TomTom One 130 GPS

Joined
Jun 5, 2006
Messages
2,718
I bought a TomTom One 130 car GPS navigator back in January. Worked great out of the box, very naturally intuitive for operation, worked great for four months. I loved it. Then the startup screen locked up. Couldn't do nothing to make it go.

Set it aside, PO'd, finally got around yesterday to do something about it. Called up their tech support (1-866-486-6866 for those who may be searching). They're in Syracuse, NY, not Bombay.

The young lady I talked to was very helpful, understood the problem, sent me an email about how to deal with it. Well, no joy. This went on for several more phone calls, four different people, two days, all very helpful, polite and professional. I can't fault these youngsters for anything, they did their best and were very polite and friendly.

The problem, I believe, is that TomTom doesn't want you to send their product back for replacement, which would have been the easiest solution. Instead, I have spent two days mucking around online trying to fix this: their solutions are to uninstall and reinstall the program, format and reinstall, yada yada, drag me through a knothole.

I had to go through all this before they finally conceded that there is something wrong with the product (the chip) and gave me the information on how to return it for repair or replacement.

This device probably costs about $20 to manufacture, yet I have spent two days like a fool trying to fix the problem online. Aaarghhh!

Anybody else experience this? Any advice to soothe my tormented soul? :D
 
Some of these units have a reset button. Use an unbent paper clip or something to press the button. From what I remember hearing the button is not marked, small and easily overlooked, on the back or bottom. Might be worth a try.

I have a TomTom as well and have been very happy with it. Its a basic model but was only $100. I want to say it is a model 125 but not sure. My only complaint is the on / off button is not very positive. Easy to turn off but not to turn on. (Insert cold fish wife joke here).

- the Captain
 
Yep, been there done that. These days all this techie crap we have is designed to be disposeable, not to be fixed. You can blow a LOT of time trying to work out a bug on a $100 device. No, I don't have a solution for it either.
 
I have the same model and it locked up too. I spent about 45 minutes on the phone one day with a very patient and helpful person. Nothing worked and she had me send it back and it's free replacement arrived in my mail box before I got the old one shipped off. Been working fine now.
 
Ditto on the "freeze" problem.
I uninstalled and reinstalled the program via the Tom Tom website.
Only did this once, and ever since on the rare occasion I have had a "freeze", I have simply reset the device as described by Captain Bobino (#2) above.
The reprogram probably wasn't necessary. I am surprised at your experience with the tech support people. The person I spoke to was both knowledgeable and helpful.
My Tom Tom is an older 630 model, and I have learned not to switch it off before it has completed a task, or a freeze up will result and require a reset. I also keep a paper clip attached to the case for use as a reset tool. Hey, I'm cheap.
 
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