Wow! I actually ended up buying a $30 replacement mount when mine melted itself to the windshield. Nice to know that Garmin will take care of these types of things!

I too had a problem with the car cord...for some reason or another the tip un-screwed itself and I was no longer able to use the car-adaptor. One call to Garmin and explained to them my problem ...even offered to pay for the part I wanted which was just the tip however the Rep said don't worry about it and the part was on the way. To my SURPRISE not only did he send the tip but actually a BRAND NEW CORD and entire kit for the car for FREE...yes FREE. I was shocked to say the least and reconmend them to everyone I know as far as a company to purchase a GPS unit. They stand behind their product.

I purchased a Garmin C330 StreetPilot about a year ago. I need to upgrade the
information. I cannost find any information on where or how to get this upgrade. When I go online access in denied. Is there a place in New Bern, NC where I can take this unit and have it upgraded. Please
let me know asap as we are planning a trip and I feel this GPS will be

I purchased a Garmin C330 StreetPilot about a year ago. I need to upgrade the
information. I cannost find any information on where or how to get this upgrade. When I go online access in denied. Is there a place in New Bern, NC where I can take this unit and have it upgraded. Please
let me know asap as we are planning a trip and I feel this GPS will be

I have a Nuvi 680. Fantastic. But, after less than 2 months, the suction cup is failing. This is a major design flaw...and Garmin should think of redesigning it ASAP. What is needed is a "clip on" type mount. This suction cup stuff is not on a par with the brilliant engineering that obviously went into the design of the product. I would wager that if the designers knew how their product was attached to the vehicle, their jaws would drop in disbelief.

I have a Nuvi 680. Fantastic. But, after less than 2 months, the suction cup is failing. This is a major design flaw...and Garmin should think of redesigning it ASAP. What is needed is a "clip on" type mount. This suction cup stuff is not on a par with the brilliant engineering that obviously went into the design of the product. I would wager that if the designers knew how their product was attached to the vehicle, their jaws would drop in disbelief.

I agree. I have a street pilot 340 and it has NEVER stayed put on the windshield more than 30 minutes before crashing into the dash.

I've been using my cupholder to place it!!

I called both tomtom and garmin today looking for more specific information on types of products.
The teller at tomtom was unknowledgable, sounded incredibly bored, and was short with me. After I hung up in frustration, I called garmin and found their team to be friendly, VERY helpful, and could tell me exactly what product I wanted.
Rock on Garmin.

Came accross this old post and had to add to it as I wait for Garmin customer service to answer the phone. The wait time given is 30 to 35 MINUTES!!!!! Believe it or not, I'm right down the street from Garmin. I guess it will be faster to take the broken plug into their lobby and argue with them when they tell me they don't take drop offs.

If this is good customer service, I would hate to see what bad is.

Must be joking and may be in 2007, it had a good support. But not in 2008.

Just like CarlL said, 30-35 min hold time, and support person was rude and lack of knowledge.

YOU MUST BE KDDING ME. 6 CALLS TO CUSTOMER SUPPORT. AVERAGE HOLD TIME OF 45 MINS AND ALL 6 TIMES SOMEONE PICKED UP THE PHONE AND THEN IMMEIDATELY HUNG UP ON ME........ MUST BE A GARMIN EMPLOYEE THAT WROTE THIS INTIAL REVIEW

In 2008: Most horrible customer service experience so far. Trying to push you to buy, buy, buy without any support being. "Average waiting time exceeds 30 minutes" and no @ email address on web site to track requests for support.

I would have to add to the ranks that say the Garmin Customer experience via email is pathetic. I have 3 garmin devices, and the only way that I could resolve my issue with my Nuvi 660 was to research it myself on the Internet.

I was having the Chronic "Lost Sattelite" problem that so many others have had. Their only solution was for me to send it to them for $225.00 they would try to fix it. (paid $700.00, lasted 18 months)

If anyone is looking for the solution to this, go down to your local electronics store and buy an external antena (which hooks into the existing antena). I solved the problem for less than $30.00, and they were not even offering up this as a potential solution.

The email Customer Service Rep was not helpful, appologitic or willing to make things "right" with me. I explained to them that I will be returning my other two Garmin devices since they were recent purchase. Still, no willingness to keep my business.

My recommendation would be to find another GPS.

sir - I purchased the 680 in december and as os this date l/29/09 I have been unable to register my unit as I cannot get a Passwod oked by your unit. I have tried every way to do so but no luck. Can you help me so I can get updates,etc. Thank You Paul Mergler

Like many of the other commenters I was surprised at the lavish praise for Garmin's customer service. Of course Fletch (original poster) does say this is only a single instance, but then a single instance is hardly justification for so much gushing.

My GPS (an expensive Colorado 400i) just mysteriously stopped working a month after I bought it; took it out and tried to turn it on, with no results, even with new batteries. So I called customer service, in the middle of a normal workday, and was astonished to get an estimate of twenty minutes waiting time! Compared to other commenters I guess I should be glad.

But such long waits make it clear that either

• (a) customer service is a low priority at Garmin and they don't bother staffing it properly or
• (b) their products have a high failure rate and customer service is swamped by the volume of calls.

I guess I'll keep trying at different times of day, to the extent I can do that and still have a life, but I'm deeply disappointed.

Fletch wrote:

Just to clarify - I was praising Garmin's tech support for what happens AFTER you reach someone...not for the length of their wait times…

Forgive the quibble, but it seems to me you praised both:

My call was answered after ONE ring…. Total time spent on the phone was under 5 minutes.

