Navman Customer Service and Repair - The Hull Truth

Sailor · 11-21-2003, 03:10 PM

As promised, I stated I would post my experience with my Navman. I won't get into my feelings for the unit in this post.

After six months of trouble free usage, my Navman display quit coming on. I would hit the power button and I could hear it beep, but no display. I checked the wire at the connection and had 12 volts so it wasn't a low power issue as suggested by Navman.

I have the unit installed on the top of my console behind the windshield so spray is never a problem even though this unit is considered water proof.

I used Navman's web site and opened a support ticket asking for help. It's a pretty neat web based tool that shows you the day your ticket is supposed to be closed by. I guess they don't watch the mangement reports on tickets open past the due date as no one answered my ticket, even after I posted I follow-up, so I did it the old fashioned way and called them. I was issued a return number and off it went the next day. After it was there for a week, I called to ask the status and received a reply of "oh, I'll put on the desk so they will get to it first thing in the morning." Ok great. Two days later I receive a notifcation that it has shipped. Darn - I wish they would have contacted me first, I would have paid extra to have it overnighted for a fishing trip that weekend.

I received the unit and opened it up to find a brand new unit. The only difference I can see is that the insert for the c-map card looks different, but not sure if it is a re-design. This really sucks because I specifically asked them to not delete my waypoints or try to save them. Oh well. I only had a 100 or so programmed so far.

I've read a lot of positive comments regarding the fuel flow transducers and Navman's willingness to replace them when faulty and they certainly did that here. I feel neither positive nor negative regarding my Navman, but I'm still wishing I would have bought a Garmin, simply because I find the Navman hard to read while running the boat and I don't have this problem on the several boats I have been on with Garmin units.

Sailor · 11-21-2003, 03:11 PM

Forgot to mention that this is a Navman 5100i GPS/Chartplotter.

kayakndave · 11-26-2003, 05:08 AM

I have had excellent customer service from NavMan. Bought a 5600 this past summer, for some reason the unit would not obtain satellite fix, called NavMan, They had a new unit on the way (2nd day air) before I even sent the bad unit back! Excellent customer service IMHO!

KJS · 11-27-2003, 01:29 PM

I bought a NAVMAN fishfinder earlier in the summer which I really like. I also bought the fuel transducer, but I haven't had the time to cut the fuel lines and install it yet. This fall I went to Boat US to get a fishfinder/GPS for my second station and was hoping to get the NAVMAN GPS and tie it into the fishfinder on my first station. However, like most, you can't tie the two together. You can tie depth and water temp. but not fishfinder. I went with the Garmin GPS/Fishfinder. I am still trying to hook it up because I need to buy an adapter cable for my laptop to download the unlcock code for the software. I really did want to get a NAVMAN GPS though. Maybe, I will like that Garmin once I get it all hooked up though.