I bought a SatNav
I have no sense of direction. I get lost in big phone boxes. Yes, I am that useless. Pink Goddess, now, you can put her down anywhere in Brum and she can navigate home. Sorted. Me, not so much.

Not a problem for the last few years, as I drove a big Citroen, complete with all-important built-in satnav apparatus. All good (except the map was well out of date. It was so old it didn't include the M6 toll, nor several other important bypasses. My personal best was driving down a road... on a blank map page.)

Eventually the old Citroen had to go. 32 MPG on diesel wasn't cutting it, and the sheer horror of a £2K service (again) meant that this was now a non-starter. Oh, and the starter motor went outside the ex-wife's, which is the most embarrassing car-related moment ever.

So, on with shiny new MPV. Only problem is, built in satnav on our ride of choice is well north of a grand. Um, no, I'll buy a clip-on satnav for about a hundred quid then.

And so I did. One satnav. Sadly, the new car took much longer to arrive than we thought, so the satnav ticked over a month still in the shrinkwrap on my desk. Then, new car turns up, we have a go with the satnav, all seems good, and we triumphantly attach it to the new car. Whereupon it dies. Well, it turns on, lets you set it up, then turns off again. No good. No navigation, nothing. Arse.

So back to the shops, where the sharp-suited but utterly useless cockmonkeys say that since I didn't buy the extended warranty (approx 50% of purchase price), I am shit out of luck. I wish I could say that lashing out my money seemed justified for a pair of front-row seats at a textbook display of cunt-faced bollock-juggling, but sadly I get all the cunt-faced bollock-juggling I need just phoning my ISP's so-called Support line, and that's free.

So I got on to the vendor, and they're now dragging out endless variations of 'try this suggestion...', 'this'll fix it...'. This is apparently what my year's warranty is worth. I think I finally reached the point where I want to drive over there, find the donkey-molesting waste of skin who's supposedly looking after my case, plunge my arm down his throat and tear out his still-twitching ringpiece, when their instructions told me "click on the Start button on the bottom-right hand corner of the screen". I have a Mac. And even if I had a PC, I'm pretty damn sure that the Start button is in the bottom left hand corner of the screen. I know because I'm a Windows sysadmin at work. Honest.

And you know what *stops* me driving over there and tearing those chair-moistening knob-faces new ones? It's not laziness. It's not even Pink Goddess putting a soft hand on my arm, fluttering her delicious eyelashes, and murmuring softly that I should calm down. No, it's that I can't find the place because my bloody sat-nav doesn't work. Arse.
(purplegod counting down for Christmas!, Tue 26 May 2009, 17:41, 4 replies)

I'm not 100% on this, but...
As the shop that sold you the item is duty bound to sell you an item that works, if it does not, it IS their problem. You should try kicking up a fuss with them, as they have sold you faulty merchandise.

I'm sure I heard that on Watchdog or some such crap.

Assuming of course, that this was any time recently.
(The Kwyjibo A big, dumb, balding North American ape., Tue 26 May 2009, 17:54, closed)

Genuine LOL at last paragraph!
(Stu Moo winner of five nobble piece prizes, Tue 26 May 2009, 21:08, closed)

Can't you just
buy a road atlas? I find them much better than sat nav.

And cheaper too.

There again, I'm lucky to have a good sense of direction and rarely consult a map to go anywhere, unless in an unfamiliar city. In which case Google is my friend, and I study a map of the area beforehand.
( K2k6 has a proper job these days, Tue 26 May 2009, 21:55, closed)

Even better than this, the EU dictate that 2 years of warranty are mandatory in the EU
No matter what the shop or MFR say.

www.guardian.co.uk/money/2006/mar/25/consumernews.howtocomplain

Also, call Consumer Direct -- basically govt consumer advice -- they'll tell you how to kick their arses.

www.consumerdirect.gov.uk/
( drunkenoaf, Wed 27 May 2009, 8:36, closed)