Engineer By Design

November17th

6 Comments

Droid on Garmin Mount



I’m not a fan of window car mounts. At all. The first time that I tried it was with a (then) new Garmin Nuvi 760 that I had bought and what had happened day one? It fell down to the car floor and got scratched. Since then I’ve been using Garmin’s Friction Mount to keep my Nuvi on my dashboard.

Since I’ve got my Droid, I had pondering the switch to using Google Navigation and one thing that was important to me was the car mount. Motorola’s car mount for the Droid is a window mount, and the last thing that I wanted was to have the mount dropping to the floor and having my beloved Droid scratched. Initially, I was going to try to come up with a rig to use my existing Garmin friction mount, but it turns out that there’s no rigging required!

Garmin’s dashboard mount hooks up to the Nuvi through a regular old ball and socket. I thought that it would be a problem since out of the box, the window car mount for the Nuvi consists mainly of two parts — the physical mount itself and the frame that attaches the Droid to the mount.

Droid Car Mount
Motorola Droid car mount parts out of the box (excluding the mounting disc)


As it turns out that the Droid car mount also uses a ball and socket design. I was unscrewed the part of the assembly that attaches to the its socket, then I attached it directly to the Droid frame.

Droid Car Mount Ball and SocketMotorola Car Mount Socket

This frame can now subsequently be attached to Garmin’s Friction Mount easily. The screw that comes with the Droid’s frame helps in securely attaching it to the assembly, just as it does with the Droid’s mount.

Droid Frame on Garmin Car Mount


Droid on Garmin Mount



Thank you Google for the free navigation! Thank you Garmin for the dashboard mount!

6 Comments

  • Pingback by thesun’s blog » Friction Mounted Droid? — November 28, 2009 @ 10:52 pm

    [...] mounts is that the windshield is further forward in newer cars.  Thanks to Google, I found this blog post that basically says that I can use the Motorola suction cup mount parts with the Garmin friction [...]

  • Comment by Phillip — December 2, 2009 @ 11:41 am

    Hi. Just wondering. Does the Droid have to be in factory condition (ie. no snap on case) in order for it to fit properly?

  • Comment by Charlene — December 3, 2009 @ 12:27 pm

    The Droid car mount that’s being sold through Verizon and Motorola won’t fit if you have a case on it. :(

  • Comment by Chris Fowler — January 1, 2010 @ 9:14 pm

    Verizon sells a universal carmount for smartphones that works well with the Droid… and the HTC Imagio even with the extended battery. It has adjustable clamps on the sides, and allows plug in from the bottom. Same price: 29.99

  • Comment by Lori — March 17, 2010 @ 10:24 pm

    Hi Charlene. I had the same idea. I have a Nuvi 350, but when I tried it the ball was too small. The nuvi ball came right out of the Droid’s back screw. I thought maybe it worked for you since you have a Nuvi 760, but I checked at the Garmin website and the friction mount is the same for 760 and 350. So maybe you have a different Motorola car mount? Your picture looks the same, the another Verizon store had a different mount. I have the Motorola Car Mount & Rapid Car Charger 89396N. Thank you for your help.

  • Comment by Lori — March 18, 2010 @ 8:50 am

    CORRECTION – to post above. It does WORK. Sorry for that. I guess once I knew it worked for you I was more confident to really try it. THANK YOU for this GREAT information!! BTW for others looking for a car mount- the one from Motorola without Verizon logs comes with the rapid charger (89396N) available at Amazon.

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