Furuno Service . . . Beware

boatbum

boatbum

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We have a Furuno Chart Plotter and Radar that has been giving us good service over the years. Except for one thing. It would completely drop GPS reception every two hours. We never noticed this until we did the ICW.
It always seemed to coincide with power lines or other obstructions on the Hudson so we ignored it. Since we have been in the Bahamas it dawned on us that it was a failure that occured regularly.
So I called up and worked with the service department in Washington. They assured me we would have the unit back promptly and they had a good handle on the issue. A software update would take care of the issue. So I packed up the display unit and shipped it out to Washington to have it updated and a new battery installed since it was getting on in age.
They kept it all Summer. I had to call frequently before they finally did the work and shipped it back. So now we are back on the boat and the chartography no longer works with the display. In fact, the self test can't even find the card reader.
Talk about pissed. We have about a grand in chips for this unit and we cannot use them now. The radar seems ok, and we have back up charts, but damn. Good money down the drain. They offered to resolve the issue promptly but we are getting ready to leave the country and I have lost all faith in their ability to deliver a working unit back to us. It's almost like they could not care, or want to pressure us into a new unit.
If it came to that, a new unit, it won't be a Furuno.
Piss me off.
 
Some might say too long :D

Anyway, so who's using what radar these days? Any input?
 
Dan
I have a 10 year old Furuno duel station system and it has been great, radar only- never had to have it serviced and if it craps out I just may upgrade depending on what’s on the market at they time and at what cost.
it's much better than past Raytheon & Simrad units- but then again those units would be 15-20+ years old today.

I use the older PC basec Garmin nRoute with gps puck & iPad with a BT duel GPS
As well as the droid/iPhone for chart plotting

And yes, you are old! ;-)
 
We are pretty P.O.'d about this and tomorrow I will probably pen a letter to Furuno USA. The service dept. came off as totally inept over the phone, and bounced us around many different representatives. Having worked customer service I always took responsibility for a call that was initiated to myself and followed through with it.
These jokers don't give a hoot and drop the ball regularly.
 
That sounds completely out of character for them. I have got great customer service from them and on another forum which has a very large electronics section (as in as about as active as all of BE put together), they get nothing but great marks for their repair department. In fact, this is the first time I can ever recall someone having a bad experience with Furuno service. Take your complaint to the top, as this is an area that they market as a strength and have a very big reputation for.
Just curious, When you say Washington, you mean Camas Washington, or their facility in Maryland near Washington DC?
 
This spring after having my new hardtop made and my Furuno radar dome moved up top the radar wasn't working correctly. The yard sent first the antenna and then the display unit back to Furuno and both were tested and shipped back within days. I was actually surprised how quickly they could turn things around. In the end the problem was traced to a bad cable which was replaced and everything worked fine the rest of the season. I was actually pretty impressed with the service from Furuno.
 
Based on my experience with Furno, I am shocked. Have had nothing but the best from them over the years.
Back in 2000, when the boat was hit by lighting,all of my electronics was fried. At that time I had a Furno GPS, fish finder, and a radar. These were all new, a month or so, Furno replaced them all within a week. My cost was for shipping. Given this experience as well as other I am stunned. I concurr with george,contact the top, not their reputation. Be interested in how this turns out.

John
 
The unit was shipped to the West coast. They kept it most of the Summer and balled it up. When I last spoke with them they wanted one of my chips to test it with.
At this point we are resolved to leaving it the way it is since the radar works and we have other chartography. I'll make a couple of calls today and see what happens.
 
I have to second Sortie's statement about Furuno customer service being the best I've experienced also.
 
Well, we know the service manager is a busy man. Phone mail.
 
Very suprised, I sent a fishfinder back to them for a software update and had it back in 2 weeks. Never had anything but great service. Call their tech department and see if they can help.
 
This has been a royal PITA. Today I work out some shipping with them and decide to bring it to a UPS store. The store refuses to validate the Furuno account number. Back to Furuno again, and now they are going to ship a box to us to send it back to them with.
They got the box originally back in June, held it until August when I had to call several times before they sent it back busted.

I'm glad everyone else has had good luck with them, but ours is awful.

I'm thinking they either loaded the wrong software or banged up a very sentitive connector when they installed a new back up battery.

180 bucks down the drain, and counting. Plus the chart chips and radar, and installation.
 
I too had great results with a radar Ishipped for repairs. Something very wrong with your experience.
 
How high up the food chain have you raised this issue. Furuno USA is a subsidiary of Furuno.
 
Ok, this is what happened. They figured we were suspicious customers because we took a while to fire the unit up when we got it back. Even though I explained to one rep. we were in the process of moving, they figured we were up to something. We also figured they were up to something and I will always. Every time I spoke with them I got someone else. Eventually this behavior was highlighted by one individual as "Our fault" in spite of my asking to speak with the same person.
Anyway,
You see there is this flat ribbon connector that is a PITA. It cracks with age and heat so it has to be replaced. It happens to be on the CPU board and connects to the chip reader card. Since the CPU board has to come out to replace the battery, it probably cracked when they replaced the battery since that cable has to be disconnected. In working with their tech when I fired up their repair work he suggested that connector was bad given the behavior of the self tests. BTW they have a relationship (National manager informed me of this) with Japan that allows them to (relatively) economically replace that connector. Why they did not do this the first time they had the unit I'll never know. They had it long enough. I would have gone for that at that time but they figured they could sweep it.

Given that, I say it fell apart on the repair tech and he tried to stick it to us. They wanted to charge me 950 bucks for a replacement (supposedly new) CPU board, another round trip in shipping, and I freaked. I told him 'eff it throw it in the garbage', and started the escalation. A couple of red tag UPS shipments and we got it back promptly and in working order. They know me at the National service level now, and well, I did not want to go there but had to. One of the folks under the National manager sent me a long letter about how to be more politically correct. I responded in much more polite terms how screwed up their treatment of us was and worked with the National manager instead.
He admitted that they dropped the ball on this once I started rubbing tracking numbers in their faces. They had it 5 weeks the first time and that eventually ended when I started calling and pestering to get it back. Their normal TAT doesn't exceed 2-3 weeks even in the Summer. So he knew something was up also.

So if you have an older unit consider sending it back carefully if it has acceptable behavior.
 
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