Aftermarket battery for K2? Repair options?
Anybody have a line on a device repair service that will replace the battery on a K2? I know that Karoo does not offer nor recommend repairs.
Backstory: my K2 has worked flawlessly since the fall of 2021. Never had a problem with the battery or charging until last week after a hot 6 hour ride. I could feel heat coming from the inside, not just passive heat from the summer sun. Would not take a charge, and when I'd try to restart it the H start screen would flash for a second or two before shutting down again. I tossed it in the fridge to help cool it down, and it finally took a charge. Got one more ride out of it and then it went total brick. No soft reset, no hard reset, no white recovery screen. Won't turn on at all with power or external battery connected.
The unit is way out of warranty, and I'm pretty crafty so I thought I might poke around to see if I could get to the battery. I took the two external body pieces off - those accessible with the small torx screws - and that's it - I couldn't see any way to access the battery at all (not like an iphone or my old Garmin 810).
Any ideas or recommendations would be appreciated.
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Hi Corey,
Sorry to hear about your battery issue. Unfortunately, I have no solution for you but wanted to share my recent experience with the K2.
My K2 was working well for about 3 years despite losing my Di2 functionality. Last weekend, the touchscreen display stopped taking input and I had to resort to the side buttons to navigate the UI. Upon closer inspection, I found that the display was lifting off the body of the K2 near the bottom of the unit and couldn't be pressed back to its original position in the frame. It appears that the battery had swollen up and pushed the display away from the case. I did contact Hammerhead but they stated the unit could not be repaired, all they could offer was a 15% discount on the purchase of a new unit. I was a long time Garmin user but constant firmware update flaws made me jump ship to the K2. Now, after only 3 years I need to purchase another unit. If quality of Hammerhead units are questionable, it appears my only real option is to return to a Garmin unit and put up with the firmware breaking features and UI quirks or use my cell phone for basic metric tracking.
In a world driven by mobile phones, it is amazing to me that a solid reliable bike computer is still an illusion in reality.
Please post here if you find a way to obtain and replace your battery as I will most likely do the same :)
Cheers
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