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I lost faith in Garmin

Nikage127
3 months ago

On 6/6/2022 i decided to change my vivoactive 4 with a garmin forerunner 955 solar. I would run my first Marathon here in Greece and i wanted to make an investment and thats what i did. I couldnt be happier with the watch and i was mainly using it for running/hiking and sleep data (also managed to do a sub 4 first marathon, yay me!)

The watch even though its been 2.5 years since i bought it, hasnt even fallen from my hands, i was wearing it at all times (except when i was swimming) and i never had any issue with it. 4/5 days ago i get a prompt to update it to 21.19 and i connected it with my PC to do it through garmin express. So after the update (and a big map update) my watch has been freezing continiusly and especially when i sleep. Sometimes i have to connect it to a power source and try holding the power button for 3/4 times for 60 seconds before it comes back.

I spoke with Garmin Support and a guy called Brian in North America (very polite and professional) using the chat in Garmin.com. I told him that i tried everyhting, reseting, restoring to deffaults, deleting all external apps/watchfaces and he told me that the watch looks like it got updated correctly and i might need a replacement although he cannot arrange it and i need to contact Garmin Support here in Greece.

So i spoke with Greece support and they told me that it sounds like a hardware issue (how? everyhting happened after i got the latest update!!) and the only option i have is to pay 205 euros (half the price to buy a new forerunner 955 here!!) to get a refurbished one (!!!!).

Investing 600 euros back then and 2.5 years later (6 months after the warranty expired...), after treating the watch in the best way possible (theres not even a single scratch on it) i have to pay another 200 euros to get a identical refubrished watch with 3 months of warranty.

I am beyond dissapointed with Garmin! I decided to move to Coros and never look back!

  • 0 2 months ago in reply to 1625590
    1625590 said:
    One of the main problem in my case is that I can't get a lactate threshold estimate anymore since the end of last november (that means just before the update...)

    I just looked it up, it is not directly connected to the update.

    I had a threshold update with 21.19 on 10th of December, after a hard run, automatically. So it seems like it is not generally broken.

    It is indeed strange though, that I also have had no updates for me since then, despite having had a couple of similar hard runs since then. I would at least expect, that there is an update/refresh of the threshold, even if the estimated values do not change! It seems not plausible to me, that there has been NO threshold been detected for four weeks+, if it works automatically.

  • 0 2 months ago in reply to Grumpy from dawn till dusk

    That's curious... In my experienced all the problems started with the update at the beginning of last december...

    Whatever is the 21.19 update or not the cause for this mess (only a coincidence?), I believe Garmin should let users do the LT guided test back AGAIN and let also users decide whether to accept or not new values, just exactly how it was before 21.19 update.

    Before that bloody update I usually got LT updates almost weekly, at the end of guided tests or particularly intense workouts/runs (with changes of rhythm, etc).

    Now it's almost two months that there's no way I can't get updated values...

  • 0 2 months ago in reply to 1625590
    1625590 said:
    Now it's almost two months that there's no way I can't get updated values...

     So, and now comes the really curious part.

    On Saturday (11.01.) I had a hard run which was given "Pace" effect (4,0 / 2,4 Training effect, 150 bpm average and 169 bpm max). But NO threshold update.

    I then decided to try something out.
    I deactivated all three "auto detection" toggles and set my HR Max manually slightly higher from 181 to 183. Then I synced the watch with Connect.
    Then I turned all "auto detection" toggles on again and synced once more.

    Guess what, on Sunday (12.01.) I did a long run (1:32:30, Average HR 139, "Base" effect with 3,7 / 0,0). After that, I received a threshold update (Pace faster, HR higher, watts higher).

    Which is really curious, because obviously the long run did not even slightly reach the region of threshold :/
    Maybe you want to try the steps?

  • 0 2 months ago in reply to Grumpy from dawn till dusk

    @ Grumpy from dawn till dusk

    I will definitely try what you suggest asap and let you know if it worked for me, too.

    Thanks a lot for your advice in the meantime! Thumbsup

  • 0 21 days ago

    Solution is very simple: TAKE GARMIN TO (YOUR LOCAL) CONSUMER COURT / TRIBUNAL. Particualarly, if you are in Europe. Corporations have obligation to consumer defined by law. They know that, you dont. They play you out for corporation profit.

  • 0 21 days ago

    Just commenting to say that my 955 , purchased in july 2023,was working beautifully until the 21.22 update severely gimped its hrm. 22.22 and 22.24 havent been much better. Here in singapore and hong kong ive been asked to pay to get a refurbished model. 

  • 0 21 days ago

    Somehow missed this thread from a few months back,  My original FR955 bought in June of 2023 died randomly one night while sleeping with plenty of battery and just would never turn back on. I was 2 months beyond the 2 year warranty so they ended up sending me a new one but they made it clear that this was an exception given that the warranty was only 2 years.  I got lucky but VERY frustrating that this happened seemingly without any reason (No salt water swimming, no blunt force impact to the watch etc).  Sorry this is happening to you.  Even so, the refurb price, while annoying, is not horrendous.

  • 0 20 days ago

    Same experience here, in Cyprus. Garmin redirected me to the local distributor. The local distributor shamelessly tried to charge me while still under warranty "because I purchased the watch elsewhere", and Garmin just doesn't care to see how absurd this is. The worst part is that whenever I needed support, they keep referring me to the local distributor, even though I keep telling them that the distributor couldn't care less, every single time.

    And eventually they got to the same point, that they can't send a watch to Cyprus (what a joke), and I had to ship my watch on my own expense and ask from friends to bring the replacement when returning from the UK.

    Garmin is happy to take your money in order to sell you a watch in your country, but not to honor the warranty, or support you the same way they would if you were in the UK or US.