Just had the family TomTom Go530 fail - 18mths after the first one failed, also at 18mths old.
TomTom basically said hard luck and offered me 20% off another one off their website - which seems to have prices that are about 20% dearer than their own shop on Amazon.
Not impressed, really. Probably only use the thing 6 times a year. Are we just unlucky?
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>> Are we just unlucky?
I think you must be. I have a Go 720 and it still works. At one time I used using it almost daily.
What is wrong with it BTW? I wonder if it's a battery problem which wouldn't surprise me.
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My Go 720 suffered 4 years of heavy abuse and was still working when it went walkies.
Whats the failure?
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I wager a virtual pint it's the battery. Which as you know RF is easily changed.
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It could be the battery but its behavior is random. Sometimes won't start, sometimes gets stuck at the splash screen, sometimes boots and runs fine for a bit, then suddenly dies. All this is when connected to a charger, but I gather a faulty battery can pull too much current.
It does also have an issue where it flashes up ""Unable to store map settings: file access error". I tried cleaning the flash cleaning utility and I emptied it and re-copied, but still the same.
When I spoke to TomTom they said they did have an issue with batteries on older models, but they'd fixed it by the serial number of the one we've got. I've read posts elsewhere where people changed the battery and the device's behaviour was worse than before!
I'm just dismayed by TomTom's attitude. OK, some electronic devices fail early, but in TomTom's view that's my problem, not theirs.
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I gather TomTom customer service is poor. Well crap to be honest.
I ma just surprised that your unit is suffering. Mine being an x20 device means it's older. I think I got it Dec 2007 or maybe Jan 2008? Certainly around then as I switched from a Mondeo to a Mazda6 in October 2007 and I initially used my rather old HP iPAQ with TomTom for a bit in the Mazda :-)
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>>I gather TomTom customer service is poor. Well crap to be honest.
>>
That was my experience.
I borrowed my son's unit to just try it out on a familiar route.
The voice directions were totally wrong ( two of them were impossible).
TT just did not want to know.
That unit eventually died.
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Tom Tom should last longer than 18 months.Mine Tom Tom 1 about 4 could be 5 years still working fine.
Maybe a letter to the head office.Iam not sure if they are based in Amsterdam.If there customer service is crap people will buy elswhere.
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You have a claim with the trader (despite the guarantee having expired) these are your "statutory rights"
www.adviceguide.org.uk/index/your_world/consumer_affairs/buying_goods_your_rights.htm#your_rights_when_things_go_wrong
The key thing is:
you can ask for a repair or replacement at any time up to six years after you bought the goods (five years in Scotland), as long as it is reasonable for them to have lasted this long. If the goods go wrong after six years (or five in Scotland), you no longer have the right to ask for a repair or replacement.
Last edited by: R.P. on Sat 21 Jan 12 at 10:05
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>> ...you can ask for a repair or replacement at any time up to six years
>> after you bought the goods (five years in Scotland), as long as it is reasonable
>> for them to have lasted this long. If the goods go wrong after six years
>> (or five in Scotland), you no longer have the right to ask for a repair
>> or replacement.
>>
Well, you'll know that the reality is it's nothing like that black & white. :) You could have to proive the fault existed at manufacture and lawyers must love the vagueness of words like "reasonable". SOGA also doesn't say that repairs have to be free!
I've had success with manufacturers such as Sony and Dell getting things fixed well outside warranty - Dell sent someone to the house to replace the screen on a 3yr old laptop. To be honest, I thought if I make a bit of a fuss then TomTom would cave in but the further up I got, the firmer their response became.
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The "contract" in this case is with the trader and not the maker.
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>> The "contract" in this case is with the trader and not the maker.
>>
Yes, I know that. In past cases I've had much more joy by going direct to the manufacture, and all TomTom support is handled by them. I might ping Halfords a 'disappointed', in the first instance, email - nothing ventured, etc.
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>> You could have to prove the fault existed at manufacture
So I've exchanged a couple of emails with Halfords and, as expected, they say as it's more than 6 months old I have to prove that the fault is a manufacturing defect.
