Humminbird is the best.

Was having an issue with my Gen 2 Helix 9 sise scan. Was told to send it in for repair and $259. I did.. they sent me back a gen4 Helix 9, cover, and a new transducer! 6 dqy turn around! Q happy customer here!

Dang. That’ll work! They’ve always helped me when I’ve called.

That is a sweet deal

Agree,
My chip-reader wasn’t working and I couldn’t update firmware on my Helix 5 portable. Called customer service and after trying a few fixes with a LIVE TECH SUPPORT AGENT, I ended up having to send it in. But got it back within two weeks with a whole new main circuit board for only $85 and it works like a brand new finder now. Should be good to go for a few more years at least. Money well spent!

Also, their live agent was an actual Hummingbird employee at there Alpharetta GA facility, it was not farmed-out to some general support, off-shore call-center. Very knowledgeable and helpful.

Just wait until it’s a little more outdated. I tried to have them fix my Onix 10 a couple years ago… They wanted me to send $1k with it. No thanks.

Wouldn’t the best be no issues in the first place? Maybe it’s just their market share speaking but I read more posts about bird problems on this site than any other brand. I will admit they have a fantastic product when working — the Mega SI I think is far and away the best imaging in the game — but as they say availability is the best ability, and it sure seems like a lot of folks have had to had their units serviced.

Nothing is built to last forever and my portable Helix unit has been fool-proof for nearly 10 years. It’s been knocked around in ice sleds and crappy fishing boat transoms, in temps from -10F to 100F, it’s been rained on, snowed on and splashed on and finally showed some signs of age. The fact that they even supported it was nice as planned-obsolescence is definitely the way it works with most electronics manufacturers. This (along with the hard and soft water tranducers) has outlasted every fish finder I’ve ever owned by a LONG shot, and I bet I get two or three more year at a minimum. Only thing I own that’s outlasted it would be an old ice fishing flasher, but MUCH more to go wrong with these units. I’ll happily buy another Humminbird portable helix again. Just my experience. I know nothing of the struggles of side/down imaging and more complex systems.

dirtywater wrote:

Wouldn’t the best be no issues in the first place? Maybe it’s just their market share speaking but I read more posts about bird problems on this site than any other brand. I will admit they have a fantastic product when working — the Mega SI I think is far and away the best imaging in the game — but as they say availability is the best ability, and it sure seems like a lot of folks have had to had their units serviced.

used to be all Lowrance complaints because of market share. I still regret ever switching to HB a couple years ago. I think HB’s biggest problem is inconsistency, one guy gets a new unit and the next guy hits zero.

They did something similar for me too. I had my 5 year old 999 fixed for about $300, and it crapped out again a month later. They asked me to send it in. A few days later a Helix 9 Gen 2 arrived. No correspondence. Just a new unit. Still clipping away without an issue 5 years later.

Humminbird is truly an awesome company.

They wanted me to send my gen 2 Helix 7 which was 2 years old in with $300, so I said no. Then we did that back and forth dance for 3 weeks, then they finally took it without charging me. Guess I should’ve paid, maybe they would have sent me a gen 3 lol. But after dropping $500 on a unit, $100 on a map, and $200 on a HDSI transducer I just could not bring myself to spend another 300 to make it work the way it’s supposed to.

dirtywater wrote:

Wouldn’t the best be no issues in the first place?

You ask a lot of an electronic installed by amateurs in an unforgiving environment for electronics…vibration, voltage variations, wet, hot, cold.

Used to take $1,500 minimum to buy a bird.

With price points at half that now, something has to be cheapened. I’m amazed they work as well as they do given the variety of poor installations across the nations worst garage electricians.