Just out of desperation, I sent another email last night while I was on hold. They responded fairly quickly and said it might be three days before they can help me. I’m fine with that as at least the process is started. I’m not sure why they want to force all non-warranty repairs through the phone lines though. Seems like a recipe for a mess to me. One person can handle many more customers via email than on the phone and leave the phone support available to people who need it.
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Well, I just thought I was moving forward. Got this in response from their support today:
”You may pay with a credit card so please call us at 1-800-633-1468 prior shipment to receive a return authorization number and provide payment information.“
Thats a lot of help.
Finally got through! They’ve changed their menu options so the callers that need troubleshooting help have their own selection which is the way it should be. No need for technical experts for simple processing. Pretty short hold time and a helpful young lady named Keela got everything done and the unit is on its way.
lowrance is just as bad , I have a problem with a hds model and they will not service it because it is older than 5 years, seems all these companies are forgeting their fan base
Just went through some issues with my Helix right before Christmas.
GPS went out in the unit and it was not under warranty. Tech support guy was great, and didn’t experience any long wait times on the phone. He actually performed the update for me over the phone and I installed it. Still
had to send it back for a repair, hated to have to pay the fee for the repair on a 2 1/2 year old unit, but they just upgraded me to a gen 3 and my new unit came a week later.
If you worked in electronics, you’d know that 5 years is ancient for parts. Likely not only are the original parts obsolete, the ones that replaced them are too. You can’t even get a product to market before you start getting obsolescence notices. Repair is almost impossible.