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>> >>I gather TomTom customer service is poor. Well crap to be honest.
>> >>
>> That was my experience.
>> I borrowed my son's unit to just try it out on a familiar route.
>> The voice directions were totally wrong ( two of them were impossible).
>> TT just did not want to know.
Did you really need to phone TT? You know a map update would have fixed this.
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>>Did you really need to phone TT? You know a map update would have fixed this.
>>
I emailed them and I got a carp reply and they did not say a map update.
The map was correct and I did not like the voice.:-)
SWMBO can read an O/S map so I have still got a back up system,
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>> It could be the battery but its behavior is random. Sometimes won't start, sometimes gets
>> stuck at the splash screen, sometimes boots and runs fine for a bit, then suddenly
>> dies. All this is when connected to a charger, but I gather a faulty battery
>> can pull too much current.
Take out the battery. Pull off the sticky label with serial number on the bottom, remove the two small screws, and separate the screen front he body, by easing out the bottom of the bezel first with a stanley blade. The battery will be glued in, but all you have to do is pull out the small plug from the system board.
Then try it and see how it behaves when under power. At least you can see if 15 quids worth of new battery is an investment.
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My TT 720 battery died after a couple of years, I replaced it with one that has a 10 year guarantee (I don't believe that for a second) which hopefully will last until the hardware dies. I copy the contents of my TT to my computer after a new map update so that I have a full backup.
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Never had a TomTom - had a Navman S90 for about 6 or 7 years now, and although only gets used every few weeks, still works OK. The only issue is that the maps are now a bit out of date, but I am to tight to buy the new mapping for it!
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>> Take out the battery. Pull off the sticky label with serial number on the bottom,
>> remove the two small screws....
I did read that it should work with the battery disconnected and it's easier to take the Go530 apart - just a couple of screws in the back and pop the screen out - very useful video on YouTube.
So I just did that, and attached power. Same as before - green light comes on but won't start up.
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Have a look on the TT website support page, "How to" and "Technical support" sections there are some work rounds and fixes there.
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Could be the flash memory is corrupt. Did you have a full backup?
What happens when you plug it in to a computer. Can you see and access the internal storage?
As it's a TomTom 530, do you also have an SD card in it? Does it make a difference if it's removed?
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>> Could be the flash memory is corrupt. Did you have a full backup?
>>
Yes, and a full copy of the inernal flash too.
>> What happens when you plug it in to a computer. Can you see and access
>> the internal storage?
>>
Nope. It's been getting inreasingly difficult to see the internal storage even when it did boot. Now it won't boot at all, so therefore can't see the internal storage
>> As it's a TomTom 530, do you also have an SD card in it? Does
>> it make a difference if it's removed?
>>
It has a slot but no card in it. I did copy the internal flash contents onto an SD card to try that but it still didn't work - even when it was partially booting.
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>> Have a look on the TT website support page, "How to" and "Technical support" sections
>> there are some work rounds and fixes there.
>>
Thanks - been though all the steps several times. The more I did things, the worse it's got, to the extent that it simply won't turn on now.
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My Navman is running fine after 4 years. Its charger cable broke though. I bought a replacement from eBay for £2 but then discovered it is not compatible with Navman's holder! The one from Navman costs £20.
So I am now using my phone holder to stick the sat nav.
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i would guess that all the poncing about with it, while it had power issues, has screwed it rigid.
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It's appeared to have been dead before, but has sprung back to life a couple of days later after some random reset / on button pressing.
But nothing I do now will make it turn on.
Last edited by: Bill Payer on Sat 21 Jan 12 at 14:40
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Just to stir it up - have been a Garmin man for the last 8 or 9 years, but have noted the rave reviews for TomTom whenever the subject is mentioned on the forum.
Well, the latest car came with an "integrated" TomTom - it's rubbish, don't think they understand ergonomics - seems to be 3 generations behind the equivalent Garmin; the TomTom website is rubbish. Can understand why the dealer was "throwing them in for free".
