Airmar / Raymarine DST800 Transducer Issue

We have an Airmar DST800 triducer fitted to our XP38 supplied by Raymarine and installed by a professional marine electronics company of good standing.

The original installation was done when the boat was launched in 2012.

We had a failure of the automatic flap (which prevents water ingress when removing the transducer) after about 2 months and the installer hauled out the boat and replaced the faulty unit at their cost.

During 2013 we again had the flap fail.

In March 2014 we replaced the transducer and through hull with another DST800 during our annual haul out at our own cost, again it was installed by the same company.

After the second use the flap again failed...

From discussions I've had with the installer they don't believe they have done anything wrong, so hence I need to have the discussion with Raymarine. While I'm sure they will come to the party and replace the faulty unit I doubt they will cover any haul out or installation costs which obviously sucks big time!


So I am interested in finding out if other people have had issues with the Airmar DST800 tri-ducer, specifically in regards to the flap failing.

Also what are peoples opinion regarding installation / haul out costs? Should I push Raymarine into covering these..

Information I have from Raymarine is that Airmar made adjustments to the design in 2010 as they had issues with flap failures, I suspect they may not have sorted the issue.