Raymarine Warranty

[jtsailjt]

Last winter I purchased and had installed an Axiom Pro 12 by an authorized Raymarine dealer. Shortly after spring splash I noticed that depths were always displayed in meters upon initial turn on even though feet was selected. I’d reselect feet and all would be ok until unit was turned off. I called Raymarine and got a very helpful tech who talked me through a few trouble shooting procedures but no improvement. So he sent me a new chart card that displays correctly. No complaint so far. But when I tried to remove the first chart card, when I pressed in on it, it didn’t spring back out. I didn’t want to break anything so took it to the dealer that had installed it and they removed the card with needle nose pliers and told me he couldn’t repair card eject function locally. So I read their warranty and learned that if you have their electronics installed by an authorized dealer you get an extra year of warranty and if your boat is within an hours drive of any Raymarine dealer that Raymarine will have that dealer bring a new replacement to your boat, remove the malfunctioning unit, and install the new one. So, since I had sailed to Norfolk I contacted a local Raymarine dealer and explained the situation. He readily agreed to make the swap out if Raymarine would authorize it. But when I called Raymarine they told me that even though I correctly understood their warranty, they weren’t actually doing what it said “shortages due to Covid” and instead I would have to remove my unit and send it to them for them to repair it. They sent me a label and shipping instructions which included a disclaimer stating that they were not responsible for any damage incurred during shipping. Since I’d already paid full price to buy the unit I didn’t think I should be paying more money to insure it so I called them and asked if I could take the unit to a Raymarine dealer if they could be responsible for shipping it to Raymarine and they agreed to that. So I took it to the very helpful Norfolk Raymarine dealer and he shipped it to them about a month ago and I just got notified it’s enroute back to me. So, they did repair the unit and hopefully now the card slots will eject the chart cards properly, but that’s not how their warranty says or said they will handle defective units installed by a Raymarine dealer when I made the decision to go with Raymarine. When I dropped off the unit at the dealer he said he didnt know why Raymarine wasn’t doing what their warranty says and that he had 3 new units just like mine on a shelf out back but Raymarine wouldn’t authorize him to give one of them to me to replace my defective one. The whole process took a little more than 2 months and since I’m not using the boat this winter, other than the time to remove it and cost of a rental car to take the MFD to the Norfolk dealer it wasn’t a huge problem. But if I were planning to use the boat all winter it would have been a very serious issue compared to the painless and quick fix their warranty advertises.

So, if you’re buying new electronics for your boat and can’t afford to wait for your defective new unit to be repaired rather than replaced, you might want to investigate the warranties available from Garmin or B&G or others and try to determine whether they are actually doing what their warranty clearly states.

[Celestialsailor]

You can add Sitex to the list to "reconsider" when buying electronics. I bought a depth sounder from them prior to taking off to Mexico. It would glitch into funny readings now and again but since it was still under warranty, they sent me a new display claiming that was the problem. Later in Mx. the problem intermittently returned and I called and told them so. Now out of warranty, their claim was they could do nothing. I pushed the issue that it had never worked properly from the beginning and eventually sent me a transducer at cost. A $500 haulout later, it worked as it was suppose to. I called them to give them the results and it seemed like they could care less.