Reports problems with Garmin 0408 NAV DATA CD and MX20 5.3 software upgrade

Avionics West, an avionics company out of Santa Maria (CA), recently ran into problems with a couple of Garmin products, and one of our News Spies alerted us to the news. We think that letting people know about this through their web site is a great idea, and decided to pass on the information. This one comes from Ted Rogers, the boss at Avionics West.

Recent Problems We've Found With the MX20

Those of you that like to keep the latest/greatest software in your magic boxes: Good News, the Nav Data disk (cycle 0408) came out a few of weeks back. Bad News! It's got a bad file on the disk. The NAV DATA CD we are talking about here is the disk that comes out once a month from Garmin that contains nav/data, obstructions, terrain, etc., not the Jeppesen data. If you have cycle 0408, please give Garmin a call. 

Software 5.3 for the MX20.

As only my luck would be, we "seemed" to receive a corrupted 5.3 software update for the MX20.  When the MX20 was upgraded to 5.3, it showed the aircraft off by as much as 175ft. when taxiing and using ChartView.  When doing a 180 degree turn on the ground, at times the airplane symbol would move backwards and then correct itself! We also noted that the map would jump from North Up to Track up IF the unit was originally placed in the Track UP mode.  If the MX20 was placed in the North UP mode, everything seemed to work correctly.  To verify the problem was 5.3, I upgraded another MX20 and it displayed the same problems PLUS at times would lock up and display "General Protection Fault".  You think it can't get any worse but it can.  According to Garmin, once you update to 5.3 you can't go back!  Anybody want to buy a couple of screwed up MX20's?  Didn't think so.  I'll let you know what fixes this problem once I figure it out. 

FMI: www.avionicswest.com, www.garmin.com, mailto:trogers@avionicswest.com