Would you buy a Garmin Vector 3 again?? Anyone happy please step forward!

This is a genuine question.

I'm in the market for a pedal power meter solution and i'm invested in the garmin ecosystem. I am happy with the quality of all the items I have from garmin so the Vector 3 should be the obvious choice.

However, the issues highlighted on this board and elsewhere on the internet are worrying me - are the issues as widespread as they seem? I've always taken what I read on support forums with a pinch of salt as they do tend to (by design) highlight the bad.

So this is a chance for people happy with the product to step forward and provide a bit of balance.

I'm currently using a stages crank and to be honest, even though that system is now synonymous with battery-door water ingress issues, I'm happy with its reliability since the doors were upgraded. All the noise on the web would indicate that the issue is actually worse with the Vector 3 than the stages? Is that true?
  • I would buy it again. I have had zero issues with the pedals.
  • Been using the Garmin Vector 3 pedals almost a year. Zero problems. Would buy again.
  • I wouldn't, not worth the stress of changing a battery every 40-50 hours...., so once a month roughly. The process is everything but seamless
    I'd look for other options
  • yeah, i'd buy them again.

    i bought mine in dec 2017. my only real complaint so far is that the batteries don't seem to last as long as advertised. but personally i find changing them is pretty simple, and yes i do apply a dab of mineral oil to them when i change them. (also, i haven't been able to rule out the chance that i just got a batch of batteries from some random vendor on amazon. sure they're branded energizer, but i've started checking the voltage on them strait out of the blister pack and i've tossed a few because they were low.)

    i'm not sure if you have a stages L or LR system. i have a first gen stages L only unit (from 2014) that i was happy with. that unit has the initial lousy door design where the tabs keep breaking off, but stages support is great and they just keep sending me a few new doors whenever i ping them. but after getting my vectors i discovered that my left leg is much weaker than my right (about 8-10% on hard efforts). i've subsequently corroborated this data with a dexa scan. it's good to know about this and it's something i can try to address in my training now. so there are real advantages to power meter that report true left/right power.

    personally, i'm not sure that asking your question here is isn't the greatest idea. i assume the majority of garmin vector users won't be hanging around on these forums. only folks having problems or looking for more detailed information will be coming here.

    i follow these forums and others and i've seen the same complains as you, and when expensive consumer tech doesn't work it's really frustrating and debugging it sucks. hence, if i was buying a pair of vectors, i'd buy them from a place with a good return policy and then return them at the first sign of any of the known problems.
  • Yep, I’d buy again, as would the thousands of people that don’t have an issue and never visit the forum. All you see on forums are the people with issues.
  • I would buy again. I have had very few issues that were easily corrected.
  • This has actually worked better than I thought it would! If you believed the rest of the forum then you would think that there were no happy customers.

    This is enough to put the Vectors back in the running anyway, they are still a little more expensive than my other option but I don't mind paying the premium for the better looks and all cycling dynamics stuff... as long as they are reliable.
  • By the way, something else that shouldn’t be underrated is the brilliant support given on this forum by the Garmin personnel. They go out of their way to resolve all the issues and have gone above and beyond in my opinion.