[H and E]

I am very disappointed in the reliability of the two Raymarine products I have installed on my boat. The speed failed in less than three years and the depth in less than four years. One of those years the boat was on the trailer.
I am thinking about switching to another brand if there is a more reliable product available, however I am not looking forward to redoing the installation. What are your thoughts?

I noticed that there is Made in China info on the units I have.

 

[jsaronson]

If you register the speed the warranty is three years. You can do it now if you know when you bought it.

 

[shoaldraft]

Same here. I have a e7D which has been sent back to the factory 3 times, a ray55 VHF that had to be exchanged and a ST60 Plus wind instrument which also had to be exchanged. All of these repairs were under warranty and the people at Raymarine were nice to deal with but I feel the quality of the Raymarine brand is very poor.

 

[Scotty C-M]

On the other hand, my ten year old boat has Raymarine everything, and they are still working perfectly. My brother's boat, twenty years old, also has Raymarine, and they too are working just fine. Go figure. I certainly feel for those whe have had bad experiences. Anacdotal evidence is hard to judge. It would be interesting to see a Consumer Reports style ranking of marine electronics. Anyone know of one?

 

[Pamlicotraveler]

Raymarine is a good company. Things fail, and I had to replace an early production e7 for a replacement under warranty, but they came through efficiently and shipped the replacement to a foreign port. The auto-pilot is over 10 years old and cranking out lots of miles. The HDR radar is accurate and reliable...

 

[single2coil]

Then again my Garmin GPS Chart plotter has failed many times. Electronically and mechanically by having the weather seals leak. This unit was $1200 a few years ago. This is unacceptable.

 

[miketaz25]

We have the Taktik (raymarine) wireless wind anemometer.... We're on the third unit in less than 1 year, and 2 weeks ago I put the third unit on top of our (45') mast. I went sailing last week and the #$*% cups had stopped spinning, no wind speed, just directon. So now I get an additional two climbs to go take it down, send it in again, and then to put it back up. ahhh the joys up upkeep.....

 

[gbgreen59]

We have the Taktik (raymarine) wireless wind anemometer.... We're on the third unit in less than 1 year, and 2 weeks ago I put the third unit on top of our (45') mast. I went sailing last week and the #$*% cups had stopped spinning, no wind speed, just directon. So now I get an additional two climbs to go take it down, send it in again, and then to put it back up. ahhh the joys up upkeep.....

Can you share the reasons for the failures? Are all failures the same?

 

[BarryL]

Hey,

I really don't know if any one brand is better than any other.

My Garmin 740S died last year. It was only a couple of years old. Garmin repaired it quickly but I had to pay $300+ for the service.

My boat came with Raymarine ST60 wind. When I bought the boar the wind speed worked but not direction. Raymarine was great in providing diagnostic tools. I sent the display in, a few weeks and a few hundred and it was repaired.

I bought a West Marine HH VHf. After a week it the antenna broke. They replaced it for free.

I haven't had any problems with my Standard Horizon VHF radios or my Lowrance plotters.

Barry

 

[miketaz25]

Can you share the reasons for the failures? Are all failures the same?

Raymarine just said that it was a "hardware failure" and that they fixed it. They didn't really give specifics. I'll update when I get the chance to send the current unit back in. Although from my side it look like the same thing. Wind blowing ~25 cups not spinning...

 

[travlin-easy]

I've been using Lowrance products for nearly 40 years, never had a single failure with any of them. Now, Lowrance does not make a wind speed indicator, at least not that I know of, but their GPS, Sonar, Speed, Radar and other products have been superb, at least for me. I have friends that have replaced their Garman GPS/Plotters several times, and at least two guys I know had problems with their Ray Marina auto-pilots and Radar systems.

Gary

 

[Faster]

Our newish RM wheel pilot failed about 1 1/2 years in, the entire controller was replaced under warranty by a local rep. Happy with that, the replacement is still working fine (3-4 years now)

Fishboats here-abouts seem to lean towards Lowrance and Furuno for pilots, radar, plotters etc.

 

[chall03]

Fishboats here-abouts seem to lean towards Lowrance and Furuno for pilots, radar, plotters etc.

+1

Look to the manufacturers and gear you see on commercial boats if you want to know what people consider most reliable.

Most of them down here use Furuno.

Having said that here in Oz at least there is also a significant price increase for this gear.