PS Engineering PAR 200A--option for the 8.33 Upgrade folk? (also: warranty policy)

That came up here too and no doubt @mark will be here soon to comment on the warranty question

The “no warranty unless installed by an official dealer” is a common piece of disinformation – e.g. see here

My experience with PS stuff is that it is good.

Mark did indeed come back but only to advertise further and without any useful comment, so it was deleted.

PS Engineering doesn’t seem to be the kind of company that would cancel the warranty in case of non-dealer installations. In fact, they are even making installation easier for everyone by offering custom wiring harnesses.

I believe our warranty is the best in the business. Warranty exchanges, no need to send in for repair, I don’t know of any other avionics manufacture that provides this level of support.

To qualify for our ProSupport warranty, either a dealer performs the installation, a dealer makes your harness and becomes responsible for the technical support of the installation, or you purchase a custom wire harness from us, then of course we are responsible for installation technical support. Ours is probably the most expensive option due to shipping costs.

The audio panel is only as good as the quality of the installation. That’s why this is so important to us. Prior to this policy (2001) we were called every name in the book from “select” customers because our %@ product was crap. However, almost every single time we heard this, it was the installation at fault, not our product.

I hope this isn’t considered advertising, it is meant to be a description of our warranty policy.

Thank you.
Mark Scheuer
PS Engineering, Inc.

To qualify for our ProSupport warranty, either a dealer performs the installation, a dealer makes your harness and becomes responsible for the technical support of the installation, or you purchase a custom wire harness from us, then of course we are responsible for installation technical support. Ours is probably the most expensive option due to shipping costs.

@Mark do you offer any warranty if the installation was not done by a dealer?

We will ask the person who is calling about a problem with one of our products and really one of the first things we ask them is who built the harness? If is was a not an authorized PS Engineering or not our custom wire harness, it is virtually impossible for us to warrant our product because we have no clue how the harness was built.

However…..IF they are removing a GARMIN GMA340 (that is working properly) and Plug ’N Play our PMA8000 series or the PMA450A, then absolutely, the unit will have full warranty. This is because the installation was already completed and fully tested (assuming the GMA340 was working correctly.

Thanks Pete for asking the question, that did help me clarify a part of our warranty policy that has not been widely known.

Sincerely,
Mark

We will ask the person who is calling about a problem with one of our products and really one of the first things we ask them is who built the harness? If is was a not an authorized PS Engineering or not our custom wire harness, it is virtually impossible for us to warrant our product because we have no clue how the harness was built.

That’s nonsense! The harness is the wires which go to the back of the unit in the rack. You can factory test the unit and establish whether it is faulty or not. The original wiring is not relevant to whether you find it faulty or not. And if someone has connected +28V to one of the audio inputs and blown it up, then it will fail your factory test.

Avionics wiring is really easy. One has to be brain-dead to get it wrong, so setting aside the warranty because it wasn’t done by a dealer is IMHO very tight.

Thanks Pete for asking the question, that did help me clarify a part of our warranty policy that has not been widely known.

INDEED… No dealer installation = no warranty, in your case.

Am I missing something?

Peter, you wrote “You can factory test the unit and establish whether it is faulty or not”.

We perform 100% functionally testing in our repair station before they are shipped. They are a known, good quality unit, when they leave our doors. If an owner mis-wires the unit, and either destroys it or performs improperly, PS Engineering will be blamed, not the owner-installer (typically). Fact is, it’s almost always the installation. I found in my past experiences, owner-installers do not receive hearing that they wired it wrong. When we required either a dealer installation, dealer made harness, or a factory made harness we have nothing but happy customers now. Problem solved.

I love my job because of the satisfaction I get talking with our customers. At trade shows, even at AERO-Fredrichshafen, our customers will give us THUMBS UP or “you make the best stuff” or “love my PS audio panel”. Pilots who fly behind our panels become fans. We have created the best product, the best support, and the best warranty in the business. I don’t think our reputation as being the best in audio has reach Europe, and it might never happen. But here in the US, we are known as THE company to go to for audio products and that keeps our business growing every single year since 1985.

Here is a recap of what I wrote during the last hour on this thread.

1) Up until 2001 we did warrant products regardless who installed it, but had to stop the practice because we had so much costs associated to the repair of products that were damaged by the owner-installers along with a tremendous amount of time spent on the phone educating the owner-installer. It just wasn’t sustainable at the prices we were selling our products.
2) If customers have a GARMIN GMA340, then they will have our ProSupport warranty
3) We have the best warranty in the avionics business. Guaranteed same day warranty exchanges. Can you think of any other avionics company that does that?

Your statement "No dealer installation = no warranty in your case. Can you, or others, please tell me what avionics manufacture of certified avionics warrants their product regardless who installs it?

Peter, since you are the admin, would it be possible for you to poll your members and see if any one has had a failure of our products? And how if they did, how it was resolved? This should really tell you a lot about our products. Have you ever flown behind one of ours?

Honestly, I’m sure you are a great guy, but I get the feeling from your last post that I am not wanted here. Other forums that I participate I get a sense of appreciation. Having direct contact from someone from PS Engineering for technical support benefits everyone. In fact, GARMIN now has a person on Beechtalk, who is doing what I have done for many years.

Thank you.

Your presence here answering questions is appreciated, Mark. And I have been flying behind one of your boxes since 2002.

Can you, or others, please tell me what avionics manufacture of certified avionics warrants their product regardless who installs it?

That question comes up in various contexts. Generally the manufacturers like the answer to be “no dealer installation = no warranty”, or this may be expressed as “no dealer = STC not valid”. I can’t speak for the USA but here in Europe both of these are illegal. The 2nd one is generally invalid anyway – see e.g. here.

The other side to this is that the European avionics installer situation is truly dire. Read EuroGA regularly and you will see so many people asking questions which really should be sorted by any competent avionics shop, but this isn’t happening. Here, most shops are no more than wiremen, following wiring diagrams. Obviously I can’t expect a manufacturer like you to agree with this but it is a widespread aircraft owner experience. Consequently many aircraft owners here rely on non-dealer installers. And why not – avionics is not rocket science! The IMs are online and it is really easy to work it out, especially for an audio panel. There are loads of electronics engineers around (I am one of them) especially in Eastern Europe but very few avionics installers are electronics engineers.

The bottom line is that requiring a dealer to install anything, for the warranty be valid, or even to be able to buy the box in the first place, is a restrictive trade practice.

would it be possible for you to poll your members and see if any one has had a failure of our products?

I would think very few failures would be reported (see the random avionics internals thread) for various reasons, one of which is your good build quality, another one is preservation of a relationship with the installer, etc, but that is a different question to restricting the warranty to authorised dealers.

or a factory made harness

A custom wiring harness such as those you offer for a few hundred $ does nothing for connecting the other end incorrectly. Why does the purchase of one of these preserve your warranty? The harness is only the connector(s) with some flying leads coming out of them.

In fact, GARMIN now has a person on Beechtalk, who is doing what I have done for many years.

I know, but then Beechtalk has a strict policy on criticism of vendors – they all advertise there. The advert revenue pays for 24/7 moderator employment. And neither Garmin nor Avidyne do any participation here in Europe. They occassionally pop up on a forum and then vanish for a few months. They would earn big credits if they participated, but they don’t.