Consumer rights & recourse with large global corporates?

[rudi-h]

Time for an update.  Even though I'm still seemingly far from a resolution, I have had some engagements that I'd like to acknowledge.

A Service Administrator wrote me back, willing to look into this a bit deeper.  He said the reason for the delay (from the day I expressed dissatisfaction with the replacement option until they finally agreed to look into this) was due to him being on leave.  Had they acknowledged the complaint and told me that they will look into this on 7 Feb when their guy is back, I would probably not have started the thread.

I still don't have an answer or an alternative, but at least there is a conversation.  Based on the tone of their email, an attempt to sort this out.

 

[Dicky DQ]

18 hours ago, rudi-h said:

you guys either have a lot of spare cash lying around, or you just simply don't expect much from suppliers.

there is a major difference between a garmin and any other product out there, which is that a garmin watch is allegedly completely irreparable.  This means 2 things.  Firstly that my "broken" watch has zero value.  secondly, there are no repair options offered.  The ONLY option for me to get a working watch is therefore to take the R4k deal from garmin and failing to pay that, have no watch at all after spending R12k 2 years ago for a top end sportswatch.  This doesn't sound very competitive to me?  I also never asked for a new watch and would have been willing to pay towards a battery replacement given that this would/should give me 2 more years worth of life on the watch.  The issue is that there is no option B.

the final point is that the cause of failure is not use related.  I.e. there's nothing that I could or should have done different to preserve or extend the watch's life.  The defect has its roots in poor product quality / factory defect. 

 

Hmm, not standing up for Garmin, but when last have you had an issue with an electronic item? (TV, Laptop etc.) The issue is the cost of part replacement and labour is significantly more than what is being offered.

I have just had a small issue with my laptop. Please replace keyboard, ram and motherboard. 80% of the cost of a new device.

The labour component cannot be discounted these days. Have you ever considered what your cost to company is per hour?

The offer of a new replacement device @ 50% is a very fair option to me. Especially considering that it is an out of warranty offer.

[Dicky DQ]

15 hours ago, rudi-h said:

It is only worth R8k if I give them another R4k. It has zero value otherwise ok any market.

If this were a R120k Breitling, would you accept that it just broke down and the only way to fix it is to pay the same shop another R40k with no option to only replace only the bit that failed?  Now the conversation is suddenly different? You guys are welcome to suck up to the said supplier and accept unfavourable proposals, but I certainly think that holding you hostage with an unfavourable repair/replace option, (I e. Pay us R4k or lose it all) is not right.  At least give me an option just to pay for a repair, or tell me what I could/should have done differently to get reasonable life from their product.

Answer this:

1) Should it last more than 2 years

2) was there anything that I could to to prevent it from failing

If yes to 1 and no to 2, why is this my problem and financial liability. That's at least how I see it.

The point of this wasn't to argue with you guys, I asked how to take on a large companies that bullies its customers into submission.

Unfortunately a warranty is a warranty, not a guarantee. With most warranties the labour would be excluded. So they could quite easily tell you that they will replace the part (I.e. the whole inner workings of the device as there are no individual components) and charge you the same fee as they now need to have a clean-room and extra qualified staff etc.

Bottom line is nothing lasts forever, and as far as I am concerned they also have a design life. Know this and accept it , then move on.

 

[Steven Knoetze (sk27)]

13 hours ago, Shebeen said:

I didn't realise you can buy a Garmin for R12k. 

They are taking the piss, that is Apple territory

The new Fenix 7 goes north of R20k.......

These are becoming very expensive and understand and sympathiza with the OP, but thats electronics for you.
One lasts 15yrs and the next breaks just out of warranty. It's just one of those things I suppose.
I suppose it could be worse, you sell you perfectly working 2nd hand watch and 2 weeks later it packs up. As the seller you sold it voetstoets so what happens in that scenario?? 

[mecheng89]

13 hours ago, Shebeen said:

I didn't realise you can buy a Garmin for R12k. 

They are taking the piss, that is Apple territory

Have you seen their MARQ range? Even more outRAGeous. 

[mecheng89]

I get OP's frustration. But I don't think you're going to get anywhere. The watch is out of warranty and Garmin SA are probably tied up in their own corporate bureaucracy, so you're trying to swim upstream IMHO mate.

