Now Garmin's making me mad

[HotRodZilla]

So...As a follow up to the thread a while back where I asked about getting extended warranties on a pair of Zumo 660s my brother and I were buying; we bought the units and the 5 year warranty...What the heck.

So, the units showed up at my brother's house on Wednesday and we promptly began the installation since he is leaving on a trip tomorrow and will need his to be up an running.

So, he gets his all configured and ready to go and then plugs it into the computer to get it registered. After registration, Garmin tells him there are software updates that need to be done, so he goes ahead and does it. NOW, the unit turns off as soon as it sees sattelites. Basically it worked fine indoors but as soon as we stepped outside, it turned off.

He called Garmin and when he got ahold of those assholes, they guy told him that they were having problems with their last update, and it should be fixed in a couple of days or a couple of weeks. Then he said if we didn't want to wait, he should send the unit back to where he bought it and request a new one be sent to him.

Well, we installed the second one and did not do any updates and it works fine. Since he needs one for his trip and I don't, I took the broken one home and he kept the working one.

When I got home, I re-installed the update from my computer in the hopes that maybe something with his download was not right...Now, the GPS thinks it is getting sattelite reception in my dark garage and turns off after about 10 seconds regardless of where it is.

SO...Tomorrow, I'm gonna call Garmin and possibly crawl up somebody's ass. Their solution of me paying to send the unit to the dealer and the dealer paying to send the unit back to me is total bullshit. WE are supposed to pay for Garmin's mistake? I can't believe that. However, we will see how the conversation goes tomorrow...who knows...Maybe it will be easy to solve.

In the meantime, anyone have any suggestions on how to get this thing to stop doing this? I'm wondering if it maybe something stupid in one of the settings that is making it turn off as opposed to corrupted software. If you have any ideas, post up please. If I can fix it, then I definately won't have to yell at some poor operator at Garmin.

 

[exskibum]

I'm of no help technically on this, but the problem sounds not only inconvenient, but like something they just MIGHT have tried to check before they released the update.

SO...Tomorrow, I'm gonna call Garmin and possibly crawl up somebody's ass.

That sounds downright unpleasant and unhygenic. Is this something their warranty requires, and if so, can't you get your brother to do it?

 

[RaYzerman19]

Garmin is usually pretty good with the support, probably moreso if you talk nice to them. Perhaps if you really needed one, they could find one to send you (although their supply may be a little low)......... what about a patch to go backwards one revision?

 

[MartyA]

Got a Magellan 300 something just over a year ago from my brother in law, did the exact same thing. I charged it, it worked outside for a while, then I installed the software, hooked it to the computer, installed the maps and registered it, then it updated itself. It worked fine in my living room but as soon as I took it outside and it found a satellite it would shut off. Brand new out of the box worked fine in the morning and after the software update worthless in the afternoon.

I got the same brain-dead replies from Magellan help. After 3 or 4 "Tridis" fixes that didn't apply using email I got them on the phone -

Roll back the update -

how do I do that -

hold these 3 buttons down and turn it on, then enter the secret factory reset code -

what is the secret factory reset code -

can't tell you its a secret -

er, what??? -

you'll have to send it back -

ok send me an RMA with a prepaid label for UPS -

we can't do that -

you want ME to pay for this thing to be shipped back to you?? -

yes -

bye bye morons.

I threw it in the trash. My brother in law never new.

I know this does not help you but I am offering my sympathies.... Hope you have better luck with Garmin - Good luck.

 

[Silver Penguin]

Garmin is usually pretty good with the support, probably moreso if you talk nice to them. Perhaps if you really needed one, they could find one to send you (although their supply may be a little low)......... what about a patch to go backwards one revision?

That's been my experience. I had a problem with a Garmin unit and sent them an email. Ended up talking to a nice person on the phone who walked me through a reset of my unit, which solved the problem. Didn't have to do any crawling up anywhere, thank goodness.

 

[mike_123]

ive owned 7 different garmin products and everyone of them has been total junk

they all at one time or another had to be sent in for somethign and theyve all had a very short lifespan witch really is fine buy me cause i usually liek to have the latest and greatest

with that said i always go back to garmin products cause their customer support is always great

maybe crawling up some poor operators ass isnt the way to get things handled

myself id return to the store i bought it from and get them to switch out a new one for you

if you bought it online well

thats the risk we take with online shopping to save a buck

 

[SkooterG]

Sorry to hear of your misfortunes bub.

I would never have bought those POS units. Problems reported all over the net on these. Garmin did **** up by releasing these too soon.

I have always been very happy with Garmin customer service. Sounds like they are getting overwhelmed due to the POS they released in the Zumo 660/ 665.

 

[wfooshee]

My Garmin experience has been nothing but the best. I bought a refurb 2610 a little over 2 years ago, it had a bad screen. Fine, it was a refurb, but they still warranted it. Exchanged, I think I had to pay shipping to them. New unit worked great, but after several months the screen delaminated, bubbles in the plastic. Still in warranty, got yet another one. That one's over 18 months now, no problem.

