Garmin policy

[turbotrk]

Hi guys, I would like to ask your opinion about garmin behavior regarding GNS 430 assistance. A few years ago they decided that anybody who owns a gns 430 will not be able anymore to upgrade to terrain or get his unit repaired unless upgrading to waas. If I don't get it wrong they don't like the fact that many peaple don't upgrade to GTN and keep buying second hand gns 430 to replace old radios and nav. So what they say is: We want your money wether you will upgrade to GTN or you will remain on GNS we will make it impossible for you to keep using your old unit unless you spend at least 3000$. Now do you think this is a good policy and should we thrust garmin for the future? My old King KMD150 will still get assistance and also many old instruments made by Bendix King, goodrich and others who are involved in aviation by much longer than garmin.

Who knows, maybe in the future they will make new units that will autodestroy if you don't pay for the bribe when they ask you to. 

[KSMooniac]

I believe their repair policy regarding the non-W units was entirely related to the lack of spare parts to support repairs.  The W units got an entirely new/different circuit board IIRC, and they still have spares for these, for now at least.  Remember these debuted almost 20 years ago, which is several eternities in the life cycle of modern electrical components.  I'm sure many of these are long out of production and there is a finite supply sitting in boxes at Garmin, and eventually those will be gone.

Many of the much older avionics are supportable since common items like resistors and capacitors fail, and are easily replaced.  When an 20 year old IC chip fails, sometimes nothing can be done.

Try finding a TV repair shop today...same issue.  Old TV's consisted of many common components that were replaceable, and modern ones do not have much that can be replaced.  I just wish a modern GPS/com box cost the same as a new TV...

[N9453V]

24 minutes ago, turbotrk said:

Hi guys, I would like to ask your opinion about garmin behavior regarding GNS 430 assistance. A few years ago they decided that anybody who owns a gns 430 will not be able anymore to upgrade to terrain or get his unit repaired unless upgrading to waas. If I don't get it wrong they don't like the fact that many peaple don't upgrade to GTN and keep buying second hand gns 430 to replace old radios and nav. So what they say is: We want your money wether you will upgrade to GTN or you will remain on GNS we will make it impossible for you to keep using your old unit unless you spend at least 3000$. Now do you think this is a good policy and should we thrust garmin for the future? My old King KMD150 will still get assistance and also many old instruments made by Bendix King, goodrich and others who are involved in aviation by much longer than garmin.

Who knows, maybe in the future they will make new units that will autodestroy if you don't pay for the bribe when they ask you to. 

The reason is simply they no longer have repair parts for the non-WAAS 430. They can still do all repairs for the WAAS 430.

-Andrew

[DAVIDWH]

Say what you will about Garmin, when you call aviation tech support, a real person with real knowledge answers the phone.

 

[turbotrk]

I can tell you for sure that a big avionic center in Germany repairs such units and will do it for the future, garmin does not even offer the opportunity to update the navigation database, in fact you have to do it through jeppesen. Also terrain upgrade boards are over? So you are telling me that probably in 20 years if you have 60.000$ avionics like gtn 750-650 and g600 or even better 100.000$ G1000 you will have to throw it away?

[jetdriven]

We had a big discussion this morning about this.  Some of these 430 and 530 boxes are going on 19 years old.  I know there are 100K of them out there, but I feel that eventually they can't get parts from their suppliers and they will say after this date, no more servicing these boxes.  Trek said as much on BT, that they will continue to support GNS navigators until suppliers can't supply parts, then they will do a group buy of remaining stock then that's it.  

I can't see them supporting these units past, about 2026 or so. They've already done this to the GNC series, and the 28V GNS. King no longer makes displays for anything they had, and so on..

however, the other persons counterpoint to my argument was that Garmin would be foolish to kill repairs on the GNS series, for fear of outraging their customers.  They'll force suppliers to make parts for the next 15 years at least. 

I think once you completely own the GA market, you can indeed kill off the old products, in fact, it may be advantageous to do so. They will have to buy new ones, and you're the only one making new ones. This is very common in GA, look at Lycoming and their 60K new IO360, the Beechcraft 3700$ strobe power supply or 10k elevator skin, or the lower cheek cowls for the 172RG, 60 grand for two when it's geared up.  Manufacturers actively seeking to end economic usefulness for aircraft through repair and parts prices  

So, anyways, it's all speculation, but when is a Garmin 530W going to be non-supported? My guess is 8-10 years from right now... But it's just a guess, and I said this 5 years ago too.....

 

 

 

Edited May 19, 2016 by jetdriven

[N201MKTurbo]

But you can still get your 50 year old KX170 repaired. And it will still take you anywhere you want to go.

