What's the Catch?
By now, you are probably wondering what's the catch. How can we offer
instruments at less than half the price of comparable products?
And how can anyone sell a newly overhauled aircraft engine for
a little over $6,000 and guarantee it for 500 hours? Not only
that but we actually put things in writing instead of insisting
on "phone call warranties." We even put our address on our site
unlike some folks who only offer a mail drop address on their
site!
Well, it's pretty amazing what the right mission statement can do. Since
we set out to design products that we could sell at an affordable
price, we only offer products that meet this criteria. We have
designed numerous prototypes that we simply could not sell affordably
and you will never see these (unless one day
we will open a museum of loss leaders and prototype artifacts).
On the other hand, we did find several opportunities for manufacturing
reliable parts that we could sell at a much
lower cost than other
sources. These are the products you will find on offer.
As for our rebuilt Corvair engine, we are so confident about the quality
of our work that our guarantee is for one year or 500 hours,
whichever comes first. One
of the reasons for aircraft engines having relatively shorter
time warranties than car engines is that there is tremendous
variation in usage and maintenance. If you fly your aircraft
like a daredevil, then pull the throttle to idle on your approach
to save a few bucks in fuel, you're probably shock-cooling
the engine and its lifespan will be significantly curtailed.
This is true of any aircraft engine. And, if you abuse your engine,
then return it to us, we will NOT repair it for free! If you
continue to fly when your oil temperature is spiking at 300 degrees
and suddenly discover the bearings are shot, we consider this
outside of our guarantee -- a bit like dropping your computer
from the roof and expecting the manufacturer to give you a new
one.
Secondly, if our engine does start giving you problems in a couple of
years' time, you can probably rebuild it yourself for a few hundred
bucks and our Rebuilding
Guide (included with every engine). It should not cost you thousands
of dollars like a certificated engine. Finally, we do insist
on your providing a complete installation description and photographs
to activate
your guarantee. We will review what you send us and may make
recommendations to ensure the best results for your installation.
As pilots, we think that this is a reasonable warranty. You can always
buy a used Continental and hope for the best without any guarantee
or you can purchase a Jabiru with a similar warranty as us but
at more than twice the price. Your choice. And that's the catch.
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