In April of last year I bought a ProTournament 300 3/bank 30amp charger. I bought it on April 6th and received it on April 9th. I don't have records of the actual install date. All told I've had the charger for a total of 10 months and a week or so. Of those 10 months my boat has been in the shop for 7 of them. Soooo total time used on this 332.00 charger is something less than 4 months.
Before sending my boat back to Florida for the second time I completely stripped the rigging compartment including all batteries and the ProTournament 300 charger. I'm supposed to be getting my boat back at the first of the month so I thought I'd hook the charger up to the batteries to make sure all is well on that front. It was not. Upon hooking the charger up and plugging it in nothing happened at first. Then the battery float lights came on on 2 banks but not the third(cranking battery). Unplug it and coduct a battery voltage test. Trolling battery #1=12.05v, trolling battery #2=12.07v and cranking battery is at 12.49v. That's after these batteries have sat unconnected for 4 months.
Check the ProTournament owners manual for trouble shooting. I've done most of what it says with the exception of a hydrometer test. I have a wet cell tester that allows me to check the voltage in each cell and I use that instead. Each cell on every battery is at 2v or greater. Nothing wrong with any of the cells. I read the warranty information in the owners manual it states:
"Each product is guaranteed againsty defects in material and workmanship to the origianl consumer in normal use for one full year after purchase at no charge."
It also has provision for 30 months worth of coverage on a prorata basis.
On the warranty page it also states:
"If a replacement unit is needed, ProMariner will express ship a replacement ProTournament Marine Battery Charger at no cost with a prepaid UPS shipping label for the orginal unit to be returned."
I call them and am told "Your unit is more than 6 months old. You will need to pre-pay ship your unit to us and if there is a problem with it we will repair it and ship it back to you." Needless to say I was not happy with that response. After complaining I was told: "You have to understand we were shipping units out and not getting them back so we had to change our policy!" I said "Nope, you need to understand my purchasing decision was made in part because of your warranty!"
Long story made short. I faxed them a copy of my invoice where showing I did indeed purchase this unit in April of last year. Supposedly once they have that in hand they will follow through with the warranty as stated in original paper work that I have. Still a crock'a'crap in my books. If you say you're going to do something you do it. Any changes in policy should not be retroactive affecting customers that made purchasing decision based on available information at the time the decision was made.
If this thing only lasted 4 months I strongly suspect it'll fail again in rather quick order at which time I'll do the warranty thing yet again while at the same time purchasing another unit from a different manufacture.
Up until this ProTournament charger I've always(last 15 years or so) used ProCharger. I did have some warranty issues with them but they were handled much better than what I've encountered with ProTournament. And I'll probably return to the ProCharger fold before it's all said and done because of those warranty experiences I had with them in the past.
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