I see a hds12 in my future.... [censored] humminbird

Went fishing with Paul and jimbo weekend before last. Unit worked fine while chasing bait. Then the left side imaging flaked out as well as the down. So I contact humminbird and send them a picture of what was going on. Well that picture wasn't (good) enough! Went to worth to play around yesterday and same thing. Took shots from all angles left menus open to show settings and all. They email me today saying now they want pictures of my install. That's when they lost a customer. I have a electronics engineering degree and to be treated like some idiot just ain't gonna fly! So even if they finally just send the transducer cause that's all it is I'm very big on customer service. That's part of my occupation! And the money I shelled out. But anyway I am going to look at the hds 12. And to think I was going to buy another unit for that new pontoon next year to go with this one. Nope! I'm done! It's beer 30!

I have a HDS 12 TOUCH BNIB with your name on it!

Thats a shame, I've always heard their CS was top notch--
That don't sound top notch-

I like my HDS--

Well you will LOVE Lowrance Customer Service from what I hear.

STAY HUMMINBIRD!!!!

Some companies forget: The best way to win business is to take care of the customers you have. Especially if they are on the forum.lol

prob got a tech that just had a bad day...i've had some really good service from Humminbird.

Humminbirds support is very good. They have a procedure they must follow...they don't know your skills (or lack there of) so they must verify that it's installed correct and all necessary steps have been taken. BUT....NORMALLY....if you tell them you are very experienced etc etc etc...it helps speed up the process! They have replaced 4 transducers for me free of charge now...and with a 2 year warranty on new units...I wont have anything else!

I don't know for sure if I am right? You would think if I spend over a thousand bucks on a product there should be no bad days. I have a Hummingbird but think this is unacceptable.

My advice is write a certified letter and/or send a fax.

And let all your fishing friends know how you were treated.

I have a humminbird 999 bought it in May but I want a sonar unit for the front if the boat and decided to go Lowrance. I screen went out last month. CS was good they replaced the screen without any bs. I have a mechanical engineering degree and was gonna be F~ing pissed if the didn't fix it but they did. But after playing one the new lowrance arcane las I want a touch screen and like the images better from what I have seen. Not to impressed with the options to control the image with hummingbird. I work a lot with vision systems and I see a lot of potential outing Lowrance units.

They want a photo of the install because they're trying to isolate the issue.

Do you want to send them your unit only to find out it's an issue with your installation? Regardless of what you think you know they very well could see an issue and resolve it on the spot.

They have a troubleshooting list to work through to isolate problems. It not only helps to identify the issue but identifies what isn't the issuers well. Without that, they'd be shipping stuff back and forth for no reason constantly.

There's a lot of variables that play into sonar and getting images or good images and no two installs are the same.

Lowrance does the same thing to troubleshoot.

FWIW I'd send the pictures as they may see something you don't. If not you've allowed them the opportunity.

I've got a friend that's an avid angler, been fishing and running sonar for years. He's an engineer, smart dude. He went back and forth on an issue for weeks and had a similar response when they asked him to send a picture of the install.

He sent the pic, they identified the issue and had him up and running correctly with a simple fix in minutes.

I know of another person that sent his head unit to them twice? They found no problems and sent back and he still had issues with sidescan. Sent new transducer and he had the same issue.

Amazing that trimming the motor up fixed the issue

They've always been over the top with customer service and through my recent experience, still are.

Send the picture and if they don't get it resolved fast call and ask them to escalate the ticket.

During that time follow the golden rule of sonar troubleshooting.Find someone with a compatible transducer and plug it in on their boat. That way you can further isolate the issue.

The grass is always greener on the other side. Before I went through the trouble, hassle and expense I'd do some research on the other grass first!

or just buy the Lowrance and sell me the 'Bird real cheap like! I got No Degree and I Will send in pictures.

I am a retired Engineer. The tech support guy should have explained why he wanted the pics in my opinion. A simple explanation would have saved the company some bad press. I just hope you get something working for your fishing. I like Hummingbird products very much and think it would be worth getting your issue resolved and try to have a better dialog with your support guy.

Kansas, as you know from our previous discussions that I have the same unit that you do, I wont be out on the lake for another week or two (baby still in the NICU at the hospital but she is doing great)and if you want to use my transducer to see if that is the issue I would be more than happy to let you borrow it, just send me a text or give me a call

I could use a Good Used Humminbird on the Cheap.

Just send that good for nothing %#@%!&^ hummingbird to me please and Thank you.

