Why I'll only ever buy GARMIN

[milky4130]

Don't get me wrong, I love my garmins (I have a Forerunner 405 as well as Edge 500), however....

 

I'm onto my 3rd "broken" Forerunner 405... and 2nd Edge.

 

The edge "clip mechanism" on the back of the device broke... after reading and investigation on www it seams to be a common problem. Although Garmin's service is great.... I had to fork out R1200 for a new unit (for a known problem)

 

My first forerunner's battery packed up in 3 months... didn't hold charge. Got it replaced for free (under warrantee). 2nd forerunner had the same problem, but just outside warrentee period... cost... R1,200 for getting a new one.... now this one is doing the same and guess what... outside of warrentee period... costs, another R1, 200 for... guess what... replacing something with a known problem. Read on battery problems with Forerunner 405 on www and you get pages and pages... tried all the tips & tricks and it only works for a while...

 

So, the question is: why do you stick to something that's obviously flawed? Good question; all my years of information is on garmin's site, the tracking is great, the forerunner & edge are awesome devices!!! If ONLY garmin is willing to replace for free when it's a KNOWN problem I'll be punting garmin ALL THE WAY!!!

You could export everything & then import it into somewhere else like Strava or Edmondo

[milky4130]

I took my Edge 705 in to the agents in Honeydew on Monday to have a new rubber flap that covers the cable jack at the back of the unit fitted (mine broke off at the epic). The 705 is obviously discontinued so no part available for a repair. They offered me an Edge 800 on a trade in with a R1600 cash pay-in. Super happy with the new unit and Garmin's service.

Let me guess how you ripped that rubber flap off, you were in the process of charging your garmin when that official walked up & asked for a sample & thats when it came off? *just kidding mate, cheap shot, I know but I couldn't resist.

[milky4130]

I have an Edge 500 (bought 2nd hand off the hub) & Forerunner 101(new, won it), no problem with those units but its the Premium belt that has me climbing the walls. Bought the belt in Feb 2013 brand new, used up until Houk Hoek in May with no problems, but when i came out of winter hibernation a few weeks ago it just didnt want to work anymore, replaced the battery & still giving erratic readings. A quick search on the net revealed this is a common problem.

[ACM]

You could export everything & then import it into somewhere else like Strava or Edmondo

 

Yes, but as far as I can see the www site only allows exporting one activity at a time... exporting 4 years of activities will take AGES

[ACM]

I have an Edge 500 (bought 2nd hand off the hub) & Forerunner 101(new, won it), no problem with those units but its the Premium belt that has me climbing the walls. Bought the belt in Feb 2013 brand new, used up until Houk Hoek in May with no problems, but when i came out of winter hibernation a few weeks ago it just didnt want to work anymore, replaced the battery & still giving erratic readings. A quick search on the net revealed this is a common problem.

 

Do you want a new one? Everytime I hand in my garmin for a new one (at a cost of R1200 offcourse) they only take back the watch / edge, not the rest of the stuff. Then they give me a bundle pack with HRM as well. So, I think I have 3 new ones lying in a shoe box. I'm in centurion, so if you want one PM me, if you pay registered postage I'll send you one

[milky4130]

Yes, but as far as I can see the www site only allows exporting one activity at a time... exporting 4 years of activities will take AGES

outsource it, to the domestic (instead of watching soapies when she thinks her work is done ) or the kids if they old enough

[ACM]

outsource it, to the domestic (instead of watching soapies when she thinks her work is done ) or the kids if they old enough

 

In this case it might still take years....

[milky4130]

Do you want a new one? Everytime I hand in my garmin for a new one (at a cost of R1200 offcourse) they only take back the watch / edge, not the rest of the stuff. Then they give me a bundle pack with HRM as well. So, I think I have 3 new ones lying in a shoe box. I'm in centurion, so if you want one PM me, if you pay registered postage I'll send you one

Awesome!! yes please ACM, pm on the way

[slowpoke]

Now I know that there has been a lot of talk about this type of stellar service from Garmin, but I think it needs a mention every time it happens.

