Shout out for Furuno service

[Helmsman]

I have Furuno products on my boat. The primary reason I selected Furuno was their reputation for standing behind their products. I was having a problem with TZT12 chart plotter that continued to show an intermittent “fan not working” error message. With the winter layup, I sent the plotter in. Furuno worked on the plotter for a couple of weeks, attempting to replicate the error but couldn’t. They replaced the fan, and returned the unit to me.

When I re-installed the CP, I immediately got the “fan not working” message. I called the service center back, and they sent me a label to ship back to them. The label was to get it to them the next day. I had a deadline for correcting the problem due to a planned trip and they wanted to help me with that.

They tried again to replicate the problem over a few days, but couldn’t. Then, they asked me to check the N2K network and connections (I used a Maretron NMEA2000 tool for that) the electrical connections and the voltage. All checked out.

I received a call from the head of their service unit, letting me know they were sending a new unit out. I offered to take the old unit back, and video the issue when it arose again, but he didn’t want me to go through that inconvenience.

When I got the new unit, I ran into a problem. It was not recognizing the Master chart plotter. I called Furuno support, and Clayton took me through the process to get the CP set up and running. We checked several things, and then we did a factory reset, which cleared the problem, and then he walked me through downloading charts which I had paid for a year ago, and sent me the unlock code.

I am really impressed with the level of competent service I received from this company. They were an absolute pleasure to work with. Available, knowledgeable, and caring support like that is really rare out there today.

 

[Mainship Pilot]

I had Furuno on my last few boats, their help desk and tech support is unmatched that I have found in the industry! In two seperate instances, they went way beyond the call of duty to make sure everything was up to snuff with my set up and installs. My Mainship I have now, came with all new Garmin, so no reason to change at this point, but if I did, I'd seriously consider Furuno again!

 

[Helmsman]

I had Furuno on my last few boats, their help desk and tech support is unmatched that I have found in the industry! In two seperate instances, they went way beyond the call of duty to make sure everything was up to snuff with my set up and installs. My Mainship I have now, came with all new Garmin, so no reason to change at this point, but if I did, I'd seriously consider Furuno again!

Yes they do a great job, and I think their decision trees on their chart plotters is pretty intuitive. I had a bad experience with Raymarine (which doesn't make them a bad company by any stretch) when they sunset a year old plotter with no new software updates even though some bugs were still resident in it. They had a pretty good forum, but the last time I went to look I couldn't find it.



I have a Vesper, and the Garmin support has been ok. You have to wade through the first level support to get an answer, and they seem to be struggling with the Vesper, based upon some posts I have recently read. The latest issue is the HP1 radio stopped charging, which is the second time that has happened in a year. I will be calling them in the morning. May end up having to go with another radio and just hold on to the Vesper box for AIS. It does a good job with that.

 

[Jklotz]

I've been researching electronics for the boat I plan to buy in the hopefully near future. Seems like all of them have both negative and positive reviews if you look deep enough, although I rarely see anything negative about Furuno. At the moment, that's the way I'm leaning. Your post reinforces that decesion.

 

[Mainship Pilot]

The only thing I would add is that Although I am a big Furuno fan, I have grown to appreciate Garmin, due to its ease of use, it’s basically an IPad, but more importantly it’s easy to teach others to use it as well. Furuno takes some getting use to, where Garmin is much more user friendly.

 

[Helmsman]

The only thing I would add is that Although I am a big Furuno fan, I have grown to appreciate Garmin, due to its ease of use, it’s basically an IPad, but more importantly it’s easy to teach others to use it as well. Furuno takes some getting use to, where Garmin is much more user friendly.

I agree, Garmin has some strong points.

Have you checked out the Furuno TZT3? They did some work on their interface between 2 and 3 and it is much easier to use. They came out with a new CP introduced at the Miami boat show called the XL, that has a faster processor, has autorouting, and will use their own crowd sourcing like Navionics does to update charts. That will help on the inland rivers.

After Raymarine sunset my 1 year old chart plotter, I was cautious about going with Garmin after reading the concerns about them dropping support for equipment quickly. Furuno’s reputation for service and support for older equipment well after new products are produced sold me.

 

[Helmsman]

I've been researching electronics for the boat I plan to buy in the hopefully near future. Seems like all of them have both negative and positive reviews if you look deep enough, although I rarely see anything negative about Furuno. At the moment, that's the way I'm leaning. Your post reinforces that decesion.

JKlotz, Check out the new Furuno XL plotters.

 

[ofer]

I have Furuno products on my boat. The primary reason I selected Furuno was their reputation for standing behind their products. I was having a problem with TZT12 chart plotter that continued to show an intermittent “fan not working” error message. With the winter layup, I sent the plotter in. Furuno worked on the plotter for a couple of weeks, attempting to replicate the error but couldn’t. They replaced the fan, and returned the unit to me.