Bite the bullet and pay the fee, or default to another brand. Polar are bringing out some cracking watches. 

[Dirkitech]

17 hours ago, MORNE said:

As with all things consumer related, vote with your wallet. Garmin is like Spez in this country in many ways imo. People are loyal to it without even knowing why i think. Reading all the complaints over the spread of their products on here probably supports the notion that more people have them, so more people complain about them. Just like everybody likes to say toyota and vw's are the most stolen cars....well duh!

But I guess i'll still feel apprehensive about buying one of their gadgets if it looks like you have a 50/50 chance of getting a unit that will only last 24months that you paid 12k for...not to mention the extra 4k for replacement. The price of ownership outstrips the usefulness then imo. Thats near to R1000 a month. Not worth it.  It doesn't do anything more than a HRM and a phone can't do...both of which you most probably already carry on you anyway since wrist based HRM's are crap and if you are serious about it then you'll be wearing a strap anyway.  

There are also other brands like Suunto, Polar, Coros etc etc. Maybe it's worth exploring their local warranties. 

 

 

Being a customer of both - garmin has always disappointed in terms of price, service and support speed/quality. spez has always been good, free diagnostics and minor repairs at a concept store, with quick response and good service.

Of my all time 4 garmin devices, only 1 has not given issues yet. In my case the product failure rate has been 75%. Thats unreasonably high for something not readily repairable and charged at the prices they charge.

Where there is garmin bashing, I'll always come to the party as they've always disappointed. Sure, a reduced replacement fee is nice, but I've had 2 instances where buying a brand new garmin product on special elsewhere was cheaper than the replacement fee they quoted. It is utterly detestable.

To OP - I like that you're eager to fight this. At the very least it should inform garmin (assuming there as a manager with the understanding) to have a look at their service and maybe, just maybe, improve their service to the rest of the country.

Edited February 8, 2022 by Dirkitech

[BrentCGP]

Here I sit, having owned an Edge 500, 25, 510, now a 130+, a FR910XT, FR 230, we had 2 FR235, FR 730 Fenix 5S, Fenix 5 and Mrs now has the fenix 6s... Never had a days problem with them... Go figure. Wish they would offer me a fenix 7 at 50% off to replace my aged Fenix 5. I can't justify because it's still flawless. Battery not as good as it was 3 years ago but that is expected.

 

Coud be worse, you could be trying to deal with Apple in SA with a R50k laptop that's been in for repairs for longer than its worked.

 

My 2c, Garmin is going out there way to help you.

[madmarc]

I have a question - when Garmin offers a unit at a reduced price - do you get to keep the old broken unit ?

[ChrisF]

5 minutes ago, madmarc said:

I have a question - when Garmin offers a unit at a reduced price - do you get to keep the old broken unit ?

 

no

[madmarc]

So this is an interesting discussion on Warranty policies - I work for an OEM and our warranty policy and what we do after products are out of warranty has also left a few customers irritated. The bottom line is, once the product is out of the warranty period, then legally the OEM has not further obligation in terms of cost.

On our products, if it fails after warranty we look at each individual case and a decision is taken - Most time we will not cover the repair 100% but we offer some type of restitution or goodwill like 50% on parts and 100% on labor excl lubricant. - In almost all the cases the customer is still not happy using the reasoning that the failure is not supposed to happen in the short life of the product, and if the OEM is willing to contribute to the repair in the form of goodwill then they are admitting liability and should repair 100% at their cost. So it always turns into a sh@tshow and normally we end up losing the customer to our competition, of course until he has the same issue with their product and realizes we weren't being that unreasonable after all. 

In my view OEM should never offer a goodwill gesture - many do this for customer retention, which in a lot of cases does work but in a lot of cases it doesn't. We find a lot of customers opt for 3rd party repair which is almost always cheaper than an OEM repair.

Where Garmin are basically charging the OP 4K for a battery replacement is just stupid money - But expected from an OEM who don't sell spare parts for their products.

On Ifixit the Fenix battery replacement is listed as Easy under difficulty and takes 30 min - In the comments section people are saying they paid 15 pound for a battery, this is why I say 4k is just stupid.