 

In April I bought myself a shiny new Forerunner 910XT and used it a few times. Then I got injured and was off for a few months. Now I'm slowly getting back to it and have swum three times this week. The problem is my workouts are not getting from the device to the Garmin Connect website.

 

So it's off to Garmin we go for a check up. When I make it to the front of the queue, they take the unit away and come back saying the unit is poked, but don't worry, you'll get a brand new one as a replacement.

 

The fact is, I waited in the queue longer than it took them to make a call on this (and I was only second in the queue).

 

Garmin, you now have a client for life and a very willing mouthpiece for your products and follow up service. Well done and thanks for turning a situation that had me wondering if I should have moved from Polar into a nothing short of WOW experience.

 

:clap: :clap:

 

Hopefully your runs will also be a more realistic distance ;-) my new edge 500 is charging. I think us hubbers need to carry id tags at all times!

[Jigghead]

Hopefully your runs will also be a more realistic distance ;-) my new edge 500 is charging. I think us hubbers need to carry id tags at all times!

 

nah, all my runs are 250,000 miles :whistling:

[Corvus]

This is why I'll only buy a Garmin too:

 

http://blogs.wsj.com/tech-europe/2011/04/28/tomtom-drives-into-speed-camera-scandal/

 

"TomTom, the Amsterdam-based navigation device maker, has a bit of an image problem on its hands after it was discovered that some of the data it collects from drivers was being used by the Dutch police to choose the best sites for speed cameras."

 

Though I don't live in Holland, I'm getting rather fed up with companies that violate privacy.

[scotty]

This is why I'll only buy a Garmin too:

 

http://blogs.wsj.com...camera-scandal/

 

"TomTom, the Amsterdam-based navigation device maker, has a bit of an image problem on its hands after it was discovered that some of the data it collects from drivers was being used by the Dutch police to choose the best sites for speed cameras."

 

Though I don't live in Holland, I'm getting rather fed up with companies that violate privacy.

Bit of a flat head when it comes to this but aren't the GPS's we use receive only and not transmit. If so how are the police able to determine where users speed.

[Grebel]

Bit of a flat head when it comes to this but aren't the GPS's we use receive only and not transmit. If so how are the police able to determine where users speed.

 

I may be mistaken but don't Garmin and Tom Tom use the info from other GPS users on their Live Traffic service to determine where traffic is or isn't flowing? If they are getting a signal from your device then surely they can monitor your speeds etc?

[The Anteater]

I may be mistaken but don't Garmin and Tom Tom use the info from other GPS users on their Live Traffic service to determine where traffic is or isn't flowing? If they are getting a signal from your device then surely they can monitor your speeds etc?

Garmin, at least, allows you to submit traffic data via a Bluetooth link to your phone. So it's not quite transmitting directly from the device.

 

From what I understand, though, in SA the traffic data comes from the vehicle tracking companies (Garmin is with Altech), rather than our devices.

[Shebeen]

I'm surprised that failure rates across all manufacturers are still so high. in general they seem to be software issues, clearly a lot of buggy software is getting released.

 

This is why I'll only buy a Garmin too:

 

http://blogs.wsj.com...camera-scandal/

 

"TomTom, the Amsterdam-based navigation device maker, has a bit of an image problem on its hands after it was discovered that some of the data it collects from drivers was being used by the Dutch police to choose the best sites for speed cameras."

 

Though I don't live in Holland, I'm getting rather fed up with companies that violate privacy.

hardly a privacy violation,

[Corvus]

I know some high-end devices have their own internet link (not sure if it's via 3g).

According to the article, the data was collected from high-end devices.

 

It could also be possible though that a low end device simply stores the data when you're driving and when you connect it to your PC to update maps, firmware etc. then the data could be uploaded while the updates are downloading.

Edited September 13, 2013 by Corvus