Your point about their queue being longer than usual because of an update problem is quite reasonable but, even so, a non-trivial problem like that might justify putting a few extra folks on the help desk if customer service really matters.

I tried the email route. Hmm...instead of just giving me a normal email address, they gave me a web form with a lot of fields to fill in. A good idea, except that when I finished filling it all out and pressed "Submit email to a Product Support Specialist", the page reloaded and looked just the same, no confirmation or acknowledgment of any kind. I had filled in all the required fields (marked with an asterisk) and many more besides, so if it's rejecting me I wish it would say why. Also no confirming email, even though I provided my address. Not 21st-century information technology, or even common courtesy.

I'll keep calling, even though I'm still getting huge wait-time estimates. And I'll make a point of reporting the results here if I ever do get in touch with a Garmin rep.

I said I'd post again as my Customer Support experience unfolded. Turns out there's bad news and good news.

After days and days of wait-time estimates of 20 minutes and more, one day I called and it was 5 minutes. I waited on hold and, sure enough, after 5 minutes a human answered. Immediately a problem: turns out the unit needs to be "registered" in order to generate an RMA. Sadly, I can't register the unit without connecting it to a Windows or Mac computer; since I run GNU/Linux, that's a non-starter.

She said she could register the unit for me but would need to see a proof-of-purchase. In lieu of snail-mail or fax, I offered to email a PDF of the invoice and said it was disappointing that it was taking so long to get my GPS working again. She expressed surprise at my notion of "so long" so I explained I'd been trying to get through for many days with unreasonably long wait-times; she curtly dismissed that, saying they were always very busy this time of year but now that was over and today there was no wait time. By "curtly" I mean her tone and choice of words made it clear she thought I was out of line for even mentioning it. I also mentioned that the customer support web page didn't seem to be working; she dismissed that, too, saying no one had complained.

Anyway, she agreed to accept a PDF via email, but I had to send it to the generic techsupp@garmin.com address and mark it to her attention, and include my phone number. She said it might take up to 20 minutes for her to receive the email and register the unit, after which she would call me.

That sounded fine to me, and I was ready to revise my opinion upward, especially when I got a reply from another Garmin rep half an hour later saying the message had been received and forwarded. That was 2 days ago, and I haven't heard a peep since, nor seen any indication that she'd registered my GPS.

For the record, I kept my tone and phrasing polite and cordial throughout the conversation, since I knew the long wait times weren't the rep's fault and I anticipated she would be courteous and helpful in return.

Summary:

• Garmin's customer support is "always busy this time of year" yet they won't put a few extra bodies on the phones to keep the wait-times reasonable.
• A customer who finally reaches a rep should shut up and be grateful and not complain about the many days of unsuccessful attempts.
• 5 minutes listening to ads and elevator music counts as "no wait time".
• Garmin won't help a customer until the device is registered, even though registration requires computer hardware and software that don't come with the unit, namely a Windows or Mac computer.
• A Garmin rep can register the product manually, but won't do so until the customer shows a proof-of-purchase.
• This Garmin rep in particular wouldn't give me a direct email address, but made me wait until someone else forwarded a generically-addressed message.
• She said she'd call shortly, certainly the same day, but never called at all.
• She said she'd register my GPS, but didn't.

Readers can judge for themselves how many stars this support deserves.

But wait! There's good news, too. As I said earlier, I had also tried the online web form, but assumed it hadn't worked since it gave no acknowledgment or confirmation. Turns out it did work, and late one night I got an email from a helpful rep who suggested several troubleshooting steps I might try, beginning with reinstalling the boot block; since I had mentioned I didn't have Windows, he assumed I had a Mac, but I don't, so I couldn't do that.

He also described how to perform a master reset, which requires no computer but erases all saved data and restores the factory settings. That might well have worked but I wanted to save that as a last resort. Before doing that, I thought I'd connect the GPS to my GNU/Linux box just to see if there was any sign of life. I put the batteries in and was about to plug in the cable when, on a whim, I tried the power button yet again. Bear in mind, I'd been doing this at irregular intervals over the span of a week or so, with no effect. This time, it started right up! I have no explanation for this, other than to conjecture that the unit was hung in some way and some internal battery or capacitor took all this time to run down, finally resetting the whole system.

I said that in my reply and also explained about my other contact with the phone rep, asking him to check whether the unit was registered. He replied that my conjecture was plausible, adding that he had registered my GPS. He also helpfully made a personal recommendation (not officially supported by Garmin) that I try using Wine or possibly Windows under VirtualBox to run the Garmin software.

Summary:

• Even though the customer support web form gave no indication of a successful submittal (at least not in Firefox), it did actually communicate with customer support.
• The rep's response was courteous, helpful and complete, based on the information he had.
• The rep provided his direct email address rather than routing me through a third party.
• The rep's followup responded to my questions and gave additional useful advice, even to the extent of offering unofficial, personal recommendations.
• He registered my GPS without delay.

This is clearly a better level of support! Excellent, in fact.

Looking at the big picture, I see an inconsistent quality of support. It could be because one rep was professional and motivated while the other was less so. It could be because one used email, with a written record, while the other was on the phone (When you call customer support, the first thing you hear is a recording saying "This call may be recorded for quality assurance purposes." In the future I'll take them up on it).

My conclusion is that you can get lucky and have an experience like Fletch's (or my email exchange), but you can't count on it.

ps. Am I the only one who noticed, or cares, that the Preview and Submit buttons at the bottom of the comment form (here at gpsmagazine.com, not at Garmin) appear to do precisely the same thing?