Garmin Vs. Lowrance Fishfinder Only

[kevinpa]

Prev. owned a LMS 350 A and it was a great fishfinder,sold it with the boat I was selling. Purchased a Garmin 498 C finder gps combo. Cannot get this unit to function as a fish finder to save my life. GPS works ok but as a fish finder completely worthless. I tried fine tuning and also had the tech from Garmin on the phone and it will not operate properly. Sad thing it is 6 months out of warranty. I am looking to throw this in the trash ( garbage nan coming this afternoon}. I want to go back to Lowrance and get a decent fishfinder. don`t really need GPS anymore, what I`m looking at is a good quality fishfinder that will work for a decent price. I paid $800.00 for this Garmin and it is completely worthless to me. Which Lowrance should I buy ??

Kevin,

Before you trash that Garmin might I suggest you might try contacting them one more time?

I have had several contacts with Clint Steiner there. He was a customer support specialist and really knew his stuff. This was several years ago, however, and I don't know if he is still with the company. But, I would call and ask for him specifically.

If that doesn't work out or if he is no longer there, ask to talk to a supervisor or manager. Those folks get evaluated on making sure they support their product and customers.

I understand your frustration. I would be very upset too. $800 is a lot of money. But, I have to think Garmin would not want to leave you in the situation you are in. They have always bent over backwards to take care of me, and I am just another run-of-the-mill customer.

[BGunn]

I know exactly how you feel. I got so frustrated with a $900.00 Bottomline unit once, that I honestly sold it to a friend for 22 cents just to get it out of my sight.
Of course that was after I spent an additional $149.00 into it at the Bottomline factory to get the **working right**.

[JiMinneye]

Before you buy Lowrance please read through the archives about all the problems people have had with Lowrance Units, me included. I would look at Vexilar, Furono and Humminbird, not that you can't have a problem with one of those also but Lowrance is not the same company it was when we bought those great little 350A's ! I wish I would have kept mine to.

[Shellback]

I'm using a 498C and am very satified with it. Mine came with a dual frequency transducer, but I changed over to a dual beam transducer. It has much better coverage for shallow water. Do you have anyone local you could swap units with to see if their unit performs better on your transducer, or your unit performs better on their transducer?

[Gilligan]

Originally Posted by Shellback

I'm using a 498C and am very satified with it. Mine came with a dual frequency transducer, but I changed over to a dual beam transducer. It has much better coverage for shallow water. Do you have anyone local you could swap units with to see if their unit performs better on your transducer, or your unit performs better on their transducer?

Shellback...
I think Kevin is living out your way?

I too bought a 498c this year and have found it to be a very good unit. I think I had to turn the sonar on at first to get it to work and had a heck of a time figuring out how to get my gps/sonar split to zoom in on the bottom 5 to 10 feet. I called emailed them and followed with a call to support as I was in the wrong window menu.

[Backwater Eddy]

My experience was just the opposite of yours Kevin, I dumped all my Lowrance units for Vexilar and Garmin, with no regrets at all.

A possible problem with any used unit may be it has a bad transducer if you do not get a clean signal, or no signal at all.

The other likely problem may be that the settings has the sonar option set to..off. Also be sure the frequency settings are set to match the transducer that came with the unit.

Customer service at Garmin is the best I have seen so if there is any problem they will work with you on it.

I won't even comment of my experiences trying to get Lowrance to remedy past issues, don't have enough time or patience left with them to try to spell all that out.

If your looking for a no nonsense high detail and reliable duel beam graph, with no GPS, take a look at the Vexilar Edge 3. Easy to use, works great with transom, trolling motor, or shoot through the hull mounting options.

Originally Posted by Backwater Eddy

My experience was just the opposite of yours Kevin, I dumped all my Lowrance units for Vexilar and Garmin, with no regrets at all.
...
If your looking for a no nonsense high detail and reliable duel beam graph, with no GPS, take a look at the Vexilar Edge 2. Easy to use, works great with transom, trolling motor, or shoot through the hull mounting options.

I don't want to steal Kevin's post Eddy (don't we always say that before we do exactly that???), but I didn't understand all of your post. Are you using Garmin or Vexilar locators? If Garmin locators, which model(s)?

I am considering a new boat and don't want Lowrance based on the posts I see on here now.

[ccg]

Garmin has its strong points but so does Lowrance. Garmin will last much longer with better customer service but it doesn't accept lakemaster chips and is a little bit more expensive. I fish in central MN so I really do need to use my lakemaster chip. An ideal world would either have Lowrance figure out their problems or have Garmin or Hummingbird accept lakemaster chips (or have Navionics resound the MN lakes). I am so friggin' frusterated by all of this I could just drop kick my computer

P.S. I've gone through four lowrance fish finders in the past seven years but have an old LMS 4000 that is eight years old and has never had a problem.

P.P.S. Someone really needs to send this link to Lowrance Corporate Headquarters. If they knew about the growing customer disgust, maybe they would issue a public statement.