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Have always preferred Garmin too although have used both. Just seem better made and more logical menu system to me although TomTom does indeed appear to be the Forum favourite. Perhaps its just what you get used to
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>> TomTom - it's rubbish, don't think they
>> understand ergonomics - seems to be 3 generations behind the equivalent Garmin; the TomTom website
>> is rubbish. Can understand why the dealer was "throwing them in for free".
I feel the same way about Garmin.
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I don't have any loyalty to either brand, though went for Garmin for the free lifetime traffic.
First satnav we had was the inbuilt one on the Toyota pick up, wonderful but far too complicated, the operating manual was the same size as the one for the rest of the vehicle and was needed.
Mate bought a TT around the same time, smashing little thing and very user friendly, i put a route in that within seconds without looking at any manual.
Bought the Garmin couple of years ago, i like how it operates and has a big screen so don't need me glasses to see it, road colours are silly though...purple for the route you're on and red for other motorways, why not have motorways in blue and major roads green so they translate easily to road signs?
My neighbour bought a new TT just before Christmas, asked me to show him how to use it cos the schoolboy at Halfords whizzed through it too fast for it to sink in....well what a disappointment, took me ages to work the thing out, not a patch on my mates one from 4 years ago.
broke...fix...don't...not...if...its...it.
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Agree about the one TT Gordon.Mine is simple to use no problems driving in mainland Europe.
I should update the maps haven't bothered didn't stop me where I wanted to be.
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I did look at Garmin before buying the TomTom. The problem I had at the time (3yrs ago, so may have changed) is that there was no obvious logic in the Garmin model range. Apparently similar looking and featured models varied in price by hundreds of pounds and you couldn't tell which were new models and which were old.
A common complaint with Garmin vs TomTom is Garmin's are not as fast to update and redraw the map through complex junctions etc.
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I wouldn't give up yet Bill,the Tom Tom should have failed at 18 months.
This is not a good advertisement for Tom Tom and yours should be replaced new.
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TT has the Live service i.e. realtime traffic. Has Garmin caught up with the same spec? I wasn't too impressed with their traffic, every 15 mins. and didn't appear to re-route until I hit the traffic.
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Garmin certainly have live traffic. Setting out recently it warned me of morning rush-hour traffic in Madrid, 250 miles ahead! Took a chance, and didn't ask it to find an alternative route; sailed through mid-morning, no problem
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lancara
TT this morning, traffic LIVE service, took me into a tailback on the A40 and then into another jam on the N. Circular at Finchley. Didn't re-route. Showed 4 min delay at start of journey. I was 30 mins over arrival time. Not good. Might look at going back to Garmin.
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>> But nothing I do now will make it turn on.
>>
Just pressed the on button and it started up! But it got stuck at the splash screen.
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Getting somewhere... if you were near Manchester BP I'd lend you my TT 520 until you fix it.
Now what happens if you plug it into a computer via USB before you turn it on. And after. I am still thinking corrupt files for starters.
Last edited by: rtj70 on Sun 22 Jan 12 at 21:47
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Thanks for the offer, but this is just the one we have kicking around for household use, so no huge panic.
I was thinking originally it was just a corrupt file but I've been through many iterations of delete, restore, flash clean, repair, erase, new app install, re-copy etc. None have improved matters. I suspect it really is fubared.
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I'm not convinced it's FUBAR'd. It might be...
Can it now be seen as flash storage by a PC when connected and powered on? Getting that to work would be the first step.
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Sounds to me like the flash memory's gone pear-shaped. That would give intermittant file corruption, plus a tendancy to fail on reads and/or writes at the drop of a hat.
Flash has a limited lifespan and I expect the stuff they put in cheap devices doesn't have a decent controller on it doing wear-levelling and duff cell avoidance, so once a cell goes west that's the end of it.
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>> Sounds to me like the flash memory's gone pear-shaped. That would give intermittant file corruption,
>> plus a tendancy to fail on reads and/or writes at the drop of a hat.
>> Flash has a limited lifespan and I expect the stuff they put in cheap devices
>> doesn't have a decent controller on it doing wear-levelling and duff cell avoidance, so once
>> a cell goes west that's the end of it.
