Lowrance Fish Finder Leaks ?!!?!!??

EZM · #1 07-18-2011, 09:31 PM

Purchased a nice new Lowrance HDS 5 fish finder a few months ago. Nice unit, love it with the GPS, excellent fish finder and love the lake maps from Navico I loaded in.

soooooo ..... I was out at Kootenay Lake last week and it started acting up after it was drizzling during the day. Had to re-set it.

Next day (drizzled most of the night on and off), the unit would only power up for a few seconds and die.

That night after fishing I thought I'd check the connections and verify the connections were still ok and to my surprise, as I unhooked it and tilted the unit forward it sounded like a half full bottle of water sloshing around !!!!!

The unit, when lightly shaken, ****ed water - I thought these were water proof???? What a way to find out your $700 unit isn't water tight.

Today it's back with the retailer and they are awaiting instructions from Lowrance.

Anyone have this happen to them?

Mudslide · #2 07-18-2011, 09:39 PM

Call Lowrance. They will replace it pronto. They are supposed to be waterproof to an IPX7 rating.

Paule · #3 07-18-2011, 10:40 PM

I had the exact same thing happen to me at the beginning of the season. Within 10 days Ihad a brand new unit shipped to me. No charge.

Teamprotz · #4 07-18-2011, 11:52 PM

The first units were notorius for leaking. So far the HDS 8's we have are good.

Kingfisher · #5 07-19-2011, 01:08 AM

Had my HDS5 out in many, rainstorms and haven't had a bit of problem with it.

Rob

bobalong · #6 07-19-2011, 09:37 AM

Ever since Navico bought out Lowrance in 2007 and moved production to Mexico they have been plagued with quality control and customer serivce issues. Although they are starting to recover they still have a long way to go, to where they used to be. I still have my first sonar a Z6100 (1987) an X70A (1997) a Mach 1 paper graph (approx 1999), a Fishstrike 1000 (2003) and all of these units were made by Lowrance/Eagle. None of these units were considered top end units produced at that time but they all still work with the original transducers, with the exception of the Fishstrike 1000 which I have had to replace a transducer on. I am now in the market for another color sonar/gps and have decided to go with Humminbird. I have an older Humminbird unit, that still works fine but it is a black and white unit. There products seem to be of good quality and the customer service is there if needed. Humminbird still need to upgrade their mapping, but I have talked to quite a few anglers who have made the switch from Lowrance and they are very happy with them.