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Total disillusionment with Garmin products and support

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  • December 18, 2014 at 6:11 pm #22884
    Northernbikeguy

    A bit of back story first:

    I pulled out my Garmin Edge 800 to go for a quick ride and discovered that the screen wasn’t responding properly in one corner meaning I couldn’t back out of menus properly.

    I did the usual master reset/clear data, tried without the SD card, forced a screen calibration which looped forever – didn’t fix it.

    Now I should point out here that this is actually my third unit. The first one I bought in January 2012 developed a fault just over a year after purchase where it would say something like “Could not connect to the XM Radio” and it would refuse to connect to USB. I warrantied it and got a refurb unit.

    The refurb unit started locking up at random about 6 months after I got it. I looked it up and it’s quite a common issue. Again I tried all the resets, tried with no maps, tried everything – No joy. It was intermittent enough to not bother me at first but it got more frequent so I asked for it to be fixed at around 13 months after I received it.
    This time I was invited to pay £74.40 for a replacement unit after sending mine back. I emailed back saying it was a known fault and it was pretty audacious asking me to pay them to fix a software issue. They agreed to replace it for free.

    Back to the current, third unit. Now understand me, I have treated this thing like the fragile egg it shouldn’t be – always using a screen protector and official case, never dropping it or putting it in a pocket with keys. It’s absolutely immaculate because I have been so terrified of ending up with another dud and yet it happens again.

    Back to the customer support:

    I contacted support and went through the usual process of telling them everything I’d done and received the usual canned response back asking me to do everything I’d already done.
    I email back and they tell me that the refurb is only in warranty for 90 days and hey guess what? You get to pay £74.40 for a replacement unit!

    I’m not happy with this so I ring and explain I can’t afford to pay for a refurb and it’s unreasonable to ask me to pay for a repair on a device which has been incredibly unreliable. I ask to speak to a manager.

    Now I’ve worked in call centres myself so I am not a dick to the guy I get through to. I state plainly that I want to speak to a manager and that yes I understand that the manager may just say that I have to pay. After subtly trying to blame me for the failure he sticks me on hold for 20 minutes then comes back and says I’ll get a call tomorrow afternoon.

    Fast forward to today and I call them back at 16:40 (she actually rang and left a message while I was calling through so I can’t fault her for not calling back).
    I explained the situation to her and she said the warranty was 90 days and they would absolutely not budge on this. I asked why my second refurb unit was offered after 13 months to which she replied it was a courtesy. I asked what was wrong with being courteous twice and she would not directly answer the question and just kept repeating the 90 day warranty line.
    She started saying something about how …”with the screen, sometimes the rain…” and then stopped herself, presumably after remembering it’s supposed to be waterproof. She also told me what a privilege it is to be able to get a new unit for only £74.40 and that no other GPS unit comes close to that price! (To which wanted to answer that I could have pretty much any GPS I wanted for £410 which is the total of the Garmin and refurb cost).

    So here I am left with a device which won’t work the way I want it to (I can’t set it up after factory resetting it) and which I can’t afford to replace. I have 2 sets of Garmin sensors now doing nothing other than clutter up my frame.

    [b]TL;DR – Bought Garmin Edge 800 which broke, got replacement which broke, got replacement for replacement which is now broken.

    Customer service refuse to replace free of charge despite doing it last time. Manager implies there’s a water damage issue with the screen before stopping herself.

    My recommendation to anyone thinking of buying an Edge unit is to leave a trail of pound coins behind you instead.[/b]

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  • December 22, 2014 at 7:18 am #823951
    0
    Northernbikeguy

    I just wanted to post a quick
    I just wanted to post a quick update here.

    After searching for things to try on broken resistive screens I found some suggestions that sticking it in the freezer might solve the problem.

    I put it in a sandwich bag with the air pushed out and left it in overnight. The next day I tried the calibration again and the screen was more responsive in that area. This time the wizard actually completed and it’s working now.

    A bit embarrassed about how angry I’d got but I thought I’d swallow my pride and post this in case anyone else has a similar issue. I’m not sure if it was the freezing that did the job or if the contact point was too small and I’d just missed it every time before (I was using an old-school stylus previously to see if I could accurately find where it thought I should be pressing) but it works now so that’s that.

    December 19, 2014 at 8:08 pm #823949
    0
    OnTheRopes

    JonD wrote:OnTheRopes

    JonD wrote:
    OnTheRopes wrote:
    Unfortunately after that the HRM started to fail after about 4 months of ownership, heart rate would read okay at the beginning of a ride but would fail after a while on every ride. Researching the issue it seems many people are experiencing this problem. Anyway I swapped for a Polar soft strap which does the job great so far and is half the price of a Garmin strap.

