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Garmin Instinct Solar Tactical stopped solar charging and all Garmin wants is to sell me a second hand one...

5973861
1 month ago

Hi all,

I hope this message reaches whom it concerns and hopefully some customer friendly people at Garmin as well.

My Garmin Instinct Solar Tactical stopped solar charging and showing any Solar Intensity data recently. It is maybe 4 years old right now. After chatting with some kind people at support they said it is a hardware issue and that I need to take it up with local support. So I did and eventually the proposal was to let me buy a refurbished one for € 144!

I feel this is a very weird way of supporting your customers. And even though it might fall out of legal warranty, I feel a watch of this price and supposed "fool-proofness" as it is also sold for service people (hence the Tactical), should not have these problems 4 years in. And if it does, it should not be a way to sell someone another second hand one... To do what? Refurbish mine and sell that again as well?

Please Garmin, I hope you guys can do better than that.

Warm regards, from an avid multiple Garmin device user.

Top Replies

  • 1 month ago +1
    5973861 said:
    I hope this message reaches whom it concerns and hopefully some customer friendly people at Garmin as well.

    If that is the audience you want to address, then better to call Garmin Support…

  • 1 month ago +1
    5973861 said:
    To do what? Refurbish mine and sell that again as well?

    What is reprehensible about that? Yes, why not ? There are certainly people who are happy about such an offer.

    Personally, I don't know…

All Replies

  • 0 1 month ago
    5973861 said:
    I hope this message reaches whom it concerns and hopefully some customer friendly people at Garmin as well.

    If that is the audience you want to address, then better to call Garmin Support and talk to one of their employees.

    This is a User forum.  The best we can do is empathize with your situation and wish you luck dealing with Garmin.

    So... Good luck.

  • 0 1 month ago
    5973861 said:
    To do what? Refurbish mine and sell that again as well?

    What is reprehensible about that? Yes, why not ? There are certainly people who are happy about such an offer.

    Personally, I don't know of any other company that makes customers such a good offer, even though the warranty period has already expired by 2 or 3 years.

    But as already mentioned, you should clarify this with Garmin. Good luck from me too.

  • 0 1 month ago in reply to gaijin

    Thank you. I think I will visit a Garmin store near me to do some face to face, because this message was after speaking to support.

  • 0 1 month ago in reply to 5973861

    BTW, did you try a simple hard-reset of the watch? Sync, then press the Light button for some 30s till it completely shuts down (hold the button through the emergency alert, if it comes), wait little bit, and then restart. No worry, no data or settings will be lost with it. [more details]. Often, there is no hardware problem, and it is just some software condition preventing the display from showing the solar panel data (which does not necessarily mean the solar cells do not charge).

    Also please keep on mind, that the solar charging is disabled automatically when the battery is at 80% or above, or when the watch is overheated (for example when you let it off the wrist under direct Sun, without water cooling).

  • 0 1 month ago in reply to trux

    Hi trux, 

    yes I did. Hard reset en normal reset. No improvements. The person I chatted with from customer service (a nice one that didn't try te sell me a second hand one as a replacement, before he had to put me trough to the regional one) also looked at the Garmin connect data and thought it was a hardware issue.