Car Charger for XL not working

[K_Shaughnessy]

I have a TomTom XL and it has recently stopped working when plugged into the car charger. It will not even turn on.

The unit appears to work fine when plugged into the PC. I purchased a new car charger and that does not work either. Finally, I can confirm that the "outlet" I am plugging into in my vehicle does work as I plug my phone into it daily.

Can someone please advise?

 

[dhn]

Are the car chargers you are using the ones supplied by tomtom or some 3rd party ones? True TT car chargers put out anywhere from 1.0 to more than 2A of power.

 

[K_Shaughnessy]

I had been using the OEM car charger supplied when I received the unit as a gift. When that appeared to no longer work I purchased a third party charger. That doesn't work either.

I have no idea what you mean by "True TT car chargers put out anywhere from 1.0 to more than 2A of power" or how that statement relates to my issue. Please translate

 

[dhn]

It means your unit SHOULD have included a proper TomTom car charger in the package of materials (along with a usb cable to connect to the computer).

How it relates? Well, if the car charger you are using is providing minimal power, it may not be enough to charge the unit. Especially if the battery is relatively low in the first place.

If you look on the car chargers you have, what do the specs show vis-a-vis output?

 

[K_Shaughnessy]

To be clear, I did receive a proper TomTom car charger in the box with the TomTom unit. That original charger worked for approximately 2 years. About 8 weeks ago I went to use the TomTom unit in my vehicle and it would not turn on, even when plugged into the original TomTom car charger.

After discovering that it was not working, I plugged the TomTom into my PC via the USB cable provided by TomTom. The unit appeared to work at that point.

So, I bought a third party car charger. The manufacturer of that car charger says: "The Power-Charger output is rated 5Vdc 2A to accommodate most new GPS device including Garmin, Magellan and TomTom."

However, when I tried to use the TomTom unit with the 3rd party car charger it still won't work.

 

[alfie67]

It's possible you have a defective 3rd party charger. Does its light come on when plugged into the power outlet? If it doesn't have a light (which the OEM does have), then you'd have to come up with another way to check power output from the charger to verify output voltage.

 

[K_Shaughnessy]

The light on the charger comes on for both the OEM (TomTom) charger and the 3rd party charger.

Is there another possible issue?

 

[Andy_P]

We're struggling to think of one.... so bear with us if we seem to be asking stupid or obvious questions.

It's the nature of forums that sometimes the reason for the issue is obvious once all the facts are available, but it's hard to ascertain those facts at a distance.

Very occasionally the answer ends up simply as "it's broken"
Also... sometimes the answer never comes...

But usually there's something to fix or sort out, we just have to find it.

 

[Andy_P]

So, couple of obvious questions

1. Have you tried either charger in another car?

2. Did anything happen just before the problem arose?

3. Do you have access to a voltmeter?

 

[- et -]

Is there anything common to both of your car chargers?

For example, did you happen to use the same cable between the chargers and the GPS?

You seem to have established that the GPS itself is working, since it appears to do so when plugged in to your PC. You appear to have established that there is power available to the car outlet, since it will charge your cell phone.

Other than an intermittent connection to the car outlet that worked only when you plugged in the cell phone - which is very improbable - I see only three reasonable explanations.

One is that you used the same cable with both chargers and have a defective cable.

The second is that power is provided to your car outlet only when the ignition is switched on, and you ran your test with the ignition off.

The third explanation is that you actually have two defective chargers. That is a low probability, but one that should be checked if you have any means of verifying the actual output of the chargers - not just whether or not the light on the charger is lit.

With best wishes,
- Tom -