[KSMooniac]

21 minutes ago, turbotrk said:

I can tell you for sure that a big avionic center in Germany repairs such units and will do it for the future, garmin does not even offer the opportunity to update the navigation database, in fact you have to do it through jeppesen. Also terrain upgrade boards are over? So you are telling me that probably in 20 years if you have 60.000$ avionics like gtn 750-650 and g600 or even better 100.000$ G1000 you will have to throw it away?

I believe you've always had to buy nav data thru Jepp... which is an outrage as well. 

[turbotrk]

1 minute ago, jetdriven said:

We had a big discussion this morning about this.  Some of these 430 and 530 boxes are going on 19 years old.  I know there are 100K of them out there, but I feel that eventually they can't get parts from their suppliers and they will say after this date, no more servicing these boxes.  I can't see them supporting these units past, about 2026 or so. They've already done this to the GNC series, and the 28V GNS. King no longer makes displays for anything they had, and so on..

however, the other persons counterpoint to my argument was that Garmin would be foolish to kill repairs on the GNS series, for fear of outraging their customers.  They'll force suppliers to make parts for the next 15 years at least. 

I think once you completely own the GA market, you can indeed kill off the old products, in fact, it may be advantageous to do so. They will have to buy new ones, and you're the only one making new ones. This is very common in GA, look at Lycoming and their 60K new IO360, the Beechcraft 3700$ strobe power supply or 10k elevator skin, or the lower cheek cowls for the 172RG, 60 grand for two when it's geared up.  Manufacturers actively seeking to end economic usefulness for aircraft through repair and parts prices  

So, anyways, it's all speculation, but when is a Garmin 530W going to be non-supported? My guess is 8-10 years from right now  

 

 

 

I agree with you, but things are changing and new avionics layouts are made of all in one systems wich are much more expensive. If your radio fails you can easily replace it with another one, maybe newer costing 2500$, but when a G600 or G1000 will fail with no spare parts available what will be the cost? GA is suffering a big crysis and maybe they can kill old avionics but also many airplane owners that won't be able to afford anymore such upgrades. A stupid GTN 750 is 14.000$ although it is not able to do 1/10th of what my ipad does. 

[jetdriven]

Can your iPad steer your autopilot to minimums on an LPV approach? Does it transmit with 10w of COM power? Does it recieve the ILS and show needles for that?  

The iPad may display lots of weather, approach plates, and traffic, but its not a replacement for a GPS NAV COM

[jetdriven]

28 minutes ago, N201MKTurbo said:

But you can still get your 50 year old KX170 repaired. And it will still take you anywhere you want to go.

Ive got two of them, but both have been to the shop in the past 2 years, the glideslope is flaky, it only recieves 9 miles out and its going to cost a grand to find out why but I suspect its the Glideslope reciever, or the KI-211 indicator, both of  which is are not procurable or repairable.

[Godfather]

I think the waas upgrade was around $1500-1800 when the program was started.  Very reasonable and made the unit more responsive.  They provided this service for pilots as a low profit endeavor and I for one appreciated the capabilities it added.

 

So as a recap you purchased and installed two 20 year old computerized boxes secondhand and instead of charging you $1k to fix the box Garmin is charging you $3k to replace most of the internals, add tons of capability, and increase the value of the unit by at least $2k???

[turbotrk]

2 minutes ago, jetdriven said:

Can your iPad steer your autopilot to minimums on an LPV approach? Does it transmit with 10w of COM power? Does it recieve the ILS and show needles for that?  

The iPad may display lots of weather, approach plates, and traffic, but its not a replacement for a GPS NAV COM

Ils , and COM transmission is old staff. My ipad does not make coffee but think about tecnology involved, what is revolutionary on on gtn units, touch screens? Multicolor displays? 

An ipad if interfaced with an autopilot could do it without problems , all you have to do is make a crap interface, but it would not be certifyed. Due to certification requirements aviation is always 10 years late compared to other markets. A gtn 750 is in real life old tecnology not worth 14.000$.

 

 

[PTK]

57 minutes ago, turbotrk said:

...A stupid GTN 750 is 14.000$ although it is not able to do 1/10th of what my ipad does. 

Really?!

2 hours ago, turbotrk said:

...should we thrust garmin for the future? ...

Who else are you going to trust?

[turbotrk]

Just now, Godfather said:

I think the waas upgrade was around $1500-1800 when the program was started.  Very reasonable and made the unit more responsive.  They provided this service for pilots as a low profit endeavor and I for one appreciated the capabilities it added.

 

So as a recap you purchased and installed two 20 year old computerized boxes secondhand and instead of charging you $1k to fix the box Garmin is charging you $3k to replace most of the internals, add tons of capability, and increase the value of the unit by at least $2k???