    Dunno if this is the same thing reported on dcrainmaker a few years ago, but I bought the old Garmin polar-style thing – not waterproof but doesn’t suffer from corrosion as the (earlier ?) comfort HRMs did

    Not sure about rainmaker but the issue is quite common, it is the strap and not the transmitter that is the problem. I bought this http://www.amazon.co.uk/Polar-Chest-Strap-Soft/dp/B00893LQNK and the Garmin transmitter piece clips directly on and works out of the box so easy to swap over

    December 19, 2014 at 4:23 pm #823947
    0
    Northernbikeguy

    Jimmy Ray Will wrote:Be

    Jimmy Ray Will wrote:
    Be honest, are you angrier now, than you would have been if they’d simply said no the first time it happened?

    I couldn’t honestly say since it’s not what happened but I imagine I’d have just gotten to the same conclusion earlier.

    OnTheRopes wrote:
    Unfortunately after that the HRM started to fail after about 4 months of ownership, heart rate would read okay at the beginning of a ride but would fail after a while on every ride. Researching the issue it seems many people are experiencing this problem. Anyway I swapped for a Polar soft strap which does the job great so far and is half the price of a Garmin strap.

    I had the same issue and did the same thing with the soft strap. Unfortunately I started getting a lot of spikes again after a couple of months(even though the contacts were clean and I was using gel on the pads). I’m using a Wahoo Tickr now, which I highly recommend. You can use it with bluetooth as well so it’ll pair with a phone.

    Leodis wrote:
    Garmin have covered out of warranty issues for you over and beyond what they needed too and now three years down the line you want them to keep supplying replacements for it even though its two years out of warranty?

    What I want from them is to accept that a device they supplied less than a year ago has failed. I don’t think it should matter that it’s a refurbished unit. I feel that if they have faith in their product, they should be willing to provide a full warranty on their replacements. What I purchased from them does not meet the reasonable expectation of being able to use the device for at least 3 years without crapping out in some way and neither did the two supplied replacements.

    I honestly don’t expect anything to come of my bitching and moaning. The post was just to vent some anger but I did want to see where other people stood on the issue.

    MuddyGoose wrote:
    My Z2 has great battery life, is waterproof, I have a stem mount etc. Depending on what phone you have you may be able to drop the Garmin 800 and keep the sensors you already have.

    I think I’ll sell the garmin for spares/repairs and the accessories too. With the money I’ll grab some Wahoo sensors that pair with bluetooth and use my phone instead.

    December 19, 2014 at 2:59 pm #823945
    0
    Jimmy Ray Will

    Tricky this one… I think as
    Tricky this one… I think as mentioned, Garmin have acted above and beyond their warranty terms on more than one occasion here, and now, when they are asked again, they no longer willing to play the game.

    The message this post is sending out loud and clear is that attempting to do the right thing with a customer will only bite you on the arse in the end… so you are better off being a cnut in the first place.

    Be honest, are you angrier now, than you would have been if they’d simply said no the first time it happened?

    I do understand it though… you have been sent refurbs, which by there very nature must be inferior to units that haven’t been returned and refurbed for some reason… of course they are going to go wrong.

    As frustrating as it is… I’d swallow this one and go and find a better solution and use for your cash.

    December 19, 2014 at 2:12 pm #823943
    0
    JonD

    OnTheRopes

    OnTheRopes wrote:
    Unfortunately after that the HRM started to fail after about 4 months of ownership, heart rate would read okay at the beginning of a ride but would fail after a while on every ride. Researching the issue it seems many people are experiencing this problem. Anyway I swapped for a Polar soft strap which does the job great so far and is half the price of a Garmin strap.

    Dunno if this is the same thing reported on dcrainmaker a few years ago, but I bought the old Garmin polar-style thing – not waterproof but doesn’t suffer from corrosion as the (earlier ?) comfort HRMs did

    December 19, 2014 at 2:09 pm #823941
    0
    JonD

    Leodis wrote:So let me get

    Leodis wrote:
    So let me get this right, over three years ago you bought a Garmin which had a fault out of warranty, Garmin do the right thing and send a replacement for free out of warranty, this 2nd Garmin 13 months later and 10 months out of warranty develops another fault, again Garmin replace then the 3rd one which I take you have owned for nearly a year also becomes faulty at or near the time you think the warranty is about to expire and you want a 4th in 3 years.

    Garmin have covered out of warranty issues for you over and beyond what they needed too and now three years down the line you want them to keep supplying replacements for it even though its two years out of warranty?

    To be fair it seems Garmin have been good to you twice, once for covering the 1st out of warranty unit and again the same for the 2nd and 3rd.