Thanks for sharing all. I understand procedures. I have a electronics engineering degree. I got my airframe and power plant federal license before I got into the elevator union 13 years ago. I am now a field tech. I have over a 123 individual customers on my route alone. I am very big on manners and customer service. I will not and have never talked to any one like they didn't know something especially if they spelled there technical qualifications in the phone conversation before the email picture storm. I asked about any back door features on the unit that would allow me to check any outputs or signals to the transducer the whole time fully understanding that this is proprietary equipment. I talked around the tech so bad she put me on hold several times in the conversation only in the end to email me so I can email them pictures?? This is day 4 of the emails?? I'll play the game by force but if it wasn't so close to the holidays I'd go by a hds 12 today. If this carries on like it is then I'll just push that new toon out and by my own Christmas early

Is your transducer obstructed by your lower unit? Mine is and I can't see anything out the left side unless I trim my motor way up ... this probably ain't what you're talking about but I thought it might be worth mentioning. This might be the problem with the left side if the transducer is on the right toon. Toon might be out past the motor too so if you trim the motor up it might obstruct the path of the transducer ... the down image is also the left side of the side imaging as well ... the down imaging isn't really down imaging ... it's taking the left side imaging and flipping it on its axis so that it looks like down imaging.

Yes sir I have to trim up to use the left and I also explained that I do that as well so to further let them know that I actively monitor obstruction of the transducer.

I was with him when the unit started acting up, it had been working properly for several months and for an hour or so that evening, so I believe it rules out installation issues, I guess plugging his head unit into someone else's boat would rule out his head unit not processing the from the transducer properly. But I am pretty sure its an internal failure on the left side of the transducer. As Tiny said the down imaging on a bird is actually just a computer generated image based off of the left had side image and what I saw on the screen was a similar representation both left and down.
I do not have any degrees but my eyeballs work pretty well, and that's what I see. They should have told him to send pics of everything they want to see the first time then handled his problems promptly, no back and forth stuff.

I love my touch 12. You will not regret it of you go that route

I've always heard that humminbird has much better customer service than lowrance and that lowrance customer service is extremely horrible...lol

I don't really want to get into this but I like Humminbird and there customer service.
I also have a brother who has a Electrical Enginering degree from Texas and some times he drives me nuts!!! lol Always wanting to over diagnose problems!! lol
Wish I made his money tho!! Good luck with your problem Kansascatman!!

Hey let's all state our Degrees and experience a cpl times...
I'll go second

I got no Degrees and I'm just a dumb grease monkey turning wrenches on junky oilfeild equipment.......

Next....

I have a degree in Southern Engineering from the School Of Hard Knocks .

I had 87 degrees on my back porch this evening!

"School of hard knocks" we might be fraternity brothers.

Well atleast with Emails you can not only Dazzle them with your incredible technical knowledge, you can also bewilder them with your spelling and grammar skills...................

BigPoppa,you BAD!

Stuff like this is why many good people don't post here anymore--
Vess helps folks here with his post, I hope he can ignore your snotty comments, I don't see you making up for the void if he does.

Plenty of Snotty comments right here^^^ Now of course i wasn't on the phone with them but I'm sure the Tech or Customer Service Agent has a procedure to follow and must ask certain questions - the way they were trained to do. I'm sure Kansas has steps and procedures to follow in his repair/customer service work or does he just do what the customer says? And after reading Kansascatman Cocky Praise of himself several times in this thread I'm sure he got Cocky with them.Nothing wrong with ranting about a Transducer dying early but to talk about how great you are and how Stupid they are repeately aint gonna get done but make yourself look like a Douche bag. Most people say Humminbird's Customer Service is great so sounds to me like Kansas got his feathers ruffled too easy. This thread reads to me like he thinks them Dumb Arses up at Huuminbird should just up and send him a transducer just because he called and said so- after all he gots all them Degrees and Trainings.

I rarely post on here, but I read this section almost daily. I really appreciate feedback on products I may purchase. Customer service is just as important as the product itself. I do not know Kansascatman, But he seems like a good guy with good informative posts. I also enjoy the fishing pictures he has posted. I don't see the need for personal attacks on here. But alot of people get tough behind a keyboard I guess.

well in that case what I'd do is download the latest update image and then reset the unit to default settings and do the update. You must reset it to default before updating it because it could malfunction and the only way to fix it is to send it back to humminbird and have them fix it so always reset to default settings before updating the software. Then if that doesn't fix it get with someone that has the same unit and plug your unit into their power and transducer and see if it works properly .. and vise versa ... plug their's into your wiring and see what happens. I've had my old 1197 unit to glitch out on me and that fixed it with the reset and update .. haven't had any problems since and it's now about 7 years old.

