Do not buy lowrance gps

[Mr_Shamrock]

I try to praise companies that give me decent support and rarely will go out of my way to bad mouth a company unless they really do me wrong. Well here is one of those situations - I bought a Lowrance GPS unit about a year ago and have updated the maps once on it. A couple months ago I grabbed the GPS on my way out of the door to go down to Atlanta to pick up some bikes. I stopped about 1/2 way to grab a bite and since I knew my way up until I got off the intersate tried to input the address and it could not find it. It is a fairly new building so I luckily have GPS on my Blackberry and punched it in there and it took me right to it. It kind of slipped my mind until yesterday and I contacted Lowrance via e-mail and they e-mailed me back saying they dropped their automotive line and will not be offering any updated maps any longer for those units. So I just called them and spoke to the most unhelpful & rude customer service rep I have ever spoke with. He was very "matter of fact" and basically told me too bad I was beat.

DO NOT BUY ANY LOWRANCE PRODUCTS!!!!!!!!

[Stratosman]

What else was he supposed to say? The worst thing about GPS's is that the batteries die and can't be replaced without just buying a whole new unit. My Magellan tells me it is shutting down due to no battery life, while it is plugged in. It randomly shuts itself off and the only way to fix it is to buy a new GPS.

[mineralgrey01gt]

Not a reason to get so upset about it personally. They no longer carry that line so no reason to update it as probably not many people purchased the automotive stuff. There boating gps's are extremely good so I cant complain about them.

[Mr_Shamrock]

I guess it was a combination of his attitude and the main fact that Lowrance would just abandon their buyers like that. I have a decent Lowrance system on my boat and it will be put up for sale and I will be buying Garmin or some other brand. I tend to be real brand loyal and when they basically tell me go F@ck myself I move on to a company that actually wants to stay in business and keep their customers happy. It's not like it is a 5 years old unit - it was less than a year old when it couldn't find the address.

[Stratosman]

Why sell the one you have? You already paid them for it, that's only your loss having to spend more on something else. I guess if that makes you feel better about it :dunno: Companies do this stuff all the time.

[SolMan98]

What else was he supposed to say? The worst thing about GPS's is that the batteries die and can't be replaced without just buying a whole new unit. My Magellan tells me it is shutting down due to no battery life, while it is plugged in. It randomly shuts itself off and the only way to fix it is to buy a new GPS.

I know the battery in my Garmin sucks, but while it's plugged in, never a hiccup. Seems odd it would shut down due to the battery while it's plugged in.

[Honey Bear]

For some reason Garmans can't find my house although every other brand can. WHen I have someone coming out to pick something up and they tell me they have a Garman I tell them it can't find me and they get mad. Then call back and tell me my house doesn't exist.

[Stratosman]

I know the battery in my Garmin sucks, but while it's plugged in, never a hiccup. Seems odd it would shut down due to the battery while it's plugged in.

drives me crazy, I am yelling at it "you are plugged in! how can the battery even matter?!?!" I have to unplug it, plug it back in, start it all over. It doesn't remember anything, not even what language I want :teddy: Might last 2 hours, might last 5 min.


For some reason Garmans can't find my house although every other brand can. WHen I have someone coming out to pick something up and they tell me they have a Garman I tell them it can't find me and they get mad. Then call back and tell me my house doesn't exist.

Nothing knows where my house is, pizza guys can never find it. Really helps when you are selling :thud: My road makes a loop between 2 streets, both ends are 1200's, but the middle are 200's, so if you go in the wrong end, you just keep turning around when you hit the 200's.

[SolMan98]

For some reason Garmans can't find my house although every other brand can. WHen I have someone coming out to pick something up and they tell me they have a Garman I tell them it can't find me and they get mad. Then call back and tell me my house doesn't exist.

Might be the version of maps they are running. When I first moved to GA back in 2008, mine showed my house in a field....lol I think the 2009 update finally found me... I get 4 updates a year from Garmin. Even then they can still get you lost...lol

[Mr_Shamrock]

Why sell the one you have? You already paid them for it, that's only your loss having to spend more on something else. I guess if that makes you feel better about it :dunno: Companies do this stuff all the time.

Because I am a hard headed bastard - just ask my wife LOL! I probably won't sell it I was HOT when I made this thread initially. I will just use it for a back-up. I do want to get an updated GPS though. We just helped my father in law pick out one and ended up with Garmin with free updates for life and it had the option where it even tells you which lane to get in so you don't miss an exit. If you have ever driven around Atlanta you know that option would come in real handy! I have actually been happy with it's performance up to the "address not found" crap. Even though when we first got it literally days later we were driving down to Milledgeville, GA and when I looked down it showed us driving right through the woods next to the interstate, but I didn't mind that so much because it got us where we needed to be. It also at a later date had us doing circles trying to find Lumber Liquidators, but a quick phone call to them and we found it. It does have great maps for the lakes around here though. Oh well - I guess we get spoiled to this stuff. How on earth did we survive without it? :cool: