Has my transducer exceeded its best before date?

I was not happy with the Lowrance X50DS that came as standard equipment on my Legend Xcalibur, it seemed to lose the signal coming from the transducer at random intervals. I replaced it with an Eagle FishEasy 360c which for a few bucks more seemed like a giant leap ahead. It worked at speed as well as trollling and never cut out or lost the signal. Until a few days ago that is. I'm wondering if it's the transducer that's gone sour....
Maybe the transducer won't handle the water buffeting it when the boat is on plane. I did lower the transducer mount to make sure the transducer was still in the water when the boat was on plane. It did make the fish finder work as advertized on plane. Any opinions out there, did the extra buffeting (by lowering the mount) lead to a premature failure of the transducer. Now the transducer or the fish finder cuts out and in at speed or dead slow whenever it wants. Sometimes if I tapped on the transducer the unit would wake up, other times, not so.
Is it worth the time it takes to find and install a replacement transducer or should I bite the bullet and buy a new fishfinder?
Production of the FishEasy 360c has been discontinued so finding a replacement transducer may be a bit of a challenge. Has anyone else had their transducer fail while the fish finder itself is okay? The demo mode works just fine thanks.

Thanks for you input.

I have always had one problem or another with a transom mounted transducer, I switched to a 'shoot through hull' type many years ago and have had no failures since then, you may loose a bit of performance at speed but at least it will work and no more holes in the transom.

Are you talking aluminum or fibreglass hull? Mine is aluminum, I've heard the shot through is not compatible with aluminum.

Mine was Fglass but you can shoot through aluminum, one website I read said you will loose performance so I can not say from mine what you would experience. You may want to contact the manufacturer to see what they say about that.

You could have many contributing factors to your issues 1) transducer angle, 2) some lower end units don't work as advertised at hi speeds,3) transducers do have a life expectancy, 4)did the cable in any way get damaged when installing, 5)do you have a loose connection, 6) was it mounted in the right spot on the transom, 7) bad head unit etc etc ect

Given how well it was working I'd like to assume (yeah, I've heard what they say about assuming) it was mounted in the right spot, that leaves me with either a bad connection under the dash or the life expectancy issue. Or, the etc, etc. I'll keep looking. Thanks.

UPDATE: I decided to bite the bullet and go for a new fishfinder. The cost of a replacement transducer was only $20 or $30 less than I originally paid for the fishfinder & transducer. I purchased a Garmin echoMap 45dv from Radioworld. I ordered it online Sunday, it was delivered to my door Tuesday morning, can't complain about that. Installation was fairly straight forward although the directions for placement of the transducer were a bit sketchy. The new unit is a vast improvement over the old unit, technology has come a long way in the past 8 or 10 years. Tight lines everyone.

the pros say that after 3 years the transducers start to go bad as the crystals inside vibrate and will wear down ,,Dutch

3 years? That seems about right, sounds like I should start shopping around for a spare transducer. (Don't the pros get sponsored to say stuff like that?)

I changed my transducer after 4 years, and I had a lot less interference. The old one was still working fine, marking, etc. No power losses, but the new one has a clearer picture.

So I'd say replace every 3 to 5 years.

I hear also it depends if you pull your boat or leave it in the water. If it's in and out of the water, temperature changes and exposure to the sun spead up the degredation of the transducer. So probably every 3 to 4 years if it is pulled out of the water often, and every 4 to 5 years if your boat stays in the water.

if you go to spoon pullers web sight and go to the electronics systems set ups there is a video of how to set up your gear and a ton of good info about fishfinders and sonars ,,,95% of people do not have there rig set up right and do not know how to use them properly ,,abd thy have the wrong soft ware to start with ,,,,the guy from angler outfitters in Woodstock is the expert on setting these units up and does a great set of videos on the how to ,,,,,all things gps and sonar ,,check them out ,,Dutch

Thanks, sounds like a good "maintenance tip of the week"