I had one 430 from my old a/c, I bought the second on ebay for 3600$. Garmin asked me for 2700€ (not $) x 2 to upgrade to waas. EU regulations required 8.33 radios to fly ifr starting from 2014 and I needed to replace old radios with something else like KX165 8.33 that was not easy to find and costed 4000$. Waas in europe is almost useless so I decided to spend money on air data computer and altitude pre-selector as well as slide in replacement audio panel pac24 found on ebay for 500$ and mode S transponder.

[turbotrk]

Just now, Godfather said:

I think the waas upgrade was around $1500-1800 when the program was started.  Very reasonable and made the unit more responsive.  They provided this service for pilots as a low profit endeavor and I for one appreciated the capabilities it added.

 

So as a recap you purchased and installed two 20 year old computerized boxes secondhand and instead of charging you $1k to fix the box Garmin is charging you $3k to replace most of the internals, add tons of capability, and increase the value of the unit by at least $2k???

I had one 430 from my old a/c, I bought the second on ebay for 3600$. Garmin asked me for 2700€ (not $) x 2 to upgrade to waas. EU regulations required 8.33 radios to fly ifr starting from 2014 and I needed to replace old radios with something else like KX165 8.33 that was not easy to find and costed 4000$. Waas in europe is almost useless so I decided to spend money on air data computer and altitude pre-selector as well as slide in replacement audio panel pac24 found on ebay for 500$ and mode S transponder.

[Godfather]

Wow, you are really making Garmin look like a hero...they did not even try to take advantage of the exchange rate.  Since you are a great deal finder go find another 430 and try your luck with that unit. 

[turbotrk]

1 minute ago, PTK said:

Just now, Godfather said:

Wow, you are really making Garmin look like a hero...they did not even try to take advantage of the exchange rate.  Since you are a great deal finder go find another 430 and try your luck with that unit. 

USA is a much greater market than EU, I can tell you that I was lucky to buy my second 430 because at the time prices were much lower and also 1€ was 1.36$. Now it would cost much more and anyway for each product we have to pay at least 25% extra cost for taxes. Not many gtn sold here in italy due to crysis. I know about that everybody here is looking for desperately a cheap 430 to upgrade to 8.33. In the next 2 years no more flying without 8.33 and mode S. Very few peaple here can afford to spend 20.000€ for a gtn 750 to be installed and fly happy with an Ipad on their knee. Anyway do you really think I was a stupid to buy a 430 for 3600$ instead of a kx165 for 4000$? Or an altitude pre selector for 700$? Or pac 24 for 500$? An Air data computer for 800$? Better to give 5000€ to garmin instead of all the other options?

 

[kortopates]

Regarding "WAAS in Europe is almost useless"

I thought you folks have been getting EGNOS (your equivalent to WAAS that's compatible with WAAS receivers) deployed everywhere by 2016 and supposedly LPV deployed by 2018. I know it's been slow coming to you, but isn't the capability growing rapidly at this point?

As for the policy, I have been very satisfied. I had Dual GNS430 installed before WAAS was available but Garmin promised us all to upgrade them within a couple days turn around time for discounted $1500 each - for a limited time of about a year or more. They were true to their promise including a new warranty of some kind. Only those that didn't do it while Garmin was set up to do the upgrades in mass forfeited the discount upgrade price and had to pay the $3K - which of course was factored in your used market price.

Navigation Data for the GNS series had always been through Jepp - they are the originators of the data after all. Garmin didn't really get into the data side till the GTN series and can really only do it when you subscribe to updates for everything - which I have always felt is superfluous. Scorched terrain doesn't change that much and honestly I don't fly low enough to be concerned about obstacles. Anyway, data cost are what they are and not really do to Garmin but Jepp.

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[N201MKTurbo]

None of this will change until the FAA relaxes the certification standards. When any mom and pop electronics company can produce avionics and get them certified for a reasonable amount of money, the world will be flooded with extremely reliable and capable avionics for a reasonable cost. and if they are not reliable the market will reject them faster then the FAA can write an AD.

[turbotrk]

7 minutes ago, turbotrk said:

 

 

[turbotrk]

Just now, N201MKTurbo said:

None of this will change until the FAA relaxes the certification standards. When any mom and pop electronics company can produce avionics and get them certified for a reasonable amount of money, the world will be flooded with extremely reliable and capable avionics for a reasonable cost. and if they are not reliable the market will reject them faster then the FAA can write an AD.

I perfectly agree with you!

[Godfather]

Nice looking panel!  I have to admit that I did not realize the waas (or similar) approaches are not available in the EU.  I understand why you just want a working unit.

[turbotrk]

Just now, Godfather said:

Nice looking panel!  I have to admit that I did not realize the waas (or similar) approaches are not available in the EU.  I understand why you just want a working unit.

I'm happy you like the work done 

[gsengle]

It's not like there isn't finally competition for the upgrade of all those 430 and 530s. Frankly the slide in Avidyne units are looking good...

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