Eleuthera 60: Furuno warranty

[MIRELOS]

If you have Furuno instruments installed at the factory beware.
Pochon electronics installs the instruments for FP. But they do not install them according to Furuno specs and even worse Furuno France does not back up their warranty. I have Furuno instruments (one year old) they all burned up, the resistance reading was 660 ohms.They do not put terminators on the instruments. It is a fire hazard.
I called Furuno USA they knew immediately what was wrong, I needed to call Furuno France, they washed their hands, e-mailed Pochon, Furuno USA received an ok from Furuno France to get the service done. (are you confused yet?, I sure am). Precision Marine was contacted by Furuno USA to make repairs. 90% of the work done they are told that Furuno France will not pay for anything "WHAT". I contacted Furuno USA they come to the rescue.....somewhat...nobody is sure who is honoring the warranty...more calls and e-mails, Furuno USA will cover and even Furno Japan had to get involved.
Is this a nightmare?...no sailing since the end of July. The boat looks good on the mooring though.....(sarcasm).

[Paul L]

It sounds like Furuno USA is doing you a big favor and treating you right. The rest of the story sux.

[MIRELOS]

this is what they are saying. Sandy delayed completion of work. Lets hope all continues well.
Carlos
s/v MIRELOS

[oranaman]

Hi Carlos,

Sorry to hear about your Furuno problems - unfortunately as others have said in this forum Furuno instruments fitted to FP boats are not very reliable. I have an Orana fitted with Furuno by Ponchon, wind, depth,log and repeater. The Autohelm and chart plotter are all Raymarine which I fitted myself - they talk to the furuno instruments. All the Furuno instruments have been changed at least once under the warranty. Recently the depth sounder/log/temperature stopped working over the winter period. The airmar sensor is not repairable as all the electronics are sealed in resin. Repair - pay $250 for a new sensor - No I have purchased a $80 Hawkeye complete standalone depth sounder which is not networkable - that doesn't worry me.


The story "But they do not install them according to Furuno specs and even worse Furuno France does not back up their warranty. I have Furuno instruments (one year old) they all burned up, the resistance reading was 660 ohms.They do not put terminators on the instruments. It is a fire hazard."

As an electronics engineer I feel I am qualified to comment.

1) The only way a fire can be caused is by not correctly fusing the cable supplying the power i.e. most instruments (except chart plotters and autopilots which should be fused separately) consume 0.2 amp or less so your instruments (NMEA 2000) power supply should have been fused at 5 amps. So if you check the fuse boxes you should find an instrument fuse listed. 24v (your boat?) shorted through 660 ohms is 0.036 amps - that wouldn't cause any cable to catch fire. I am not even sure that fuses are available below 0.1 amp - so that story isn't true. The lack of terminators wouldn't cause a fire but would probably prevent the networking from ever working. What is a real fire hazard on FP boats is the lack of house battery fusing. A short on House batteries of 400-1000 ah WILL cause a major fire. So does your boat have a main 500A fuse on the house battery - my Orana does only because I fitted one, FP didn't. Indeed apparently most boat manufacturers don't fit them!

2) On my Orana Ponchon wired the NMEA 2000 network up using a waterproof box and wago connectors which connect to the bare ends of the network cables. NMEA 2000 networks use 60 ohm to terminate the network so Ponchon used a 120 ohm resistor and the internal 120 ohm termination of a FI-503 on my network. Technically there is nothing wrong with that approach. The Furuno junction box FI-5002 is only a waterproof box fitted with various screw connectors (probably inferior to wago connectors) on a printed circuit board which no doubt furuno charges a lot of money for? Indeed on page 17 of the FI-503 (digital repeater) manual a diagram shows direct connection from the battery to the FI-5002 junction box - I can so no sign of a fuse in the junction box - it that is the case - that is also wrong.

In conclusion Ponchon have made a cost cutting installation by not using an overpriced Furuno junction box which provided it has been externally fused correctly is NOT technically wrong and certainly on my boat that installation hasn't caused any of the unreliability issues with my Furuno instruments. However as a customer of FP purchasing an expensive boat should it have been installed that way is probably highly questionable.

[MIRELOS]

Thank you Oranaman on your heads up about the house battery fuse, I will have to check on that, not that I should it ought to be standard practice particularly on an expensive boat. I am not an electronics expert so I cannot argue your assessment on the Furuno problem. The fact is that all my Furuno electronics failed within a year of purchasing the boat. What I stated as the problem is what was related to me by the Furuno service person that Furuno USA provided for me. When I called Furuno USA they immediately new that it was a French boat, obviously this is not the first time it happens.
I think Furuno Japan should make sure that their representatives adhere to what they promise.

[ozskipper]

Hmmm... Didnt you say they were installed at the FP factory? Surely FP should be involved at this point.

[DtM]

We had the same issue with Furuno instruments on our Mahe, eventually resolved.

[downunder]

Originally Posted by ozskipper

Hmmm... Didnt you say they were installed at the FP factory? Surely FP should be involved at this point.

From what I have observed apparently dealing with FP or Lagoon after purchase does not happen unless you win a court case with them.

Some local dealers are a different matter.

[MIRELOS]

They were installed at the FP factory by Pochon which is the Furuno representative in the area, so it is a Furuno warranty problem.
If the guilty party is Pochon then Furuno France should deal with them and not leave the boat owner stranded, they don't even answer e-mails, they are downright RUDE!

[downunder]

I hope you can get it sorted.

I have been considering a Furuno installation as my no1 option todate.

I hope for you it all gets sorted.

[ozskipper]

Originally Posted by downunder

From what I have observed apparently dealing with FP or Lagoon after purchase does not happen unless you win a court case with them.

Some local dealers are a different matter.

Ah.. fair enough. One would have thought that during the final inspections they would have-should have noticed an error in the wiring.

But if they dont provide after service without a judge, then thats really well worth storing in the back of my mind.

[MIRELOS]

OK, it is finally done. My thanks to Leo Miranda at Furuno USA who managed to get all the warranty blah blahs ironed out and also to Chris at Precision Marine in New Rochelle who was on the phone sorting out all the connections. Most important a super thanks to Nick and his ever trusting assistant Roy who came over numerous times to sort out and replace the damaged system. We had sea trials yesterday and all went well, Nick is an absolute maven with the system.
I recommend Precision Marine to anyone needing installation or work on their marine electronic systems.
With all products even those that are well designed things can go wrong that is why there is warranties and customer relation centers to keep the "customer" who just spent a large amount of money on his or her dream happy and rightly satisfied. These expenditures after the sale of a product are calculated in the cost of a product. So what is the problem with Furuno France?, get your act together!

[DtM]

Furuno France may be a separate profit centre so tha tif they can avoid costs and let other profit centres bear them then France looks better.

Hopefully Foruno USA gets the money out of France but that is not your worry.

Well done.