If it was my watch and Garmin don't improve the offer i would replace the battery myself or find someone in the repair game to do it 

[rudi-h]

3 hours ago, TDFN said:

Unfortunately a warranty is a warranty, not a guarantee. With most warranties the labour would be excluded. So they could quite easily tell you that they will replace the part (I.e. the whole inner workings of the device as there are no individual components) and charge you the same fee as they now need to have a clean-room and extra qualified staff etc.

Bottom line is nothing lasts forever, and as far as I am concerned they also have a design life. Know this and accept it , then move on.

 

Nothing lasts forever, but as you state, all goods have a design life / expected life.  I can assure you that 2 years is nowhere close to the design life for a top end sportswatch marketed primarily on the basis of its rugged design and durability.  Not by my standards, probably not by yours and by their own admission (quoting a senior technician at Garmin SA) also not by Garmin's executives and shareholders.

So if nobody seems to think this situation/outcome is acceptable, (except for some die-hard fanboys on LeHub), why should I or any other vulnerable consumer carry brunt of cost for manufacturing/quality defects that are no fault of our own? 

I work as a reliability engineer in the mining industry.  Representing a global mining company with major accounts, we certainly don't get pushed around by suppliers and OEM's to bully us when defects / quality issues are identified, so why should ordinary consumers?  Just because we don't have massive accounts in our individual capacities?  Mining companies routinely claim out-of-warranty replacements (amounting to many ten's of millons of $ per year) on the basis that we prove manufacturing defects during post-failure investigations.  I don't see why the same process cannot/should not apply to a consumer electronics company.  Assuming they are serious about improving quality and durability, they should also have reliability engineering teams and failure analysts / diagnosticians who can inspect and test failed units and identify the root cause of failure by looking deeper into special / irregular product failures as and when reported...  If the construction of the batteries are really so specialized hat failures are inevitable and they expect a certain % of premature-but-out-of-warranty failures (the statistics for this is kind of modelling is really well known, it should hardly come as a surprise), surely they can budget / plan for this and be prepared to replace this certain % of watches when such rare failures do occur...

As for the arguments of needing to build clean rooms and employ skilled staff for repairs... Garmin published $4.2 Billion earnings in 2020 (quoting google) and reporting double digit year on year growth, so the argument of not being able to provide better after-sales service on the basis of resources / skills / facilities are pretty weak.  There are local companies literally 10000 times smaller that have such facilities and provide specialized repairs (e.g. diesel injector suppliers etc.)

As for options...  If they really value my broken watch at R8k as some of you suggest and have a deep desire to compensate their longstanding and faithful customers for the sub-par product they sold at a healthy margin, then at least give me the option to refund my R8k and then they can keep the broken unit.  Don't bully me into paying another R4k to get a product back that was still supposed to be working. 

[IceCreamMan]

As consumers we certainly are not vocal enough and I agree with many of yr sentiments. It’s astounding what I see ppl accept in the heat of the moment where desire over rides any rationality. 
 

and would be annoyed too in yr shoes. That same Garmin has a 2 year warranty here. And when forking out top dollar for a device you have certain expectations and that should at a minimum be that the device will last you in excess of 2 years. Many of the posters here have expressed just that. My F6 now is now 30 months old and functions perfectly, even the battery still holds charge at pretty much the same rate it did when new. 
 

your experience should be the same 

[Dicky DQ]

3 minutes ago, rudi-h said:

Nothing lasts forever, but as you state, all goods have a design life / expected life.  I can assure you that 2 years is nowhere close to the design life for a top end sportswatch marketed primarily on the basis of its rugged design and durability.  Not by my standards, probably not by yours and by their own admission (quoting a senior technician at Garmin SA) also not by Garmin's executives and shareholders.

So if nobody seems to think this situation/outcome is acceptable, (except for some die-hard fanboys on LeHub), why should I or any other vulnerable consumer carry brunt of cost for manufacturing/quality defects that are no fault of our own? 

