Defender Has Dropped Garmin....

kloudie1 · Feb 16, 2011

Shocker ! I have one of their chartplotters and love it but I hate dealing with Garmin over the 'net or on the phone.. I am sure their business folks finally angered the (outstanding) Defender guys to this point.. Garmin has not been on their game for a few years now.
Thanks for the info, Maine

Rick Webb · Feb 16, 2011

Have You Stopped Beating Your Wife?

Sort of reads the same way.

Barnacle Bill · Feb 16, 2011

Might be a business decision. Garmin is great stuff. I doubt they are dropping it because they think it is not.

Roger Long · Feb 16, 2011

kloudie1 said:
Garmin has not been on their game for a few years now.

I think we can blame the car market. The entire marine market must be about .2% of the potential dashboard mounts. Cost and size coming down to where they could go in cars made boaters a niche business.

Tim R. · Feb 16, 2011

Although it seems they have greatly expanded their marine product line in the last couple of years by developing instruments, APs and other marine products.

I have been using Garmin stuff for close to 10 years and I have never had a problem with support over the phone. Email support is lousy but I would rather talk to a human anyway. And their warranty work has been top notch. I have always usually gotten replacement units with no questions asked.

Chuckbear · Feb 16, 2011

MS, Where is this coming from, they are still selling Garmin on their website.
http://www.defender.com/category.jsp?path=-1|344|302026|141439|320789&id=328470

Chuckbear · Feb 16, 2011

Well, now that I look, there are lots of Garmin Close Outs. Chuck

miatapaul · Feb 16, 2011

Chuckbear said:
MS, Where is this coming from, they are still selling Garmin on their website.
http://www.defender.com/category.jsp?path=-1|344|302026|141439|320789&id=328470

If you notice they're on clearance.

Don S/V ILLusion · Feb 16, 2011

Has anyone actually spoken with Defender? It would be useful and obviously of interest to find out their side of the story. As i recall, Defenders Open House day is approaching so this doesn't sound like a decision based on timing as it is terrible.

Stephan · Feb 16, 2011

Definitely NOT an easy decision, but the right one for us.

It would be unprofessional of me to get into the gritty details, but will say that I like my Garmin plotter very much.

As Maine Sail stated in the originating post, the relationship has to work for all parties (Manufacturer, Retailer & Consumer). Without balance and cooperation, things simply do not work. Suffice it to say, I do not fault my staff, nor do I fault Defender's customers.....so that leaves only one party for me to take issue with. We had to make a business decision.

With a forecast for some warmer weather in New England, I wish you all a great boating season and hope there are many days of sunshine and wind ahead.

Oh, and for those who were wondering.....the Defender 2011 catalog is now out (in the mail) and Warehouse Sale dates are 3/31/11 to 4/3/11. Hope to see you there.

Stephan

Chuckbear · Feb 16, 2011

Chuckbear said:
Well, now that I look, there are lots of Garmin Close Outs. Chuck

If you notice, that was my next post.

Don S/V ILLusion · Feb 16, 2011

I understand and appreciate that no one wants to discuss issues but that only leaves us customers who frequented Defender with one less choice so for us, the people who are are most affected, we get the short end of this deal.
This is getting to sound eerily like our political climate these days.

FastOlson · Feb 16, 2011

Garmin... Oh My...

Interesting thread!
Perhaps the switch to chartplotters cases with the highly magnetic chip door closure (models after the 3005/6/10 series, which were better) was sort of a quiet notice to the niche marine market that that market was unimportant to Garmin's business plan.

I will keep using my 3005c, and I do like the display, but one of these days a new Furuno will replace it. One more software (or firmware) glitch would also the final straw.

In addition, my Garmin DS module and transducer are about the poorest-engineered items I have ever purchased, for (relatively) for quite a bit of money.

Sorry for the rant, but all opinions and experiences have value. Others may have better results, or simply not care about the shortcomings.

LB

Roger Long · Feb 16, 2011

FastOlson said:
Perhaps the switch to chartplotters cases with the highly magnetic chip door closure (models after the 3005/6/10 series, which were better) was sort of a quiet notice to the niche marine market that that market was unimportant to Garmin's business plan.

Yikes! I'd forgotten about that. If my 3205 (which has exhibited some occasional instability) should go tits up, does the Garmin radome on my mast mean that I've either got to figure out how to run an ordinary radar cable up the mast and replace the radome or buy one of the newer units?

Should I look for a back up 3205 on the close out market? (Of course, I can't just plug in the exact same replacement unit in some out of the way spot or underway in pea soup and have it work, I have to find a phone,Internet connection, get a Garmin rep on the phone at the right time of day, explain why I can't sent the unit back for verification that I'm not selling it with the Blue Charts installed because there is no UPS service from Blago Rock off Newfoundland and I'd like to have a chartplotter and radar before moving to a better protected harbor and one that has UPS. I also don't want to hang out in that harbor for two weeks waiting for UPS and customs just so they can be sure I'm not ripping them off for the cost of a set of Blue Chart unlock codes.) Hmmm, did I answer my question? The mast is down. Maybe it is time to leave this sinking ship. I actually did have to go through almost that exact scenario when the battery clip on my handheld, broke off the night before a cruise and I had just purchased a new unit. I spent about an hour with phone and emails trying to convince them that I couldn't just postpone my cruise to stay within the guidelines of their copy protections scheme. I finally got them to accept an email photo of the unit showing serial number and the broken off connector as the basis for sending me new unlock codes. The rep was very good about it and clearly trying to be as helpful as he could without losing his job but you could feel the supervisor hovering over him.

It's sort of a microcosm of being an American at this point. I love my Garmin set up and don't want to give it up but it feels like the system that makes it work is going to hell in a handbasket because of greed and a pervasive feeling that the end users count for nothing.

shemandr · Feb 16, 2011

I feel your pain, Rodger. I just wish the designers of these systems would take the time to understand how the users use them. Then they might understand that if I put my Raymarine display on night illumination for the anchor alarm, I can't see the menus to change it back in the daylight. Little things like that.

chasandjudy · Feb 17, 2011

Love Garmin , they answer any questions I ask I have used a Garmin 126 attached to my satelite 100 laptop using Navtreck one for 10 years. Installed a Garmin "C" depthsounder last year and once they told me to insulate the two wires that passed closs to each other --no problem (wrapped them in tinfoil)
Charles A. Pash "EDEN" Ericson 30+ Esquimalt B.C.

Alex Dare · Feb 18, 2011

If I were to make an educated guess, this probably has something to do with a minimum advertised price policy that Garmin may have in place as part of their dealer/distributer agreement.

JVB · Feb 18, 2011

Min. advertised price

Alex Dare said:
If I were to make an educated guess, this probably has something to do with a minimum advertised price policy that Garmin may have in place as part of their dealer/distributer agreement.

Yep, that's my guess too. Note that Defender is displaying the selling price without the "add this to your shopping cart then we will tell you the real price" ploy.