When I re-installed the CP, I immediately got the “fan not working” message. I called the service center back, and they sent me a label to ship back to them. The label was to get it to them the next day. I had a deadline for correcting the problem due to a planned trip and they wanted to help me with that.

They tried again to replicate the problem over a few days, but couldn’t. Then, they asked me to check the N2K network and connections (I used a Maretron NMEA2000 tool for that) the electrical connections and the voltage. All checked out.

I received a call from the head of their service unit, letting me know they were sending a new unit out. I offered to take the old unit back, and video the issue when it arose again, but he didn’t want me to go through that inconvenience.

When I got the new unit, I ran into a problem. It was not recognizing the Master chart plotter. I called Furuno support, and Clayton took me through the process to get the CP set up and running. We checked several things, and then we did a factory reset, which cleared the problem, and then he walked me through downloading charts which I had paid for a year ago, and sent me the unlock code.

I am really impressed with the level of competent service I received from this company. They were an absolute pleasure to work with. Available, knowledgeable, and caring support like that is really rare out there today.

I had exactly same issue with the same plotter. it went away after a while. I also updated the software per fururo. we will see in a few months.

Clayton is great!

 

[twistedtree]

They are great, and it's so refreshing in this day and age of customer-abandonment by most companies as soon as you have turned over you money.

 

[Helmsman]

I had exactly same issue with the same plotter. it went away after a while. I also updated the software per fururo. we will see in a few months.

Clayton is great!

I agree. I haven’t spoken with anyone at Furuno in the past year that wasn’t on top of their game. Just a well managed company.

 

[Helmsman]

They are great, and it's so refreshing in this day and age of customer-abandonment by most companies as soon as you have turned over you money.

They value their customers.

 

[rgano]

I get good support from Furuno for my 20-year-old Furuno suite of electronics.

 

[Mainship Pilot]

I get good support from Furuno for my 20-year-old Furuno suite of electronics.

That's rare these day's Rich! I remember recently calling the help desk on my Magnum Inverter to basically get scoffed at, and was no help at all.

 

[Blissboat]

For similar reasons as stated above, satisfied and loyal Furuno customer here for the last 42 years. I have used other marine electronics, like Raymarine and Garmin, and admittedly, I've coveted Garmin's easy user interface. But over the long term, Furuno consistently delivers, in terms of product quality and support.

 

[ranger58sb]

The only thing I would add is that Although I am a big Furuno fan, I have grown to appreciate Garmin, due to its ease of use, it’s basically an IPad, but more importantly it’s easy to teach others to use it as well. Furuno takes some getting use to, where Garmin is much more user friendly.

I have not found that to be the case. Our Garmin interface seems to have been created by at least 3 different designers... who very likely never spoke with each other. I don't see much consistency, throughout...

Our TZT3 seems more consistent, to me...

-Chris

 

[rslifkin]

I'm with Chris on this one. I haven't particularly cared for the UI on the Garmin units I've used. Some things are done well, other basic things seem needlessly hard to find.

Furuno is pretty much the gold standard for a reason. As far as UI, I like the Simrad (and related brands) stuff as well. I haven't used the modern Raymarine gear, so I don't have any input there.

 

[danderer]

Interesting/glad to see I'm not alone. I've had Simrad, Raymarine, Garmin, and Furuno. Only Garmin never felt comfortable for me, even after a couple years of use. Pulled it out for Fununo which feels much more intuitive to me.

 

[Helmsman]

Here is a video which is one of several sponsored by Furuno that shows the differences between the TZT3 and its competitors.

 

[Lockstar]

Furuno tech assistance

I too experienced over the top quality help from Furuno, coupla years ago. I’m still enough impressed I want to tell you.

 

[Mark Laurnen]

I also am onboard with Furuno. Clayton is so helpful, they all are. As far as I can tell, they never have bad days in the office. Not only are they very knowledgeable, they are good listeners and can comfortably explain tech to a non-techie. Coincidentally, I'm going to call them now for advice on adding AIS to one of my two redundant systems. My only complaint, and it's not really a complaint, is that they have become so popular that some products are on almost perpetual backorder ... that alone is a robust endorsement!

 

[johnma]

they are great. My boat came with a Furuno plotter and radar system. After having the boat for a few years I started having a problem. There is a Furuno Service facility near where I live so I just unplugged it an drove over. He connected it up to his test stand and fired it up. Worked fine. Turns out I had an antenna issue. He sold me the antenna and 10 minutes after I got back to the boat I was up and running

 

[Jklotz]

Just saw this:

https://youtu.be/PcLAMXsHkJc?si=s9vQa1UL14OqxnS_

 

[Helmsman]

Just saw this:

https://youtu.be/PcLAMXsHkJc?si=s9vQa1UL14OqxnS_

I spoke with Furuno about their new XL plotters. It has a much more powerful CPU than the TZT3. It will be interesting to see how well their auto routing works.