Today I received a letter from a person claiming to represent the “Cirrus Owners Alliance” asking for cirrus owners to participate in a survey about earlier than anticipated engine overhauls. He claims many owners have had to do engine overhauls much earlier than the 2,000-2,400 hours Continental suggests. This was my case. The engine was sent for inspection after a prop-strike. Continental did not find any damage related to the prop-strike itself, but claimed I was required to do “wear and tear” related repairs before they could send the engine back for operation. The repairs were almost half of an overhaul cost. So, I took the decision of doing the overhaul with just 1,100 hours instead of paying for those repairs just to do an overhaul again 1,000 hours later. After reading the letter, it made me think that those “wear and tear” repairs may be more common than I thought, and could be related to deficiencies in the manufacturing process rather than true “wear and tear”.
I look forward to read your opinions. Have others received a similar letter and has anybody hear about the “Cirrus Owners Alliance”?