Halfords

Called in here today as I’d bought a Garmin sat nav about 6 weeks ago to use in France. It’s my fourth Garmin. I like them as they are easy to use and usually very reliable. I like the company too. This is their latest and digital contraption at near £300. This new one gave problems from the start, but as I bought it on the Eve of travel I took it along. The first sign of trouble was that it wouldn’t recognise being connected to the internet. This one has free lifetime maps so I was trying to refresh for the journey. When I arrived in Halford’s I had to wait several minutes for someone to come to the check out. The young lady that came to me got it straight away as I explained it sometimes would go off itself and maybe on again itself or not go off when I tried to switch hit off — I had to hold the off button nearly a minute. Sometimes the guy would speak, sometimes not, sometimes loud, sometimes quiet. Sometimes the screen would go blue and say it couldn’t locate the satellite signal despite it having worked on the same road a few hours before. Or put another way: infuriating. So she rang Garmin and inside a minute got a replacement approved. It took her longer to find the replacement than it took Garmin to agree replacement — and that why I like the company. Great attitude. Like Apple in the early days.