[rant]

I have had the autopilot fail 3 times. Now anybody can have a failure, but how the company responds is the key. First time was a couple months old, thing all of a sudden zigged left. After much bitching the dealer gave me a new fluxgate. it worked for a short while, then within 30 minutes of leaving the dock on a 2 month cruise, failed again. Raymarine and dealer both said, "send it in, we will have a look, get it back to you in a couple of weeks". After a lot of phone calls to Raymarine and the discovery of a sympathetic tech in the Canadian distributor, I was able to get a replacement, though I had to have a friend drive it 200 miles to get it to me. After this I had little expectation of service. Three control heads failed the next year, each with the same firmware issue. Each time replaced after a week or two of phone calls. Recently a firmware update fixed the problem finally.

Within 15 minute of leaving the dock in Norfolk, the same autopilot failed again. An hour later the chart plotter failed. That was Sunday, on Monday I called Raymarine to be told "send it in, maybe in your circumstance we can expedite it and turn it around in 5 days or so". Now many companies, even in industries as tawdry as the RV industry, you can get a repaired exchange: you pay a flat rate repair, they send you the replacement and charge your credit card for a new one, if you return your broken one they refund the difference. You can usually have it in hand the next day. But not Raymarine: "we tried that but couldn't make it work". So on Tuesday in a blizzard at Nags Head, I manage to pack the autopilot and chart plotter and send them Fedex Priority overnight to New Hampshire. They are signed for at Raymarine at 9:14 AM on Wednesday. Wednesday afternoon I call the same person, she says, "well, it takes them a day to log them in, then we can see...". On Friday afternoon, call again, same person. "There was some snow up here and they are a little behind in logging them in. So we don't know if we got them yet. Send me the tracking number and I will look them up on Tuesday." Because Monday is a holiday. So I have about $200 in Fedex bills, 1 week gone by, and nothing to show for it at all.

Meantime on Monday, after first speaking to Raymarine and with no confidence they will help, I get on ebay, locate a replacement autopilot in Seattle, speak to the guy on the phone, buy it for about what the Raymarine flat rate price is, he overnights it to Wanchese and I install it before sending the old one to Raymarine. On Thursday in the middle of Pamlico Sound, get on ebay again, find a replacement chart plotter in Florida for somewhat less than the Raymarine repair price, talk to the guy on the phone, buy it, he ships it overnight for delivery in Beaufort on Friday.

So now I have both a working autopilot, and a working chart plotter. With no thanks at all to Raymarine. I will probably have them repaired for spares: At least the autopilot is essential, given the failure rate I need a spare.

I know Raymarine's market is the sport fisherman and weekend yachtsman who is undemanding and not en route somewhere. But surely they can do better than the RV industry, for the prices they charge?

[/rant]