Is that legal?
Of course you can go to any shop, the FAA/EASA approved part of the MM does not require you to do it at specific places. However, it wouldn't be smart at all to not go to Cirrus during the warranty period. There typically are a lot of expensive warranty issues with a Cirrus and certainly do not want to argue every time whether it was caused by some shop or a fault of the airplane. For the same reason you wouldn't take your brand new Mercedes S class to some independent garage for service.
PS: I do 50h/100h checks completely on my own, only need the shop for the annual in case something above my pay grade is broken.
OK that's very true.
But let's say you are stuck in some remote place and need something fixed. Cirrus cannot possibly insist on a Cirrus dealer fixing it.
I am still puzzled about the 100hr checks, especially on a G-reg.
Peter, actually i think it is the best thing to do. I never even think about bringing it to another shop than Cirrus. They know these planes better than others (RGV maintains 70 UK Cirrus aircraft). They have many parts on stock and if not then they can get them overnight.
Well, the Cirrus maintenance manual says that 50 and 100 hour inspections have to be done. Since I normally don't fly +100 h/year (plus some h in the other plane) i have one 50 h insp. and one combined annual/100. Okay for me.
Achim, many expensive warranty issues? That's new to me. There have been some sw updates for the G1000 and some minor stuff but i have not heard much more than that. Mechanically there's very little wrong with the later planes.
Your Cirrus is not new so those issues were likely resolved before your time. I knew several guys with factory new Cirrus aircraft and there was quite a bit of warranty work done on each. That is fairly normal, I had the very same thing with my BMW. Took them a year and a half to iron out the issues but I always got nice rental cars 
The remote island situation needs a case by case analysis. It might make sense to fly in a mechanic you can trust instead of trying to resolve it locally. It might also make sense to disassemble the engine yourself and fix the problem with your mechanic on the phone 
Hi Achim, as a journalist i have been working the Cirrus topic for 18 years now (in 95 they let me fly the first prototype)... but i was never aware of any very expensive warranty repairs. Just the normal stuff, like on all airplanes.
Hey, the last 5 Mercedes cars my company bought had zero warranty repairs, really nothing. Actually almost no repairs at all. Oil change, brake pads, new discs after two years... that's it (c350CDI, E350CDI, S500, C220CDI)
cars my company bought had zero warranty repairs
Do you think they'd have told you?
You normally only find out whether there were any warranty repairs if you have access to their support database.
I know because I am a Mercedes dealer myself. And I have access to the database.
But it's not completely correct what I wrote. The 7-speed automatic transmissions got a software update (still not perfect under certain circumstances)
The 7-speed automatic transmissions got a software update
When I read that, it's time to jump off a cliff.
Why?