That reset & update thing is exactly what the lady at Humminbird told me to do yesterday,when I called in about an issue I been having,and she was very polite and all,but she could not figure out the other thing I called about...I had tried to download their "free" software,HumminbirdPC, (many times) and every time it would download the .exe file OK,but then when I would try to run that file to install it,it would take me to a program called Driver something-or-other,and would want me to purchase that software.That has been going on for 2 months,and she consulted some other folks there,and came back saying they have never heard of such a thing and it must be something wrong with my computer. ...Well,I give up on getting HumminbirdPC .I think it's infected with a Trojan or something.But I will do the updates on my unit soon as I get me a blank SD card .

Ya know there's a "Bad Apple" in every bunch, you may have gotten one. But With My Transducer on my 899 SI, I found it to be very Finicky about level, angle, and depth,I've relocated it twice (now I'm installing a Poly Pad so I can Tweek it without drilling more holes in the Boat. When running at 3-6 Mph ( best for SI use) I get better results by Trimming up My motor a little and Sensitivity is Critical I haven't seen a Screen Shot of your issue but, Iv'e noticed what looks like Prop Wash on the left side of mine , and Sensitivity cleared it up.
Transducers : Location, Location,Location
Settings: They change with every Movement of the Boat ,at Different depths as well as Water clarity.

I know that Insulting your Electronics background was probably Not intentional, but I have Engineers in Our Engineering Group that can't Change a Spark Plug in their Cars,Not Saying your one of those . But as a Hummingbird Owner and an Electrical Tech Myself all I can Say is ,Tweek, Tweek, Tweek. It's Very a Sensitive Unit when it comes to the Transducer Location , but you May Have a Bad One ........ Good Luck My Friend!.

how long have you had your 899? And what are your opinions on it? I've got one and just upgraded to the hd transducer, I'm still trying to figure out where to mount it, my boat isn't fishfinder friendly lol. Not to mention, my boat doesn't have tilt and trim, so I'm at a loss as for what to do. Any advice?

My boat is a tiller style with no tilt and trim and I just set the settings for sidescan on left side only, I plan on getting a jack plate so that I can use both sides but for now I am used to concentrating on the area I want to fish and and focus on that one side

[/b][b]IBTL

Que?

 And after reading Kansascatman Cocky Praise of himself several times in this thread I'm sure he got Cocky with them.Nothing wrong with ranting about a Transducer dying early but to talk about how great you are and how Stupid they are repeately aint gonna get done but make yourself look like a Douche bag. Most people say Humminbird's Customer Service is great so sounds to me like Kansas got his feathers ruffled too easy. This thread reads to me like he thinks them Dumb Arses up at Huuminbird should just up and send him a transducer just because he called and said so- after all he gots all them Degrees and Trainings. 

Took your grammar class where? Its okay read your grammar slowly again my friend... ill wait!

Check the spelling too!

thank for the kindness sir. Your right I don't post alot anymore cause of the breach babies born on april first on here! I scout to see how you and the other great folks I have met and fished with are doing on the water.

Let me know if your selling the humming bird, i feel your pain...lol

yeah those internet thugs are terrible lol!

Shout out to mjmetro who took the time and let me borrow his transducer yesterday. My man!

And tiny I took some of your advice in the post and you are the man! This was all default settings except raised sensitivity for the blue color.

Oh to boot humminbird said they are sending out a transducer in a late email yesterday. But there on back order. So I think I'm going to buy a spare to have to make up for the lag in customer service issues. Never said there was anything wrong with my unit or I dislike it! Customer service is very important!

I'm glad I could help out and more importantly I'm glad we were able to find the issue so you can get it fixed

Kansas, Glad your on the way to having it fixed, Steve and Mike, great job with the defense, of a great guy.

It's guys like you all that are constructive and real gents is why I like the forum! Lots of great guys here. Stand up guys.

You would think big companies would have someone assigned to monitor forum where their products might be discussed and to lend advice and tips. I did a post on double action hooks and Jeff was all over it quickly. I would say Jeff is very much on the ball. I think companies need to try to be very responsive and concerned for their customers.

+1

I'm a fair guy. I give the good with the bad. A day or 2 after my last post on this subject I received an email the day before I borrowed mike's transducer stating that johnson was sending out another transducer when one came available because they were on back order. Well in short I had a new one on the porch the day after I borrowed mike's. Got some water time on EM Saturday with the cub. While doing standby at glenrose power plant I got some tube time and went back and read all of tinys post. GOLD!!

I played yesterday and caught 23 eaters from 4-8# and about 10 dinks. Seen marine 2/3 and the lovely mrs. Knockin down some box fish as well.












so far I like it. Got some work to do on the down imaging .

That's dialed in right there.