I’ve had my Garmin Nuvi  350 for a little over 4 years and love it.  Over the last year it’s battery has been really  worthless unless I kept it plugged in.  This was mostly my fault for making a permanent hookup in my car and always leaving it plugged in.  I think not cycling the battery more often shortened it’s life.

I did some casual research online, initially  surprised not to find someone documenting how to open the Garmin Nuvi, specifically my Garmin Nuvi 350.  When you look at the thing all the screws are well hidden, so it doesn’t look very inviting to just go poking around in.   Most of the forums I came across online warned sternly against it, or just had endless gripes over Garmin charging $90.00 for mail in battery replacement.

I decided to go ahead an order a battery regardless. I got my battery from http://www.batteryship.com/  it came quickly, and with a free tool kit with all the parts needed for opening the case without causing any damage. (No instructions.)

When it arrived (and following abit more creating Googleing) I came across these helpful sites for instructions on how to dissemble the unit, and change the battery out:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/webspace8/

http://www.dacust.com/nuvi350/index.html

I like the simplicity of the 1st link, but the second adds abit more candor, pictures and warning. Probably worthwhile, as this kind of battery swap has a lot of room for error. Pretty much dissembling (& re-assembling) the antenna portion is the biggest trick. 

All and all, not for everyone. If you have shaky hands, generally klutzy, or don’t typically do much ‘handy work’ you may consider sending it to Garmin, or hitting up someone you trust.  If you have the confidence and patience, go for it.   When I fired mine up and it worked still, I was pretty thrilled. If this thing gives me a few more year I really can’t complain at all.  The battery swap was a minor inconvenience at best.