they are kind of expensive but work great.

http://www.proclipusa.com/choosecountry/choosecountry.aspx

 

[jmefun]

good, cheap vent mount

I bought a vent mount for my 920. It works great; can tilt up down and side ways.

http://www.mountguys.com/product_p/tt520-129.htm

 

[jaguar]

Gorilla glued it...

 

[mikenkellie]

I went ahead and bought 2 arkam mounts for my tomtom one xl. One for my work truck and the other one for my car. My car I never drive during the week so it bakes daily. My truck I drive all week long and I have had only 1 problem with them. Never been a sticking issue but instead a bump issue. Basically I hate seeing my gps bouncing while I'm looking at it so I fix it by loosening it, then snapping it the mount back into place so it holds. After I fix it once it never happens again. Also to fix the suction issue before I stick them to the window I would lick the cup. Never had a falling problem. I hope that helped.

 

[frieslander]

I used to have an Aerostar van. I made sure the area where I mounted the disc was flat and clean. U first washed the area with a strong solution of detergent and water and dried it with a paper towel. Then I cleaned the area with alchohol. The disc never came off untill I took it of when trading the van in.

The suction cup gave me trouble until I coated the disc with a tin film of Vaseline hand lotion. It never came loose after that treatment, even in the hot sun.

When I tried to mount the disc in the recess on the dash of my Chevrolet Venture I had problems. I found out the area was not quite flat AND the bottom of my disc was CONCAVE! At least 1/8 of an inch!

I sanded it until I had 1/2 inch of flat all around the edge. I then found the flatest area in the dash concavity and used automotive trim tape to re-mount it. This time it stayed in place.

I then got a gooseneck mount in place of the TomTom mount to bring the screen closer, even then no problems.

 

[Sidicas]

I bought velcro with self adhesive backing, you can but them at home depot or wal-mart mine is about 2 inch square and I attach one side to where I want it on my explorer and the other to back of round suction disc plate, I live in sunny florida where the heat gets pretty high no problems with it coming loose, of course when I leave the car I take tomtom go 720 with me.hope this info helps.

This is also the method that I used. The industrial strength adhesive velcro from Wal-Mart works awesome and you can always pull your GPS mount off and put in a different car thanks to putting Velcro in more than one car.. I think Velcro is by far, the best way to mount things temporarily in a car, especially because it doesn't say "Steal me: GPS on board!" like a mount disk on the inside of your windshield does.

I have my mount disk and my Suction cup glued together with automotive "goop", the bottom of the mount disk I have the original adhesive scraped off and I use adhesive velcro instead. Then just put adhesive velcro in all your cars that you plan to mount the GPS in and you've got a terrific solution.

 

[frieslander]

I have used all kinds of Velcro on the dash areas and have yet to find a Velcro that stays on in the extreme heat on a sunny day. How does your Velcro hold in the heat?