So one major problem, one minor problem, on refurb, not new units, all handled promptly and satisfactorily by Garmin.

I'd get another one any day. But as ScooterG points out, I've heard lotsa bad juju about the 660, so I wouldn't've gotten one of those.

Lotsa a 2730s on eBay in the 200-dollar range, might drop some coin on one of those soon, just to get the 3-D map display that my 2610 doesn't have.

 

[HotRodZilla]

Well, SHIT! You people are not helpful at all. Actually Yzerman might be onto something, so I'll ask about that. I really don't wanna get pissed, but their idea of screwing up a perfectly good unit and making me pay to get it fixed is totally unacceptable. I'll be as nice as possible. Besides, I kind of do have and ace in the hole.

I have a $4000 PO ready to go out to Garmin for some new equipment this week. It was grant money given to my office that I can spend almost any way I want. Last year we spent $3k there and this year it will be $4k. If they hose me around on this, I will throw that PO in the shredder and we will buy something else from someone else.

If they refuse to help, I'll make it very known that a guaranteed 4 grand will not go their way...Maybe they will care, and maybe they won't, but we'll see. Hope it does not come to that. What I'm hoping is that if they can't get this thing patched, they send me a label and overnight me a new unit. I'll send the one they broke back. I may be being very optomistic. We'll see.

I am with Exskibum on this whole thing. Patch and I can't figure out how they don't update an inhouse GPS and test it before they post these updates. One would think they would load the software and walk outside, realize it's broken and say, "Oh shit...Don't post that up yet." OR...How's about after the second customer calls and says, "Hey, I did an update and now my GPS is broken" they pull the update until it is fixed instead of hosing everyother poor bastard that decides to keep thier units current.

I'm sick of messing with it today, and don't wanna mess something up giving them reason to blame the break-down on me. I'll call them in the morning and I'll update this with either good or bad news...

 

[SouthernCruizer]

I have the new 665...total garbage...HOURS on the phone trying to get thru, then trying updates, etc, ...still no joy. Damn thing shuts down about every 20 minutes on the road. Like a dumbass, I sold my perfectly working 550. Garmin sent me an email with the RMA for this POS unit. We'll see what happens when the replacement comes in. Someone at Garmin should be fired for releasing the 665 prematurely.

 

[HotRodZilla]

Well, the update came sooner than I thought. Looks like I won't have to call Garmin.

The other day while Patch was trying to get a hold of a person at Garmins Tech-support, he got on the internet support site and reported the problem. Their response was that they would get back within 3 days...We were not sure if that was true, but get back they did...He called me about 9:45pm our time and told me he had just gotten an email with the solution. We have NO idea why the guy on the phone didn't tell him to try this, but that sure woulda made our lives easier...So, the fix was to do a Master Reset.

Since the phone support guys at Garmin want to make you beg for it, I'll post it up here just in case:

With the unit off, use your finger or a pencil eraser (I used the eraser) and touch the bottom right corner of the screen as if selecting a button. Then press and hold the power button until the unit turns on and release the button.

The unit will ask you if you are sure you want to reset the unit and give you "yes""No" boxes. Choose yes if you want to reset and then follow the other prompts just like when you took it out of the box...Like you want it to speak English.

Viola...Problem solved.

Now I don't have to yell at anyone and my unit is working fine. How stupid is that?

Thanks for those that helped, especially Ashe, who called me right before Alex did and tried to walk me through a fix.

It's too bad the 660 wont support .WMA files because now I am going to have to convert about half my music. I guess I don't really have that much anyway, so it shouldn't be so bad.

Man, I'm relieved that I don't have to deal with this anymore...I think I'll wait on the next update...haha.

 

[GreyGoose]

This iinformation holds true for both the 660 and 665. the 3.80 version refers to the 660. i forget what firmware was giving the 665 the same issue, but garmin just recently released a firmware fix for the 665 that corrects the issue.

if you have a 660, chances are that you've updated the device with version 3.80 of the firmware. 3.80 was causing the 660 to shutdown for no apparent reason.

i would recommend downloading and installing firmware version 3.50 at: https://www8.garmin.com/support/agree.jsp?id=4467.

i got my unit with 3.50 and read about all the issues they were having with 3.80, so i decided not to go to it. my device has never shut down and has been working pretty well.

give version 3.50 a shot. if that doesnt work, you'll need to send your unit back. Garmin just recently released a new firware level for the 665 (which i think is now sharing a code set with the 660), so alot of folks are waiting for the update for the 660 to come out any day.

if i were you, i wouldnt wait (unless everything seems to be working ok)and i would just download and install 3.50. its known to be somewhat stable and would be a good way to test your unit. if it doesnt work with 3.50, it probably aint gonna work with any of the updates.

if your having issues shutdown issues with your 665, downloaded the latest update for it (firmware 2.20)

Hope this helps. Theres alot of frustrated 660/665 users out there right now due to these firmware issues.

GreyGoose

 

[copron]

Try here....zumoforums.com.......might get some ideas.

