Why Lowrance?

[SteveH]

It's just my opinion, but:
I bought a Lowrance Hook2 9 from Amazon (sold by and shipped directly from Lowrance) back in November as a Christmas gift to me. I got it completely loaded with USA an Canada maps, bringing the entire purchase to over $900. It sat under the tree until Christmas when i called around to get it installed; I never opened the box. I finally got it in to the shop at Bass Pro in Manteca sometime in February where they did a decent enough job of installing it for about $200. I commented at the time that I thought the "TripleShot Transducer" was a poor design. It's about a 11" long and 3" wide and sticks out the back of the boat. The unit is mounted at the console.
I got a chance to use it about 3 or 4 times before the transducer broke. We didn't hit anything, ground the boat, or do anything else to cause this to break other than go over some wake on the Delta. Even at that, I didn't fly the boat.
It took 4 phone calls totaling over 90 minutes of my time and 3 emails before I was able to get agreement from them to cover the transducer under warranty. The last phone call was over 45 minutes and THEY called ME back!! In the end, I was told they would replace it as a "courtesy" and that I would have to pay for it next time. This is the only transducer option they have for this unit.
I was still looking for a unit for the front of the boat when at the ISE show i saw a booth selling Garmin, Hummingbird and Lowrance. I mentioned that i bought the Hook2 9 and was shown what i should have bought. I now have a Garmin 7" mounted on the trolling motor that is amazing by comparison, does everything the Lowrance does, has a touch screen, and was about 35% cheaper. The boat I've replaced had a Hummingbird unit on it; another nice, well engineered unit. Why i went back to Lowrance is beyond me.
If i sound a little perturbed by my treatment from the Lowrance people it's because I am. They obviously have no respect for their customers time or any sense of customer service. At the end of the phone conversation they ask you to participate in a 3-question survey. It runs a scale of 1-5. I gave them a 3 after the first question and they hung up on me. Nice. I couldn't be more done with this company.

[Edd]

Sorry you had an unpleasant experience with Lowrance support. Just an observation.....from the looks of the rubber washers in your pics, it appears you haver clamped down real good. Maybe the reason it broke.

[MTSAZ]

I am not familiar with that transducer--my lss2 with my gen 2- had a metal support that went across the top of it- and my structure scan has a similar thing- ---so it seems to me that transducer should have a metal framework that attaches to it. Strange--because they are long and skinny and obviously subject to getting bumped into- banged around, and so thats why the metal support. I looked on west marine site and there is no metal frame protecting the top/edges- and giving it rigidity. I wonder how often they break.

All the "fishfinders" work. Humminbird, Garmin, Lowrance, Raymarine, whatever----they all basically do the same thing. Like Chevy/Ford/Nissan/Toyota- people have preferences for various brands. I can only tell you that I had a Humminbird Helix 10 before my lowrance gen 2- and now have carbon with 3d (which I find useless) but the humminbird did things the lowrance does, one does some things better than the others, and some not so good.

But I changed to lowrance carbon because I think the technology is better, and is a step ahead of humminbird- in general/and in my opinion.

Garmin has a reputation for being very simple and easy to use. I would personally only buy a garmin if it had panoptix- and with that its a 4000-5000$ investment by the time you are done so NONE of the top of the line units by any of the major companies are cheap.

My 3d structure scan transducer is long and skinny- but its solid- and stays on without moving at 50-60mph- the humminbird mega was a big chunk and made a huge rooster tail and sprayed the interior of the boat like it was my backyard with the sprinkers running--I had to constantly tinker with it until I got that resolved and never had that problem with lowrance tranducers. So there are variables such as installation, and many other factors that can affect performance.

So, WHY LOWRANCE? I think the technology is very good if not the best, its the biggest company- (of them all) and makes sonar for navy and many other applications besides fish finders- and has been around since all this technology became available. My first lowrance was a paper graph- and that was probably the very best unit I have ever owned. That thing always identified fish and was very sensitive but you had to have rolls of thermal paper for it to work. Lowrance products- the top of the line (carbon etc) are usually always upgradeable- and support many different transducers, support live (or will soon), 3d, and more. None of them are cheap- so I would buy what you think is best for your needs. Millions love their lowrance. Millions love humminbird and garmin is smaller but growing-and many swear by raymarine. Whatever brand- they all work and people love them. So its whatever works for you. I have found humminbird customer service to be useless- and lowrance excellent. So its not a hard and fast rule- what experience you will have--and seems to depend on the situation and how assertive you are (maybe). good luck.