>>
Thanks. I have a bit of an idea how this stuff works and I was thinking that faulty flash is the likely fault. I don't know whether the device runs from flash or loads into some other sort of memory to run. I think what surprises me is that it generally won't even turn on.
I did read that you can run the device from a flash card if the internal flash fails, but I tried that and it won't. If it won't boot then it can't read the flash card.
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>> It does also have an issue where it flashes up ""Unable to store map settings:
>> file access error".
Mine (4 year old 720, bought as factory refurb from Total PDA and used caily) is showing the same issues (same error, sometimes does not switch off, sometimes resets itself in the car), it needs a battery.
With modern electronics nothing is hardware operated any more - the on/off switch will tell the unit to shut down, not turn off the power.
Solution was to replace it as I then get updated maps rather than change the battery, just need a new bracket for the proclip mount.
New Via does not do Bluetooth phone or juke box but changing the car soon and the new car will.
On reliability there are three TomToms in the family, all over 3 years old and no failures apart from the battery on mine..
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>> Mine (4 year old 720, bought as factory refurb from Total PDA and used caily)
>> is showing the same issues (same error, sometimes does not switch off, sometimes resets itself
>> in the car), it needs a battery.
>>
Apparently they should work fine with the battery disconnected, and the reason for the random behaviour when powered is worn out batteries pull too much power to leave enough to run the the unit. So I disconnected the battery, but it still doesn't work.
>> Solution was to replace it as I then get updated maps rather than change the
>> battery, just need a new bracket for the proclip mount.
>>
>> New Via does not do Bluetooth phone or juke box but changing the car soon
>> and the new car will.
>>
I can get a basic, but adequate for our purposes, Start20 for about £95 so it's not a big deal, it's just frustrating that it sometimes nearly works so it does have all the appearances of a software fault. Of course, electronics hardware, components, solder joints etc, does fail now and again so it could be faulty.
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My 5 year old 720 is working well. If it is left unused for a month the battery is completely flat but it works ok on the car lead and this charges the battery, which then lasts about 10 minutes!
However, this behaviour has not given me a problem with using it as a sat nav, YET!
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I recently bought a Tom Tom that had Bonnie Tyler's voice.
It was rubbish. Kept telling me to turn around, and every now and then it fell apart.
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And "Where to you going ?" you'd have to be a Jack to appreciate that !
Wouldn't trust her with a TT she got lost in France !
Last edited by: R.P. on Mon 23 Jan 12 at 20:08
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Hey, your being horrible about the only good thing to come out of Wales since the pits shut.
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She still lives in the Mumbles fair do's, and can still belt them out...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBrzup9kDdI
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>> £55 for UK,
Well £66 inc VAT, £71 inc delivery. Interesting they can sell, presumeably profitably, devices refurbed by TomTom for that price, when TomTom want £93 to repair our current unit.
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Missed the VAT . .
I was wary, the first unit delivered had a screen fault and was replaced by them without quibble. The package included a case which they told me not to return, they sent a second case out with the replacement and told me to keep it when I advised them. Apart from the screen fault both units looked new. It also came with a once only latest mapping refresh.
It has lasted four years so can't complain.
TomTom want to make money on the repair and many folks arn't aware that these are available so pay for the repair. These will probably be units returned with minor defects where TT send out a new unit, they fix the fault but can't sell as new.
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Well, blow me - sent a snotty email to TomTom's CEO and a customer services supervisor came back a couple of days later, asked some details, and said they'll repair / replace it! This was after a couple of levels of other supervisors saying no.
I do think there's something fundamentally wrong with the unit - a bit more research since the original exchange reveals that there are issues with the latest bootloader (and it's when booting that it has problems) on some serial numbers and there are also known problems with some TomTom chargers putting out too many volts and frying the internals.
I did contact Halfords and they were, as expected, completely hard-faced in avoiding their legal responsibiity (which is itself a criminal offence).
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Good news Bill.Halfords arn't the best in customer relations they should inprove.
I bought a handlamp from Halfords and the bulb is broken.I can't buy a replacement bulb from Halfords they don't sell them.Poor shop.
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TomTom reliability - rtj70
