Lowrance

[skeeter]

After speaking with several individuals in the marine and marine electronics business and from costly personal experience I have reached the unfortunate conclusion that Lowrance products are to be avoided.

My personal experience is with an LMS-350A that never did work correctly from day one even after an attempt by Lowrance factory service to repair it seven years ago and with an LCX-15MT that just recently "ate" it's GPS antenna which Lowrance, conveniently, no longer has available. Both units cost, when new, slightly over $1000.00 and are both deemed "obsolete" by Lowrance.

The LMS unit was returned to me, supposedly repaired by Lowrance (NOT), with a note that repairs would no longer be available as the unit, then, was over five years old. Bummer ! Imagine buying a car and five years later you are told there are no parts for it and no one would work on it. Yeah, I know, cars are different from electronics but this Company is making a habit of this "obsolete" excuse.

Then the LCX-15MT displays a message "GPS module not responding" so I go to Lowrance's website and get info. on how to re-set the unit which does nothing. I called their "customer support" and after a 90 minute wait finally get a very disagreeable woman on the phone who scarcastically describes the testing proceedure with a multimeter on how to determine if the head unit or the antenna is bad. The problem was the plug you test on the head unit has four sockets and she kept referring to the socket at the 12 o'clock and the six o'clock position but they aren't arranged that way with sockets at 10, 2, 4 and 8 o'clock ! Finally dragged the information out of her that you had to use the alignment tab in the socket as a starting reference. She was very quick to volunteer that if the head unit was the culprit there was a trade-in rebate (because this six year old $1200.00 unit is now deemed obsolete) if you purchase one of their new "HD" units for thousands of $$. I finally got her to admit that the GPS antenna was out of production and no more were available but at least the sonar side of the unit still works.

Started researching other's experience with Lowrance lately and was shocked to find a widespread problem with a Company who's products used to be considered the standard of the depth finder industry.

First I was told by two marine dealer's service managers that every boat both had sold in the past 18 months or so, equipped with a Lowrance sonar or GPS unit, has come back with problems with the Lowrance product. Then found out the Company has been sold and they just recently laid off 40% of their customer service staff and their senior technical staff which accounted for the 90 minutes I spent on hold. A further conversation with an experienced marine electronics salesman at a certain local outdoor headquarters store revealed that the HDS units Lowrance has been making.....leak.... ! They leak water....and water is deadly to electronics. So if you have purchased a Lowrance HD unit I would recommend staying out of the rain with it, or, if still in warranty, take it out in the rain and see if it breaks down. If it does, they will honor the warranty and replace it but Lowrance has refused to reveal what the starting production serial number is on which they installed a "fix" for the leak problem so you may be replacing a problem with another problem.

[denjac]

I feel your pain. I had to replace a Mecury trolling motor a 2002 model as they no longer keep parts for it. All they have parts for now is for the newer digiatal units. I guess we live in a disposable society.

[Larry Richards]

The bad news is that Hummingbird support isnt any better.

[skeeter]

The bad news is that Hummingbird support isnt any better.

Do you mean they deem obsolete their five year old units and refuse to repair them ? For what these Companies charge for their new units that is just insane.... Please share your experiences. Thanks.

[wildhunter066]

The bad news is that Hummingbird support isnt any better.

I have to disagree withyou on that. Ihave a hummingbird that is less than a year old and the tempquit working.I called them (i did have to spend about 15minutes on hold)and they sent me a new transducer free of charge that was at my house in 3 days.

[FishnNut]

I have to disagree withyou on that. Ihave a hummingbird that is less than a year old and the tempquit working.I called them (i did have to spend about 15minutes on hold)and they sent me a new transducer free of charge that was at my house in 3 days.

I have two of the SI units and love them!