I work as a reliability engineer in the mining industry.  Representing a global mining company with major accounts, we certainly don't get pushed around by suppliers and OEM's to bully us when defects / quality issues are identified, so why should ordinary consumers?  Just because we don't have massive accounts in our individual capacities?  Mining companies routinely claim out-of-warranty replacements (amounting to many ten's of millons of $ per year) on the basis that we prove manufacturing defects during post-failure investigations.  I don't see why the same process cannot/should not apply to a consumer electronics company.  Assuming they are serious about improving quality and durability, they should also have reliability engineering teams and failure analysts / diagnosticians who can inspect and test failed units and identify the root cause of failure by looking deeper into special / irregular product failures as and when reported...  If the construction of the batteries are really so specialized hat failures are inevitable and they expect a certain % of premature-but-out-of-warranty failures (the statistics for this is kind of modelling is really well known, it should hardly come as a surprise), surely they can budget / plan for this and be prepared to replace this certain % of watches when such rare failures do occur...

As for the arguments of needing to build clean rooms and employ skilled staff for repairs... Garmin published $4.2 Billion earnings in 2020 (quoting google) and reporting double digit year on year growth, so the argument of not being able to provide better after-sales service on the basis of resources / skills / facilities are pretty weak.  There are local companies literally 10000 times smaller that have such facilities and provide specialized repairs (e.g. diesel injector suppliers etc.)

As for options...  If they really value my broken watch at R8k as some of you suggest and have a deep desire to compensate their longstanding and faithful customers for the sub-par product they sold at a healthy margin, then at least give me the option to refund my R8k and then they can keep the broken unit.  Don't bully me into paying another R4k to get a product back that was still supposed to be working. 

OK you are right in your minds eye.

 

So go forth and fight it. However the majority of people dealing with products that have a churn cycle based in months will never agree with you, especially if a product is upgraded/replaced every few months.

Bottom line is companies only do what the market will bear.

You still have the option, as many have stated to pat the 4k, get the new device, sell it in the box for 7k, accept that you paid 5k for two years worth of use and move on to another vendor which will probably give you the same life should you be doubly unlucky.

 

[jcza]

9 minutes ago, rudi-h said:

Nothing lasts forever, but as you state, all goods have a design life / expected life.  I can assure you that 2 years is nowhere close to the design life for a top end sportswatch marketed primarily on the basis of its rugged design and durability.  Not by my standards, probably not by yours and by their own admission (quoting a senior technician at Garmin SA) also not by Garmin's executives and shareholders.

So if nobody seems to think this situation/outcome is acceptable, (except for some die-hard fanboys on LeHub), why should I or any other vulnerable consumer carry brunt of cost for manufacturing/quality defects that are no fault of our own? 

I work as a reliability engineer in the mining industry.  Representing a global mining company with major accounts, we certainly don't get pushed around by suppliers and OEM's to bully us when defects / quality issues are identified, so why should ordinary consumers?  Just because we don't have massive accounts in our individual capacities?  Mining companies routinely claim out-of-warranty replacements (amounting to many ten's of millons of $ per year) on the basis that we prove manufacturing defects during post-failure investigations.  I don't see why the same process cannot/should not apply to a consumer electronics company.  Assuming they are serious about improving quality and durability, they should also have reliability engineering teams and failure analysts / diagnosticians who can inspect and test failed units and identify the root cause of failure by looking deeper into special / irregular product failures as and when reported...  If the construction of the batteries are really so specialized hat failures are inevitable and they expect a certain % of premature-but-out-of-warranty failures (the statistics for this is kind of modelling is really well known, it should hardly come as a surprise), surely they can budget / plan for this and be prepared to replace this certain % of watches when such rare failures do occur...

As for the arguments of needing to build clean rooms and employ skilled staff for repairs... Garmin published $4.2 Billion earnings in 2020 (quoting google) and reporting double digit year on year growth, so the argument of not being able to provide better after-sales service on the basis of resources / skills / facilities are pretty weak.  There are local companies literally 10000 times smaller that have such facilities and provide specialized repairs (e.g. diesel injector suppliers etc.)

As for options...  If they really value my broken watch at R8k as some of you suggest and have a deep desire to compensate their longstanding and faithful customers for the sub-par product they sold at a healthy margin, then at least give me the option to refund my R8k and then they can keep the broken unit.  Don't bully me into paying another R4k to get a product back that was still supposed to be working. 

Revenue/Sales was $4B not earnings/profit. 

Go back to Garmin and ask if you can get the latest model as replacement. They will likely give you a new quote, obviously more expensive. 

[MORNE]

Casio should make a G-shock type sports/gps watch imo. They will ruin the competition lol.