    A few points:

    a) the build quality ought to be good enough such that the unit should have a lifetime of several years – this is further supported by the sale of goods act (but good luck in trying to invoke it..)
    http://www.whitegoodshelp.co.uk/faulty-appliances-sale-of-goods-act/
    Several units which fail after a relatively short time – and which seem in one case to be common problem – would seem to indicate there’s a design/build flaw.

    b) in reliabilty terms, there’s some thing called a ‘bathtub curve’ – in this case it would be total units failing vs time – you expect a higher number initially (eg build quality – could be poor soldered joints), then a relatively low level for the product lifetime, then a higher rate of failure towards the end of life, The point of the warranty is to give the customer some confidence that the item is into it’s useable lifetime, ie that’s it’s got past the initial high failure rate.

    The xbox red-ring-of-death is one example of the manufacturer sidestepping a reliability issue by extending the warranty, rather than fixing the problem. Similarly an issue with one mobile graphics processor family from NVidia some years back…solution was to permanently enable the chipset cooling fan, and extend the warranty, rather than a recall. Bear in mind that the graphics support in a laptop isn’t replaceable as in a desktop – a failure and it scraps the whole device…run out of warranty and you’re SOL.

    December 19, 2014 at 12:53 pm #823939
    0
    Leodis

    So let me get this right,
    So let me get this right, over three years ago you bought a Garmin which had a fault out of warranty, Garmin do the right thing and send a replacement for free out of warranty, this 2nd Garmin 13 months later and 10 months out of warranty develops another fault, again Garmin replace then the 3rd one which I take you have owned for nearly a year also becomes faulty at or near the time you think the warranty is about to expire and you want a 4th in 3 years.

    Garmin have covered out of warranty issues for you over and beyond what they needed too and now three years down the line you want them to keep supplying replacements for it even though its two years out of warranty?

    To be fair it seems Garmin have been good to you twice, once for covering the 1st out of warranty unit and again the same for the 2nd and 3rd.

    December 19, 2014 at 11:47 am #823937
    0
    MuddyGoose

    I use a Sony Xperia Z2 phone
    I use a Sony Xperia Z2 phone (has ANT+ support) with Garmin sensors and this combination works perfectly for me – more detail on my blog – http://poggiodelre.wordpress.com/2014/10/14/using-ant-sensors-with-smartphone-apps/

    My Z2 has great battery life, is waterproof, I have a stem mount etc. Depending on what phone you have you may be able to drop the Garmin 800 and keep the sensors you already have.

    December 19, 2014 at 8:35 am #823935
    0
    OnTheRopes

    I had issues with my 510
    I had issues with my 510 refusing to go to mass storage it slowly hot worse and worse, having researched a bit on t’interweb it seemed like it was the usb connection and was quite a common fault.
    I went through all the suggested fixes found on the garmin site and elsewhere but nothing worked. I called customer services and once I explained what I had tried they bypassed all the stock answers and suggested I send it straight in.
    I had a replacement within 3 days so very pleased with that and can’t fault their service.

    Unfortunately after that the HRM started to fail after about 4 months of ownership, heart rate would read okay at the beginning of a ride but would fail after a while on every ride. Researching the issue it seems many people are experiencing this problem. Anyway I swapped for a Polar soft strap which does the job great so far and is half the price of a Garmin strap.

    December 18, 2014 at 11:43 pm #823933
    0
    Redvee

    I went through three 705s in
    I went through three 705s in two years all covered under warranty FOC. When it went wrong for the third time I sent it back expecting another replacement in a week or so, after 3 weeks I called Garmin to see what the delay was and told they were waiting for 705s to become available and to wait another week which I did. I called again and was told there wasn’t a date for 705s being available and I was offered two options, wait for a 705 or have an 800 in the post in 2 days. Obviously I went with the 800 option which has performed faultlessly in the 2 years since.

    December 18, 2014 at 11:14 pm #823931
    0
    mcmahonsport

    I hate Garmin. I installed
    I hate Garmin. I installed the connect software for my Garmin X910 and then it wouldn’t synchronise. I uninstalled it and it synchronises, but I can’t send to device unless I use the old site. Garmin is pants.

    December 18, 2014 at 10:39 pm #823929
    0
    wellcoordinated

    I’ve never heard anyone
    I’ve never heard anyone complain about anything from Garmin; there must be something wrong with you. :))

    December 18, 2014 at 10:39 pm #823927
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    wellcoordinated

    I’ve never heard anyone
    I’ve never heard anyone complain about anything from Garmin; there must be something wrong with you. :))

    December 18, 2014 at 9:04 pm #823925
    0
    therevokid

    and from the other side ….
    and from the other side …. my 800 is 4 or so years old and has hung once in all
    that time … just saying 🙂

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