I guess I’m looking for some thoughts on if I should be happy with Lowrance Electronics or not. Here’s the deal:
Last winter I wanted a new sonar/gps combo. I did a lot of searching and posted questions about units that IDA members had. One of the questions was wrapped around service.
What I got out of the responses was everyone likes the unit they have…unless they had problems with it. This is where the service question came in.
From personal experience and everyone I talked to or responded agreed that Vexilar has by far the best customer service…hands down. Examples: 6-year-old second hand FL8 repaired and upgraded at no charge. Tech went out to a fisherman’s boat to solve a problem.
Garmin was a close number two. Example: 12v power cord for a handheld GPS didn’t work and out of warranty. Was replaced at no charge.
Far down at the bottom of the list in third place was Lowrance. It seems…in my opinion. That “many” people that had issues with their unit walked away from the customer service they received with a bad taste in their mouth. I am going to stop here and say that everyone that I talked to that had a working Lowrance unit…LOVE it.
I ordered a LMS 480 sonar/gps. When I took it out on it maiden voyage this unit locked up (screen freeze) on me 3 times in 6 hours. Once you realize it was locked, you turned the unit off and on again and were good to go. My problem was, if you are looking for shallow water at night or finding your way home from a cat spot and you didn’t realize that it was froze…well at the best it would be frustrating at the worst……
In an email response from Lowrance, well here it is.
Quote
Dear Sir
Thank you for your query. There are a few of the LMS-480’s that have exhibited that freezing for reasons that are as yet unknown. These are a very few units. If you will please contact our customer service line at 1-800-324-1356, we can arrange to replace your unit, or if it is more convenient, then merely exchange it with your dealership. We humbly apologize for this happening, and assure you that this is not the norm, with the LMS-480, or with any of our products.
Thanks for supporting Lowrance Electronics.
End of Quote.
Called the number and a new “head” was shipped. Once installed…same thing…lock up. In the mean time, I was talking with other 480 users and they were all telling me the same thing…lock ups.
I asked Lowrance support what the cost would be to up grade to the next model along with letting them know that locking up was unacceptable.
Quote
Dear Sir
Thank you for your email. The reason for the freezing in the LMS-480’s is a small glitch in the software. This problem is currently being dealt with. There is a software update that is available on the webpage, or should be within a day or so that will deal in part with this problem. The unit will still freeze momentarily, however it will start working again after a moment. There should be a forthcoming software update that permanently deals with this issue. In regards to your question about upgrading, the LMS-480 is a brand new very capable unit. There isn’t any better units, except in regards to screen size. We hope you will forgive us this small, but admittedly annoying flaw in our unit as we correct it so that you may fully enjoy and benefit from our products.
End Quote.
I called Lowrance to find out how to get the update into my sonar since my fish locator didn’t come “internet ready”. They asked me to buy a MCC card reader to fix their problem. I explained to her that this wasn’t going to happen and (after a long while) they sent out a card to me..but wanted it returned. By the way, they told me it was locking up because I was adjusting the “ping rate”. ….I never touched this feature. She couldn’t explain this.
Ok, installed the “fix”. What this did was detected the unit freezing and restarted it for you.
At this point, I seemed to be getting nowhere with the normal channels of their service. I sent a “nasty-gram” to their customer service, the president of Lowrance and a couple people in marketing that I found on the web. Two days later I received a call from a very knowledgeable tech. After going through the apologies ect. He offered to solve the problem by upgrading me to the 330c color sonar/gps at no charge.
I explained my concern about the 330c being lower power and fewer pixels and we agreed to allow me to try both of them for a week.
The color screen was very nice..However after seeing the crisp clear lines of the 480, the color unit looked “jaggy”…otherwise it seemed to be the same unit as the 480. I decided to keep the color unit when…yup, you guessed it..it locked up and restarted itself.
In talking with the tech, he felt that I had a problem with my wiring and the unit lost power for a moment. One of his reasons to think this is because I was the only person to ever have this problem.
After checking the wiring and not being able to find a bad connection, I decided to ether upgrade to a unit that has a track record (the 480 and the 330c are new units this year) or get my money back and go with Garmin. The next unit up was the 19c sonar/gps that retailed for $1800 and some change. For the fishing that I do…it’s overkill…in price alone. I asked the question anyway. They told me for my trouble it would cost me $700. to boot. Although I still question my decision I went with it.
Turns out that they decided not to charge me anymore and the unit works….wonderful
Here’s the question: Should I be upset that it took a nasty-gram to get this issue fix, or should I be happy that I am running a locator/gps that I would never buy for myself?
Your thoughts?
PS If you have bought a LMS 480, you might want to check with Lowrance. Seems the wire coming from the gps antenna has a tendency of burning out the head when you un plug it or plug it in. They won’t be notifying owners because most people don’t unplug the antenna (until after the warranty has expired)
??? Does anyone else have any input on the 330c. 
