PaulRainbow
Well-Known Member
How about my handheld ?
How about my cheap watch ?
How about all of the Garmin plotters ?
How about all the .........
Poor customer service with Raymarine
- Thread starter Yorkyreg85
- Start date
How about my handheld ?
How about my cheap watch ?
How about all of the Garmin plotters ?
How about all the .........
KINGFISHER 9
Well-Known Member
Is it just forums where people talk total b*ll*cks or does it happen in real life as well?
ex-Gladys
Well-Known Member
Not the Apple Store or Apple, independent repairers will do.
Resolution
Well-Known Member
Thank you! Probably in real life as well, and even more worryingly some people believe the b*ll*cks!
dom
Well-Known Member
A tad harsh if I may say so; I usually dismantle my chimney stack each spring and would most certainly expect a free replacement if the pot accidentally fell off the roof.
PaulRainbow
Well-Known Member
No one expects a freebie. If you dropped the pot you'd expect to be able to get a new one, not have to buy a new house, if you want to use silly analogies.
dom
Well-Known Member
...and the OP doesn't have to buy a new boat!
My dad may have once winced at having to purchase an entire new head for his razor and I recently expressed surprise at the cost of a new 'sealed' headlight unit for my car. Yet both razors and cars have taken immense strides over the years.
That's progress for you and the frontier between 'serviceable' and 'non-serviceable' is ever changing. Marine electronics are no exception, and as with the old disposable razor, I'd have a modern bright MFD over an ancient misty one any day. Moreover, so would 99.9% of sailors, which as explained above is why the Dragonfly is made the way it is -- with bonded and non-serviceable screens. I'm not sure what's so difficult here.
duncan99210
Well-Known Member
I've just been chatting with a mate who bought a Dragonfly for his boat. Bought in UK, brought out to Greece and fitted by a local sparky it was found to be faulty: the card reader wasn't working. Took it along to the local Raymarine dealer in Lefkas who looked it over and diagnosed the fault as a broken card reader. No problem say the dealer, we'll get a replacement for you. Turned out that the reason the price was so good for the Dragonfly was that it was now an old model, no longer available from Raymarine. Still no problem, a new Dragonfly 7 complete with warranty running from the delivery date was provided within 24 hours. That to me is customer service of a pretty high standard.
Having now seen the Dragonfly in the flesh, so to speak, I can completely understand why Raymarine don't bother to try repairing them. The units are small, very thin and tightly sealed, clearly designed as sealed for life object. Like most marine electronics these days, they'll go on for years of reasonably careful use. As I said in my post above, it's a simple economic fact that it's not worth while for the manufacturer of items like this to train staff in their workshops to deal with repairs. Cheaper to offer a discount as a courtesy where there's user inflicted damage or an exchange where there's a manufacturing fault.
The comparison to iPads and iPhones is actually quite a good one. Take a faulty iPad to an Apple shop, there'll be a sucking of teeth when they realise the warranty has run out and they'll suggest a nice shiny new one....... The difference however is that if you then pop round the corner to your local phone repair shop, chances are that they'll fix the thing for you within a couple of hours. That's because there are enough iPads, smart phones and the like in use for there to be a market for the various spares required, so the corner shop operations can source parts. Getting parts for a Raymarine Dragonfly, especially the discontinued models is going to be more or less impossible.
The answer therefore lies in the simple instruction: don't drop your Dragonfly. They don't bounce well......
Having now seen the Dragonfly in the flesh, so to speak, I can completely understand why Raymarine don't bother to try repairing them. The units are small, very thin and tightly sealed, clearly designed as sealed for life object. Like most marine electronics these days, they'll go on for years of reasonably careful use. As I said in my post above, it's a simple economic fact that it's not worth while for the manufacturer of items like this to train staff in their workshops to deal with repairs. Cheaper to offer a discount as a courtesy where there's user inflicted damage or an exchange where there's a manufacturing fault.
The comparison to iPads and iPhones is actually quite a good one. Take a faulty iPad to an Apple shop, there'll be a sucking of teeth when they realise the warranty has run out and they'll suggest a nice shiny new one....... The difference however is that if you then pop round the corner to your local phone repair shop, chances are that they'll fix the thing for you within a couple of hours. That's because there are enough iPads, smart phones and the like in use for there to be a market for the various spares required, so the corner shop operations can source parts. Getting parts for a Raymarine Dragonfly, especially the discontinued models is going to be more or less impossible.
The answer therefore lies in the simple instruction: don't drop your Dragonfly. They don't bounce well......
john_morris_uk
Well-Known Member
And the point is that if I dropped the pot I wouldn't expect to be given a new one; I'd expect to have to pay for it. I would consider it extremely generous if I'd just bought a new pot and dropped it to be offered another pot at a discount as an act of good will by the pot manufacturers.