my Garmin sat nav adventure

[Torquative]

Well this has been going for a while now, long read, but if you have a Garmin it's worth it.

I tried to run a webupdate on my Garmin Streetpilot Sat nav back in October before the travelling season kicked in, which killed it. Theres a known issue as I found out afterwards, if you have a SD card in it when you run the updater it assumes the SD card is the internal memory and loads the update firmware to that. When it reboots to start the update it goes to look for the update on the hard drive, when its acctally on the SD card and it gets stuck in knowwhere land, because it reboots, looks for the update on internal memory (which isnt there coz its on the card) then gives the error System Software Missing. On this model there is no reset or way around it.

Bugger, okay my mistake perhaps, lets look at sending it into Garmin for repair.

- the website says ring or email and ask for a return tracking number,
- I email so I have written proof, no response. I try again, nope, try again, nope.
- I ring, they say "just post it into this address". I ask for a tracking number "no cant get one of them, just post it in we'll send it back when its ready" I ask how the hell do I track it then, I work in a warehouse, if theres no paper trail to follow the box, someone puts the box under the stairs and it goes to who knows where.

so I thought hang on, take it back to the store where I brought it, then its their problem.

so I did ...

gave it 4 to 6 weeks as they tell you too. Fair enough, I will. 6 weeks put me at mid December. rang them on the 6 weeks mark and the guy at JB (where I brought it) was more then helpful. They told him they have the item there but havent looked at it. He argued the 4 to 6 weeks point, theyve had it for 6 weeks now and havent looked at it?

So we gave it another week. He re-rang them, they've confirmed my complaint was true and that it needs a software re-load which they'll do shortly.

We leave it another week, now the week before Xmas and the time I could really use my $400 sat nav. He re-rings, no, havent touched it, they wont til the new year. so he felt bad but he told them I was a cop and that I use it in my cop car, so if he or his family needs police help over Xmas or new year and think its taking a while for help to arrive, just keep in mind it might be me whose lost because he has my sat nav til next year "sometime". He didnt want to say that but he said theyve had it for 8 weeks now and needed something to get things rolling.

Next thing we know theyve called back 20 mins later, software reload done, its now with a courier being delivered back to the store.

so I finally get in today to get it after the xmas and nye rush.

Fire it up, seems okay til it does some re-load thing, I need to calibrate the screen, press the dot, press the dot, press the dot.

Save the country and the time zone. Ok.

Restarts, then tells me the detailed map cannot be found and streetpilot cannot work without it.

I fought with it for about an hour and was just about to take it back for anoother 3 month wait ... then I found a forum with the solution.

The issue was the unit has a base map loaded on it and the GPS just updates where the car is so the map can move and track your location.

For that to work it uses an unlock code, a code which is specific for that map for that units serial number. It checks the unlock code on every restart.

For some reason my unit didnt have the unlock code loaded. the solution was to save the unlock code in a text document, give it a name and put it on the sat navs internal hard drive then do a web update.

FINALLY, after 2 months and me needing to do some diagnosis work myself, its finally working.

The point of this ... if you have a Garmin and have an issue, dont expect good after sales service. This was too much stuffing around and it still didnt work when I got it back.

Good unit, poor after sales service grrrr. Sorry but I had to vent.

[Old grizbear]

Thanks for the info. Just bought a garmin 760. Let's hope it doesn;t stuff up.

[one_and_only2004]

I know how you feel.. a few months back i bought a navman off ebay - stupid thing would just reboot after reboot... Rang navman and they did nothing, so i ended up putting TOMTOM on it which was a bit buggy..
After driving to the coast with it to meet a friend i copied his files off his HD and put them on mine. Problem solvered!
Seems everyone's happy to sell these units but aren't prepared to fix em eh?

[doms3]

I have a garmin and have had few issues am on 3rd unit in 12 months

[Torquative]

Seems everyone's happy to sell these units but aren't prepared to fix em eh?

well the interesting thing is JB had this massive pre Xmas promotion "we're your Garmin experts, come in and see us" it was in the newspapers, on the radio, in store obviously.

the guy I was dealing with told me that JB were trying to get staff to use Garmin as well by offering them massive discounts. But he said after that experience he wouldnt go near a Garmin unless it was free because he copped the run around as well.

The key lesson here is DONT connect it to a PC and you should be right. This happened because i tried to run a software upgrade, if I hadnt tried that we'd still be right.

[Flat_White]

i just bought a no-name brand gps off ebay and installed tomtom, miomap and iGo onto WinCE 5.0...

I would personally recommend iGo,

its **** easy to install all those programs aswell

[one_and_only2004]

how did you go abouts buying the programs? can you just buy em off their sites?

[Flat_White]

well yeah you could , but the internet has made some things much cheaper and easier.

dont really wanna say much more lol.