Avidyne Problems

I am now even more confused than ever after reading these older posts! As usual, they tend to trail off in all different directions, so I will give you my feedback of Avidyne’s glass cockpit as a new Cirrus Owner (2006 SR20 G2 GTS).

I have the Avidyne PFD/MFD with dual 430’s NON-WAAS, STEC-55X, Skywatch, etc. All the GTS bells & whistles that were supplied during this production time period. I have owned the aircraft for nearly a year (acquired December 2018) and it has been in the shop for about 4 months due to a trim motor failure and lately, I have had a flickering of the PFD. I have a total of about 40 hours on the plane since purchase. The strange part is that the flicker (like an old-style TV turning on and off) is erratic. Sometimes it flickers and other times it does not. The previous owner had the Aero-Plan and it was buried in the documents, but it expired in 2016. The plan is VERY expensive $7,700.00 for 3 years, which tells me that there is NOT a substantial amount of confidence in the product. This (based on my research online) is not positive for Avidyne as many see the product as “rushed” through certification without any long-term considerations of hardware reliability. (Not my words! These are the words of others) This is actually confirmed by avionics dealers which represent BOTH Avidyne and Garmin who suggest that if you have the PFD/MFD you had BETTER have the insurance!

Has anyone discovered any other way to get around the Aero Plan or are you relegated to handing your check book over to Avidyne just in case your system is a lemon? Any feedback specific to this post would be appreciated. Please do not bother telling me “you have to send it in” as I already know this. I want to know if anyone else has seen this problem and what the resulting “Fix” was. Pricing would be helpful! I am being told by an Avidyne rep that it appears to be an inverter. This suggests to me that it is a power-supply issue.

While all this is happening, I am trying to decide how to get ADS-B OUT compliance! I can go with the Avidyne packages available $20K+, but why would I after seeing the way they treat their customers on repairs? I am told the 430’s could be WAAS updated and I could use a GARMIN GDL82 or even a Lynx unit. Are there other 2006 vintage Cirri out there with the same hardware? If so, what was your solution?

Any feedback on the topic at hand is welcome!

Wow, I can see why you’re bitter! That’s a ghastly experience that fortunately most of us have not had to go through. You’ve have quite a few potential targets who may have contributed to your situation. It’s always buyer beware when you buy a used plane, especially of a type you’re not familiar with, and even with the most meticulous, patient and expensive vetting process you will miss something. I was in your shoes years ago buying my 2006, but fortunately my naive self in those days was not so unlucky. But I did go through a few planes with avionics problems sellers did not want to fix after my team discovered them before finding one that seemed to be in better shape.

It sounds like your major problem is 4 months down for a trim motor. That sounds ridiculous. I’ve fortunately not had such motor problems, but it’s very common and there are a lot of threads on them in COPA. I’ve not seen a case where somebody was grounded for so long though. Hopefully somebody will jump in and help on this if you can’t find what you need to know from prior threads.

Avidyne’s service is actually pretty good (there’s always exceptions of course) - and if you try it you might be pleased with how well it works. It’s the warranty/insurance/repair contract pricing that convinced you to take chances. As you’ve learned, that’s a very expensive mistake, especially since your out-of-warranty PFD now needs repairs.

Here’s the answer to your pricing question: I pay $1K per year for complete coverage for my Avidyne panel, which includes Avidyne boxes I added to the plane as well as the original PFD and MFD. I don’t consider $1K/year as “handing over my checkbook” as you expressed it. And I don’t see any way “to get around the Aero Plan” as you said. It’s your friend - if you buy it.

I would argue that anyone not willing to acquire the Avidyne warranty should not buy an Avidyne equipped plane, unless surprise maintenance costs are just not a significant financial factor for them. I looked for planes that had the warranty in place, so converting it to my name was a no-charge deal, an important consideration in my buying decision.

There’s something to be said for a steam-gauge panel on a G1. The big glass screen multi-function boxes (Garmin or Avidyne) are shockingly expensive to repair out of warranty, compared to the cost of replacing a vacuum driven attitude indicator. After years of flying the glass panel, I still think my steam-gauge instrument panel scan is somehow faster.

As for ADS-B, I bought the Lynx 9000+ when it first came out, because at the time it was the only box offering both 1090 and UAT in, Skywatch internal to the box (so I could get rid of the Skywatch box), its own internal GPS so that compatibility was not an issue, and because it merged TAS/ADS-B targets on the Lynx and the MFD. There are newer options that can do some of that by patching together various components, but I still think the Lynx 9000+ with the Skywatch capability cannot be beat.

Avidyne won’t fix your broken PFD, or swap it for one that works, without your having to pay out-of-warranty prices at this point. I don’t see any way around that, short of selling the plane.

I hope your luck changes soon.

David,

You could buy new coverage for one year for $3000, and wait 60 days before making a claim for the repair.

I renew annually for $1K, and it doesn’t seem so bad.

I would take those “words of others” with a grain of salt. For aviation in general and avionics in particular, everyone has their own favorites and biases. Each of us has “good reasons” for our opinions.

You have to keep in mind that your Avidyne panels are 20-year-old tech. Cirrus has not installed them on any aircraft in almost 12 years. So any discussion of rushing through certification - true or false - is ancient history.

The good news is that Avidyne’s service repair policies and costs, while not user-friendly or cheap, are not nearly as bad as you may be thinking. If their reliability concerns you, get the AeroPlan warranty and renew it every year for around $1K per year. You can’t make your first claim until 60 days after you buy coverage. If you go “bare” with no plan, you may have no trouble but it will be expensive if/when you do!

Good luck.

I concur with all of the above - I owned an Avidyne-equipped 2007 TN and used the warranty on a couple of occasions. All with excellent and speedy service from Avidyne. Once I had to get a PFD replacement and had it within a few days … no problem at all. I really like the avionics and I purchased the 3-year warranty (saved 300 over annual renewals) when I bought the plane and had the avionics updated with Avidyne navigators and DFC90 autopilot (and the ADSB-in box). I found their customer support to be excellent and responsive overall.

As James noted above, Avidyne offers a pathway for that kind of support - for $1000/year. If you think that’s expensive, talk to some of the Pilatus owners who pay $20k for their avionics warranty from Honeywell - but they pay it because the cost of failure and AOG time is significant. Once these things (whether Garmin or Avidyne or whoever) come off warranty, they are expensive to fix, period. The advice you got above is sound - buy the warranty and wait 60 days to make a claim or pay more and you can make the claim now. It’s really up to you.

Second, I’m very sympathetic to your situation having bought a couple used planes - there are always gotchas that nobody expects and when the avionics act up it’s a huge pain in the posterior. Having said that, it’s a 2006 airframe and avionics boxes, so it’s not completely unexpected that something bad could happen. That’s why the warranty is a good idea.

Finally, please consider joining COPA. Now that you own a Cirrus, it’s the best $65 you can invest in aviation IMO. The member-only forums are a wealth of information and it’s one of the most active and most helpful type clubs in aviation, probably the best but that’s just one pilot’s opinion. It’s a drop in the bucket to join and you’ll learn to appreciate the wealth of Cirrus-specific and general aviation knowledge here - many people (myself included) stay on the forum and participate actively even after moving on from their Cirri …

I wish you the best of luck and am sorry your ownership experience is starting out this way. But I do like the Avidyne avionics and I think once they are all fixed up, you’ll learn to like them too. I hope it all gets sorted out soon for you!

Cheers

David,

I will let others talk about the Avidyne warranty. We have a 2004 G2 airplane and we complied with ADSB out by upgrading one of our GNS430 to WAAS, replacing the GTX327 with a GTX345 (ADSB in/out) and installing a FlightStream 210. The latter gave us the ability to import flight plans, including airways, from ForeFlight to our GNS430W. We get ADSB traffic and weather from the GTX345 on our iPad with ForeFlight. In our opinion the simplest and cleanest way to get ADSB in/out. I hope this helps.

First, we are not flying Pilatus. Avidyne is installed in 2007 or older aircraft worth now less than $300K, so any comparisons to Pilatus are misplaced.

Second, the $1000/year is only valid for renewals with Aeoroplan, where you sign up to defend Avidyne for any claims made against them if you have an accident. Many people on this forum believe that this is not enforceable in a court of law, but that theory has never been tested and I wouldn’t want to be the first one.

Third, Avidyne came to conclusion that Cirrus owners are stuck with that avionics and therefore predatory pricing will not cost them any future business. Judging by relative success of their IFD product line, this was (for them) a right decision.

However, let’s not forget that this is still order of magnitude higher service cost then comparable Garmin products. I have Avidyne PFD, MFD and DFC90 (came with the airplane), but I would never buy any more products from that company due to the cost of service and their ridiculous Aeroplan terms and conditions.

Stop whining!

Avidyne is a nice company with great folks supporting ancient parts.

I don’t get this thinking. When my 10yo Garmin MFDs went TU in my boat $3k each to fix and install … and they crumped every few years.

When my PFD died after 11 yrs Avidyne had a unit out in a few days

What the heck is the point in bashing this

How much would your $300k boat anchor be worth with with busted unsupported avionics… scrap or $150k plus some super Dave F panel magic for $100k plus.

Cheer up it’s still fixable.

Try sending your 13 yo TV in for a fancy fix up and see what they say… hahaha

Buy the plan and then enjoy the free ride.

2 Likes

You made my day with your definition of “free”.

My solution was to install a GDL-82 ($1700) and a new transponder antenna ($170). I did it myself with a mechanic’s oversight (and sign off). A mechanic can install it. No avionics shop is required.

You keep your transponder (GTX-327) and run a new coax from it to the GDL-82. Hook up the output of the GDL-82 to the transponder antenna.

A waas gps antenna comes with the GDL-82. I installed that under the rear top window in the baggage compartment (with an L bracket). Then hook up power and ground.

That is it. No pulling the avionics stack. No reconfiguration of any avionics is necessary. It just works. It worked the first time it was powered up. Not a single glitch or problem. It works perfectly. And I got the $500 FAA rebate.

For ADS-in, I use a an ipad and a $230 strutux. ADS-B weather is simply outstanding. I was able to see several rain cells displayed on the ipad that were hitting the ground at the exact same location. The update rate on the nexrad is much faster now.

For traffic, I use skywatch which is simply superior to the ADS-B. On every flight, I will see several nearby aircraft that show up on skywatch but not on ADS-B. The reason is many old aircraft have weak transponders that the ground ADS-B towers can not pickup. Usually the skywatch will see these aircraft within 2 miles.

If you are interested in installing the GDL-82, I have written an article for the Copa magazine (july issue). If you join copa, you can access it.

Hey David,

I completely understand your frustration as it sounds like you haven’t really been able to enjoy your Cirrus much since purchasing it. Based on the feedback from our customers (and many COPA members) we’ve been working diligently on a new an improved warranty structure and pricing that will be launched in the next few weeks. While it’s not 100% ready now, I think we are at a point where we can sign you up under the new pricing structure to get you taken care of. Please feel free to reach out to me at bkahl@avidyne.com and we can set up a call to get everything squared away.

Best regards,

Bryan Kahl

Let’s not forget that “Order of magnitude” is a factor of 10. That means you’re only paying $100 per year for full warranty coverage for an entire Garmin Perspective panel.

Even if that were true, what good is $100/year full warranty coverage for a Perspective panel if you bought an Avidyne G1 or G2 and instead bought a nice house or some cars with the difference, like the OP did?

If all this just boils down to discussing the comparable cost of swapping out an old 430 for an IFD or GTN box in an Avidyne G2, taking into account future repair/warranty costs, show me the Garmin repair and warranty data sheets. I can tell you the added cost of warranty coverage for my new IFD and DFC90 to go with my existing Avidyne PFD and MFD coverage was zero. How do you get an “order of magnitude” better than zero?

Bryan…when’s the launch event? [:D]

Can’t wait to hear more.

Thomas, I appreciate your perspective and you make some good points, but I do respectfully disagree with you. The Pilatus warranty situation is precisely comparable in my opinion. It is also for an annual renewal I believe and costs $20,000 on aircraft that cost their owners about 2-3 mm to purchase for comparably aged airframes. $20k on a $3 mm airframe is comparable (indeed a bit worse) than $1000 on a sub-300k airframe. In my view it’s exactly the same. Of course we are not flying Pilatus - but we are discussing a voluntary avionics warranty program for owners who are essentially captives of their avionics companies.

As a practicing lawyer for over 30 years, I also agree with you in disliking the indemnity provision. However, I’m also able to put it in “perspective” (if you’ll pardon the pun). I’m just not worried about it from either a legal or practical viewpoint (forgetting about enforceability for the moment). In the event you have injured or dead passengers (or their estates) suing people - they are going to sue everyone and that includes you or your estate. When was the last time you saw an NTSB report that pinned a crash on bad modern panel avionics vs the pilot, weather or the airframe? It’s just not a big deal or risk in my view. But I do agree that it looks bad and smells bad and if that’s enough for you to decide not to buy their products then that’s certainly your right. And you’re not alone in objecting to that. Icon has (or had) a similar provision in their sales contracts which is even more offensive to me since the airframe is much more likely to be a contributing cause than an avionics box.

Finally, all I can say is that I got terrific service from Avidyne under the Aeroplan warranty and on general support questions. I loved the products too. I also think their response to the OP is indicative of their positive approach to customer service. Where we differ is in whether we would recommend them to others and ultimately you would not because you don’t like the warranty pricing and the contract terms. Fair enough. But in fairness to them, they can’t spread their costs among as many boxes as Garmin can … and they are entitled to make some money off service so I have no issue with it. To each his own.

Garmin is great too - I fly with a G3X deck and a G3000 deck now and I love them. I’m not negative about Garmin at all. But I do think that competition in avionics is healthy and the plus side of owning an older Cirrus is that you can upgrade to different avionics without being captive to Cirrus or Garmin. So it’s really not a question of whether you are a captive - it’s a question of who will hold your strings and what are the costs and limitations.

Good discussion however - and for the OP, join COPA because this is exactly why it’s an awesome set of forums! Let us know how it works out with Avidyne. I’m
Looking forward to seeing what they come up with …

Cheers

I think you are right. And I think Thomas Daniel is right too.

My impression of the history is that Avidyne was terribly burned when they developed R9 with the presumption it would be the heir to the eight years of Entegra deliveries. R9 must have been a huge undertaking from engineering, manufacturing and certification (not necessarily in that order). For years, there were near zero R9 detractors. Most said the interface was far superior to Perspective. Some still say that, although Garmin keeps moving the bar forward.

Cirrus went with Garmin, possibly they thought it was smart and possibly because they were financially squeezed and a Garmin “partnership” provided a way forward. This likely devastated Avidyne, sitting on their brand-new R9 platform. Trying to face reality, Avidyne’s Plan B was to convince Entegra owners to upgrade to R9 for $80K or so. At a Migration in Duluth, an Avidyne rep told me with a completely straight face that they expected 80% of Cirrus Entegra owners to update to R9. Well, that didn’t work out. Plan C was to make Entegra support and maintenance as much of a profit center as they possibly could. Plan C begat several versions of service contracts, often very expensive and sometimes with draconian provisions. And they outsourced servicing to Extant, probably for the income THAT produced.

With the IFDs, Avidyne seems to have made it through to fight another day. Like Entegra and R9, everyone lauds the Jobs-class user interface. I celebrate Avidyne’s success of late. The more competition there is, the better off we will all be.

I was hoping to launch it by/at COPA Migration next week but we’re cutting it down to the wire with getting the web page completed.

I look forward to learning about the new “customer friendly” warranty program.

Rob

I have to say this much: I am impressed with Bryan’s response and obviously by extension Avidyne’s. We are lucky to have thoughtful and meaningful interaction on this forum with a key avionics vendor for our planes.

Also looking forward to seeing the new warranty and pricing structure. We are currently a couple of years out before renewal time for our bird, but watching this with interest.

Best,

Spiros

Me too. I’ve gone both with and without the warranty program, and the bottom line has been no significant financial difference; generally their display devices have been very solid, but when they do fail, it costs so much to repair them out of warranty that it all comes up even.

Making the warranty less expensive and less controversial as far as the legal language would likely cause more people to sign up. Making out of warranty repairs less outrageously priced would cause fewer people to think of the products as unreliable or long term unsupportable. Both are worthy goals.

I’d be willing to continue to pay the same warranty price if that money were going to develop replacement display technology and new features for the PFD and MFD.

An innovative way to accomplish this might be to have a program that provides discounts on these new products or releases for people who sign up for multi year warranty support for the existing ones. The longer the warranty, the bigger the discount. That would show a long term commitment on the part of the customer, provide funds for clean sheet development for a limited market, and show naysayers that Avidyne is committed to this business and this customer base. It’s not strictly speaking taking deposits or giving early adopter prices for buying in advance of availability, the latter of which have stained Avidyne in the past with delivery date promises it couldn’t meet. If product schedules lengthen, discounts continue to grow too, making it “worth the wait”.

Thanks, I’m hoping this will get me off no warranty camp as I have a lot of Avidyne gear!