Dealing with Garmin South Africa...

[MudLark]

One really has to wonder about Garmin South Africa's service sometimes.

I have both a Varia light and a radar which I've had for about five years. Both are in perfect working condition, other than for the fact that the battery life has become somewhat shorter than it should be.

I email Garmin and ask them about possibly replacing the batteries or exchanging the units on some basis or another and enquire about the likely cost.

In response I get a canned message from one Thato which tells me nothing other than that I must send them the units. I write back to him and tell him that what I really want to know is what the associated cost will be (I'm trying to work out whether it makes more sense to simply buy new units). The gentleman in question tells me by return that they are not allowed to provide a price until their technical people have inspected the items. Not entirely ideal because one needs to get the items to them so they can deal with the items, and you can then understand what the options are.

Having no choice, I trek across to them eventually. Get to the eighth floor service department. Lovely chat with the young lady behind the desk. She explains to me that if they are found still be good working order, they will offer me new ones at a 30% discount (which is not really 30% because I can get the things a fair bit cheaper from some of their dealers, but nevertheless). So much for what Thato told me…. I ask how long it will take for them to inspect the items. About 10 working days. I explain that that means that there are two weeks during which I will not be able to ride my bike as I ride in the dark of morning. I then suggest I buy the new units at full price and if following their inspection, they are happy, they can just refund me the 30% difference. I'm told that's unworkable.

I put the items in my pocket and leave, wondering what other brand I could switch to instead.

[The Ouzo]

from the stories I'm hearing, it seems to me that yet another great brand with great products is being severely hindered by the local SA operation.

[Madone69]

Yep. Sent my 820 for checkup...report comes back...pay R6k for an upgrade to 830.....I tell them that's  a bit steep for just the unit if the bundle is R7k at Cyclelab.... Hopeful of a better price seeing the 840 is launched........I get told to go fly a kite.

[Sandro]

My question is do Garmin head office in the US actually know how bad their customer service here in SA is? I also had surprisingly bad and arrogant service from them recently and I see on Hellopeter they have a 1.85 rating from 277 reviews. That's hardly something to be proud of and surely it should be a concern for their headquarters seeing as its a bad reflection on their brand as a whole, regardless of how small our market here is. 

[Call Me Manny]

I've only had great service from them, granted, both my units were still under warranty, but I recently got my Edge and Varia swapped out

[madmarc]

29 minutes ago, Sandro said:

My question is do Garmin head office in the US actually know how bad their customer service here in SA is? I also had surprisingly bad and arrogant service from them recently and I see on Hellopeter they have a 1.85 rating from 277 reviews. That's hardly something to be proud of and surely it should be a concern for their headquarters seeing as its a bad reflection on their brand as a whole, regardless of how small our market here is. 

Do you think they really care - SA probably represents less than 1% of their global Turnover - so they leave the politics up to the local distributor to sort out.

[MudLark]

9 minutes ago, madmarc said:

Do you think they really care - SA probably represents less than 1% of their global Turnover - so they leave the politics up to the local distributor to sort out.

They don't care. But to be sure, if I find a similar competive product, I'm gone from Garmin forever.

[NeoOne]

I handed in a 520 where the rubber buttons have perished from age, but fully functional and holds power for over 4-5 hours. Garmin wanted R2500 for rubber buttons or R4700 for a new 530. They take my old unit and promise to refund me R650 for the old unit. I emailed a young lady Alice R. at Garmin at least 10 times and each time we have problems with her forwarding docs for me to fill out( either wrong format or they want credit card slip or credit card receipt (all which I provided). When I finally get tired of waiting for my refund I told them either refund me or send me my old unit they were holding since 94.7 Nov 2022 or I’ll take it to social media. A few weeks ago I get a package with the old unit. No explanation. No apologies. Really poor customer service 

[Nico van Loggerenberg]

I had exactly the same issue as the OP. Garmin international lists a known issue with my Garmin, and the article seems to suggest that they will swop this out if I fill out a return form. Thato responds with a "bring it in and we'll see". 2 hour round trip and 10 day wait? No thanks. 

[Shebeen]

1 hour ago, madmarc said:

Do you think they really care - SA probably represents less than 1% of their global Turnover - so they leave the politics up to the local distributor to sort out.

They cared enough buy our homegrown product and label or Varia.

 

Seems like we have a thread on this every week

[madmarc]

1 hour ago, MudLark said:

They don't care. But to be sure, if I find a similar competive product, I'm gone from Garmin forever.

And they would care even less - Not to get me wrong, i'm with you on this, but any electronic goods when it come to warranty i wouldn't waste my time - So just cry a little, bin it and go buy a new one.

Back in the days of DION Wired i bought a big ass smart TV and Soundbar both the same make SAMSUNG, I could never get the sound bar to connect took it back 7 times, they refused to replace it always sending it for repair which would take up to 3 weeks. When i threatened them with legal action they were like - "Join the que" - None of the local apps would load on the TV, after months of backward and forward i eventually through a contact got hold of some technical manager at SAMSUNG, gave home the serial number to be told it's not a model built for SA, its built for Philippines, when i told him i bought it at DION Wired he said impossible - emailed him the receipt - response was sorry its out of warranty cant help.

I drank a few beers the day Dion Wired closed its doors

[OVERDRIVE]

25 minutes ago, madmarc said:

And they would care even less - Not to get me wrong, i'm with you on this, but any electronic goods when it come to warranty i wouldn't waste my time - So just cry a little, bin it and go buy a new one.

Back in the days of DION Wired i bought a big ass smart TV and Soundbar both the same make SAMSUNG, I could never get the sound bar to connect took it back 7 times, they refused to replace it always sending it for repair which would take up to 3 weeks. When i threatened them with legal action they were like - "Join the que" - None of the local apps would load on the TV, after months of backward and forward i eventually through a contact got hold of some technical manager at SAMSUNG, gave home the serial number to be told it's not a model built for SA, its built for Philippines, when i told him i bought it at DION Wired he said impossible - emailed him the receipt - response was sorry its out of warranty cant help.

I drank a few beers the day Dion Wired closed its doors

Same here. They dont care. 

Once things are out of warranty nobody knows anyone-same as motorplan. 

[NotSoBigBen]

Having been through this and done the 'out of warranty upgrades' a few times which I can't really afford anymore decided to 'DIY' my way around as much as possible. Just got my boet to order me 2 batteries in NZ (+- 800 ZA rondts for both) which his son in law will bring with him when he visits in just over a weeks time. For a Garmin Vivoactive3 and a Samsung S3 ... Google provides the how to 😎

[danievj]

Bring back Navworld, they provided super service. 

[dasilvarsa]

You can join Garmin International Forums at

https://forums.garmin.com/

To Get Help with Problems regarding Garmin and to Vent.

 

[nikki]

2 hours ago, danievj said:

Bring back Navworld, they provided super service. 

Not for me. Navworld in Pretoria provide terrible service. I ordered a Garmin vector battery holder in December last year. They said the part will be available in late Jan due to December holidays  but took my contact details and said they would contact me when the part arrived. Went back in Jan and nothing.... I ordered the part from eBay and it was delivered in 1 week

Also ordered an out front Garmin holder about two years ago, They said they would call when the part arrived..... to date I've never received a  call

Wont go back again