 

[GreyGoose]

So...As a follow up to the thread a while back where I asked about getting extended warranties on a pair of Zumo 660s my brother and I were buying; we bought the units and the 5 year warranty...What the heck.
So, the units showed up at my brother's house on Wednesday and we promptly began the installation since he is leaving on a trip tomorrow and will need his to be up an running.

So, he gets his all configured and ready to go and then plugs it into the computer to get it registered. After registration, Garmin tells him there are software updates that need to be done, so he goes ahead and does it. NOW, the unit turns off as soon as it sees sattelites. Basically it worked fine indoors but as soon as we stepped outside, it turned off.

He called Garmin and when he got ahold of those assholes, they guy told him that they were having problems with their last update, and it should be fixed in a couple of days or a couple of weeks. Then he said if we didn't want to wait, he should send the unit back to where he bought it and request a new one be sent to him.

Well, we installed the second one and did not do any updates and it works fine. Since he needs one for his trip and I don't, I took the broken one home and he kept the working one.

When I got home, I re-installed the update from my computer in the hopes that maybe something with his download was not right...Now, the GPS thinks it is getting sattelite reception in my dark garage and turns off after about 10 seconds regardless of where it is.

SO...Tomorrow, I'm gonna call Garmin and possibly crawl up somebody's ass. Their solution of me paying to send the unit to the dealer and the dealer paying to send the unit back to me is total bullshit. WE are supposed to pay for Garmin's mistake? I can't believe that. However, we will see how the conversation goes tomorrow...who knows...Maybe it will be easy to solve.

In the meantime, anyone have any suggestions on how to get this thing to stop doing this? I'm wondering if it maybe something stupid in one of the settings that is making it turn off as opposed to corrupted software. If you have any ideas, post up please. If I can fix it, then I definately won't have to yell at some poor operator at Garmin.

Garmin just released a firmware upgrade that may actually help you. Those 660 users that happened upon vers 3.80 have been waiting for this update. its firware upgrade 3.90 and can be found at: garmin link

if your on 3.80, update your unit so you can rid yourself of the shutdown issues that 3.80 was causing. you should be good to go after that. i havent heard of any issues yet with 3.90, but then again, it was just released today.

Greygoose

 

[spike747]

Their answer to everything is master reset. I hate their tech support. These people have no trouble shooting skills what so ever. O, and they have two versions of 3.8. Pre July 1st and post July 1st. What kind of company does that. If you look at the details of the versions you'll see the DSP code was updated from 2.2 to 2.3 on the post July 1st version of 3.8.

I'm having problems with my 660 right now. My voice prompts are using different volume levels at different times. I have my navigation volume set to 50% and master set to 100%. Some prompts are at 100% and some are at 50%. Their solution after 1.5 hours on the phone. Send it back to have it replaced. Bunch of morons.

O, and another weird problem I recently seen was when I search for cities with the spell feature. When more then 4 cities are found that match the spelling I entered you get a down arrow in the bottom right hand corner that allows you to scroll to the next page. When I press that down arrow button the unit turns off.

I also complained about the motorcycle keyboard page. The space and erase (backspace) buttons are ridiculously small. I can never press them accurately with gloves. The other button problem is with the cell phone number pad (if you have a phone bluetoothed in). The number pad has the same problems with the backspace button. Maybe if more people complain about these buttons they'll fix it.

I too have bought at least a half dozen garmins in my lifetime. I don't know why I keep buying them.

 

[spike747]

Does the 660 fit in that little compartment in the left front fairing of gen II's? I don't have an FJR yet.

 

[wheatonFJR]

That's it...no gps for me.

I don't have to pay to send my paper maps back to the factory.

 

[Willie]

That's it...no gps for me.
I don't have to pay to send my paper maps back to the factory.

Sure glad I own 1 2720 and 2 2610's...they work like a charm and I don't use S&T, pure mapsource type person here.

Willie

 

[flyinlow]

Glad to here you were able to reset your unit. I have a Streetpilot 2720, probably one of the best product lines they ever made. I've had mine for almost 6 years (hard to upgrade when it works so well). I've never had a problem with it, never had to reset it, and move it from car to car to bike to bike. I've updated it every year with new maps, designed my own routes and uploaded them, easy to find places when you are looking for them. It would be nice to have a larger screen, but this works so well I hate to spend the money to replace it. I talked to a Garmin guy at Sema last year and asked him how long they would still support the yearly updates for the 27xx series because they have now gone to more frequent updates for their newer technology. As far as he knew, they will be supported for at least another 5 years or longer. He said they still support many of their old GPS technologies (marine, etc) because thats what their customers want and many have old Garmin technology that keeps on working. Maybe their newer models aren't as good because they might be cutting corners to make the units cheaper. I know mine was almost $1000 retail when it was new, but the Zumo's retail are definitley less than that. (I didn't pay that much for mine, bought it on a closed out deal for about $350).

I never knew how handy it would be to have a GPS, especially on the bike, until I got one. Now I can't live without it. Damn technology.