Here’s some info I found on Ray’s (DC Rainmaker) blog. Very good update, although I’m still not sure what I’m going to do…
DC Rainmaker
April 19, 2018 at 7:28 pm#597
So just as a general update, after spending time at Garmin this week for a variety of topics (primarily related to the Connect IQ Summit). But, I sat down and talked Vector 3 issues with all levels of the Vector team for the better part of two hours earlier in the week. As you might imagine, it’s hard to summarize a meandering two hours discussion, but in general it was me pointing at the numerous comments here and asking for answers.
I’d bucketize those into three areas:
- Support Requests
More than anything my concern was that folks have been reporting issues where support is telling them long timeframes for replacement of parts or pedals that have issues. Quite frankly, anyone that has received a unit and is experiencing issues should always be ahead of backorder queues. Meaning, it sucks if someone in a backorder queue has to wait another week to get their new unit, but it’s unacceptable that someone who received their power meter and needs a support swap has to wait weeks for that to be processed. They agree and are making some tweaks.
At this point, there should be zero queue for Vector support parts/replacement requests in the US. Further, they are validating that all non-US service points around the world are operating that way. If folks here are hearing anything more than ‘it’ll ship tomorrow’ for a support issue, please drop a note here and they will help run that down. - Existing units
As noted by Garmin and others via support, there has been issues with some existing units. In talking with them, it sounds like the percentage impacted continues to be low…but as I noted above, if you’re shipping a thousand+ units a week, it’s still impacting people.
Garmin has outlined various ways to improve connectivity for batteries for those having it. They also believe the V3.30 firmware released should resolve all outstanding software-specific issues at this point (some of which were compounded by the battery problem). Further, some battery issues were compounded by the battery cap/hold threads on some early batches (not entire batches, just portions of them) being…less than ideal. Specifically the threads could become damaged easily, which meant that the pods wouldn’t be fully set. That’s been fixed a while back to ensure all units leaving the factory are meeting the specs. If you have issues with threads on your pedals, reach out to support. Or really, if you have any issues, again, reach out to support.
Note that production has never ceased for Vector 3 (aside from Chinese New Year, like virtually all companies manufacturing in Taiwan and China). It’s maintained at full factory capacity. They’re just far beyond what they ever expected to have orders for. They’re backorder queue along exceeds their entire first year expectations. - Going forward
So the bigger question is ‘Is it safe to purchase Vector 3’. And that’s a tough one to answer. Manufacturing is in process for the new battery caps to become the default for all units leaving. Some folks have received those new caps/pods via support already if they were having issues. Of course, plenty of others aren’t having issues with the existing caps.
I suspect there’s also an element of folks ending up with crappy batteries also contributing to some, but not all issues. I suggested they put together a list of ‘recommended batteries’, just like they do for headphones on the music side, and other areas of their business. They strongly noted that going with name-brand batteries will definitely help (and I’d agree, especially in the LR44/SR44 battery world). They’re looking into doing this.
Still, I don’t think we’ll have an answer on whether things are past the storm for a while. Not because they don’t feel confident in these combined software+hardware changes (they do), but because if you turn back the clock, it was calm seas for the first three months of units. It wasn’t until really late January that issues starting occurring.
Finally, I would note that the Vector/Cycling team definitely isn’t thrilled about how this played out, especially the way the support requests have been prioritized/handled. There were no happy faces during that discussion, it was as if someone had died (true: we had just finished discussing an hours worth of my Edge 520 Plus issues). I think they want to find the end of the tunnel as much as anyone else.
In any case, hope this helps shed some light a bit. Also, I’ll update the concerns portion of the review with a link to this comment as well.