One of the items we had out for sale while vending at the 2008 BMWMOA National Rally was the Garmin 2600, 2700, 2800 series Sunshade. I really didn't expect to sell a lot of them because these models are getting a bit long in the tooth but they are still pretty hot on the refurbished market so I figured it wouldn't hurt to bring them along.

What I didn't expect was to sell out of them mid-way through the second of three days. I had heard some of the people talking about using them as sunshades for their Garmin Zumo 450's, 550's and Nuvi's but I didn't think that could be the reason for the popularity.

Well, my curiosity got the better of me and I asked one of the customers what model he was getting it for. He said it was for his Zumo and it was a simple modification to get it to work. I asked him to bring it back when he was done with it and he said that he'd be happy to. Well he did bring it back to show me and it was such a simple modification and it fell under the, "Why Didn't I think of that?" category but, since it has to do with an accessory I just had to write it up and put it into our Tech Tips area.

Here are the steps that you need to do to modify the stock sunshade to work with your Zumo or Nuvi GPS.

1) Take the stock Sunshade, shown below, and measure in 1/2" from the edge of the plastic support piece that will be in contact with the GPS and make a mark.

2) Make a mark on the front of the plastic support piece depending on your GPS model.

- Zumo (black lines) - No mark is required. Go to edge of plastic
- Nuvi (red lines) - Measure in 1/2" from the edge of the plastic support piece

3) Mark Diagonally from the 1/2" mark on the rear of the shade to the front.

4) Place a piece of cardboard (in our case we used a cardboard coaster) between the plastic and the outside vinyl material.

5) Cut along your marked lines taking care not to cut through to the vinyl.

6) Cut straight back from where you made your 1/2" on the back of the sunshade to clear out the Velcro. The person that gave me this idea didn't cut through the Velcro but I did because I felt it helped the sunshade hug the GPS better.

And WALLA, you can see from the picture below that the wider 2600, 2700, and 2800 series GPS can fit on a Zumo or Nuvi with a little ingenuity.