What's wrong with my TomTom unit
Purchase
I paid about £127.44 (excluding V.A.T.) for it from Ebuyer whereas what I got without
lifetime maps or traffic could have cost more like £60. What followed were three
main problems each wasting vast amounts of my time until I decide not
to continue seeing as any time it might just save me driving had
already been dwarfed by dealing with all of this.
Maps
It was supposedly with lifetime maps except not made clear that there
were hoops to jump though and by the time I realised this it was too
late. Luckily one of the TomTom people said they would still honour
it. Except they didn't and the next person I spoke to was less
helpful. Incident: 121028-000460, Incident: 121207-001558.
I have an email that says...
"Thank you for registering for the TomTom Lifetime Maps Promotion.
Your registration confirmation number is: 116480"
except of course it didn't complete. And another "Your registration confirmation number is: 85900"
Connectivity
When it was very new traffic worked. Then it became intermittent. The
relevant screen would show the IMEI and SIM ID coming and going. I should also
say between Cambridge and London I have mostly excellent mobile
coverage. But that's not relevant when the unit loses its own hardware.
Incident: 130104-002689.
I could not get a written statement I needed to give to Ebuyer for a
refund/repair.
Sawston, not
I reported that I do not in fact live in Sawston despite what is shown
even on the web-based maps. These days I don't seem to be in Sawston
anymore but as shown in my recent Tweet some of Cambridge still
is. Incident: 120906-002107, Incident: 121207-001294.
See https://en.discussions.tomtom.com/map-quality-75/it-thinks-i-live-sawston-263111
that shows it did get partially fixed at some point.
At the time well as reporting it to TomTom I also put in a correction at
TeleAtlas. Their reference 2998c669-972b-1030-8110-bbc08f8e19d0. Mapshare ref 93355d9f-22f0-1030-8665-e83f81ca73e1.
What brought the whole miserable experience up again in June '15 was
me saying to a friend how poor online maps are compared to traditional
ones and OpenStreetmap. I then checked whether TomTom maps had
Emmanual Road, Cambridge as a path across the supposedly combined
Christ's Pieces and New Square as Google and Bing do. In this respect
TomTom gets it right but I also checked a route to somewhere in that
area Orchard Street and found TomTom still think it's in Sawston.
Does anybody actually pay for their maps ?
Next
What I'd like, given the trouble I have gone to is for TomTom to
replace its faulty hardware and provide the lifetime maps I paid
for. Alternatively take the unit back and give me a refund. If they do
I'll write here accordingly. Otherwise you can take it they didn't.
I can't say I recommend anybody purchase TomTom products unless you
want flaky hardware, software, mapping, wasting hours with support that
don't know what they're doing and not getting what you paid for.
back to my main page
Jon Schneider