Garmin isn't making this easy

The plan for the bike is to run two GPS's. The first one is the 478 which is a marine unit that has a screen with great resolution and brightness along with XM radio and XM weather. The second unit is a 2610 which I picked up in June because I really liked the touch screen when it comes to executing finds.

Well, back in July the 478 was causing me some grief and between the tech's at Garmin telling me what to try and my doing what they told me the unit was blank. Totally clean slate with nothing bug the bloody arrow when I'd turn it in. We managed to get it so FUBAR's that it wouldn't even let me upload the maps from my laptop so they wanted it back in house and were going to rush the repair of it and turn it around in under 5 days.

That was July 16th and since I wanted it back fast I shipped it to them next day and got the confirmation that the unit was delivered. Saweet, I figured they would start on it on the 18th which SHOULD mean it would ship out by the 24th at the latest. Being a bit anxious I called them on the 24th to see how it was going and the phone support person said that they hadn't started on it but did show it was a priority and it would probably go out that day or the 25th which meant I'd have it by Friday. Cool, just in time for the weekend so I could get some finishinig touches going on my comm system.

Well Friday came and went and still no box from Brown on my front porch when I got home. So right away on Monday when support opened up I was on the horn with support and again I got the "If not today, tomorrow" story but she at least told me that I could call back in and get a tracking number once it ships. Great, just what I need, a tracking number so I can check on it a dozen times throughout the day thinking that if I keep a watchful eye over the package it will show up faster.

So tomorrow came (now August 1st) and I called back to get the tracking number. Yep, you guessed it "If not today, tomorrow". Well now my blood was starting to boil. How the hell could nobody have any information on the GPS other than the fact that they received it? Don't they have systems that track RMA's once they arrive in-house?

Unfortunately for me this little game of calling and getting the canned response of "If not today, tomorrow" continued on with each support person getting more and more of an earfull. FINALLY on the 7th (just 10 days prior to my departure for rally central) I got a support person who actually gave a damn and admitted that this wasn't normal and that in fact, they didn't show anything in the system since receiving it in. I'm sure when she gave me that news my head was just shaking in disgust and I was thinking about how I was going to get what I needed done in order to wrap the bike up and get some quality testing time in.

She promised me she'd check with the lab, a fictitious land of pocket protectors, soldering irons, and beakers with smoke rolling out of the top of them. This is where my GPS was and I had her word that she would call me back by the end of the day, only after she personally checked to see what the status was.

Surprisingly I did get a phone call back in just a few hours but not so surprisingly she didn't have good news. It turns out that the lab had no record of my GPS ever showing up there. Somehow the unit had disappeared between the time it was received in and it's delivery to the lab.
At this point I went from frustrated to downright pissed. How could my GPS just disappear into thin air without anyone having any record of it? I let the woman know that I wasn't mad at her, but I was furious at the whole process and that I wasn't hanging up until we had this resolved because I was out of time. On hold again while she supposedly went to talk to her supervisor and see what she could do. When she returned she told me that her supervisor had approved a replacement GPS and that they would ship it out 2nd day air so that I would have it by Thur. (riiiiiiiiigh, I've heard this before) ..

Well, Thursday rolled around and when I pulled into my driveway my blood began to boil because I didn't see any package. Luckily when I opened the screen door there was a piece of paper that had obviously fallen from the door letting me know that my package was on the side of the house.

Yehawwwww, It was just like Christmas in August as I rushed inside the house and ripped open the box. Take this puppy out of the box, throw the battery in it, and power it up. GAHHHHHHH!!! They sent me one with the latest version of mapping software (2008) on the sytem and not the V8 that I had on my old one. I had this huge pit in my stomache just thinking of having to call them back and complain.
Now normally having the latest and greatest software is the norm for be but this time it wasn't because, on top of not having the software on my laptop, my 2610 was running the older version. My goal was to keep both GPS's at the same software level so I didn't have one of them telling me to turn right while the other told me to turn left. You laugh but even with the same versions of software I had that happen to me on the Minnesota1000 this year.

Friday morning rolls around and once again I'm on the horn with support as soon as they open and they tell me that they will rush ship a copy of the software for the 478 but for the 2610 I'll have to process a request online. Fine, no biggie, I'll just log into my account and make the request and be done with it. Unfortunately that's not how things work for me lately and the site doesn't seem to want to do anything but error out whenever I try to do something on it.

By now Garmin is in my speed dial list and I call them back and try to talk to someone about the software and explain that I just bought it in June and that I need the latest version 2008. He agrees to send me out a disk but tells me that I'll have to buy the upgrade. When I bought the 2610 I specifically asked if, when I decided to upgrade, the process would be free. They assured me that it was completely free which is in direct contrast to what the Garmin rep was now telling me. We went back and forth on this point and it boiled down to him asking me to call back once I got the software and explain the situation to a supervisor and see if I could get it upgraded for free.

I'm hoping that Monday or Tuesday both software packages show up and I can wrap up this loose end and actually end up with GPS's I can use. If not, it's AAA for a whole lotta maps.