No One Want to Sell Engines Any Longer?!?

ARFlyer

ARFlyer

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ARFlyer
I swear Lycoming is asleep at the wheel. I’ve been waiting over two weeks for an approval to order a rebuilt engine from them. Air Power has contacted them no less then two times and I have tried to contact them twice with no luck.

What the heck is going on ?!??? You’d think they’d be all over someone wanting to purchase an engine...
 
Actually not surprised.

I actually wonder why Textron hasn’t closed the door on them.
 
Times are tough in factories and factory offices. Pre-Covid I ordered a new Lycoming and was told 5-6 weeks to get. It took 11 months. I hear Continental is way behind right now, too.
 
I think there may be a run on engines lately. I know several planes that are all awaiting new or overhauled engines at the moment. All of that post COVID social distancing flying must have worn some out!
 
Probably a run combined with factory slow down due to Covid. We re-engined with a Lyco reman thru Air Power in late 2018, and we received the engine in 6 weeks from order.
 
Stewartb said:
Times are tough in factories and factory offices. Pre-Covid I ordered a new Lycoming and was told 5-6 weeks to get. It took 11 months. I hear Continental is way behind right now, too.
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Yeah we maybe going through the STC holder to get a factory new engine that they have sitting in the hanger.

A guy on the field got his 540 in about 8 weeks. Our quote from Air Power was a minimum of 9 weeks. So that falls in line with the other engine.
 
Bill Jennings said:
Probably a run combined with factory slow down due to Covid. We re-engined with a Lyco reman thru Air Power in late 2018, and we received the engine in 6 weeks from order.
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Yeah we can’t even place the order until we get approval Lycoming will accept the core as we’re switching variants.
 
ARFlyer said:
Yeah we can’t even place the order until we get approval Lycoming will accept the core as we’re switching variants.
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We switched as well. IO-360, we went from an A3B6D to the A3B6, and also went to roller tappets. They did accept our cour.
 
Bill Jennings said:
We switched as well. IO-360, we went from an A3B6D to the A3B6, and also went to roller tappets. They did accept our cour.
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We’re going from a A4A to a A4M as we have the 180HP STC. A4A seems to be the old school Bendix variant which isn’t sold any longer according to Air Power. They said Lycoming will most likely accept the core but they have to have the approval document in hand before they sell to us.
 
Lycoming being hit or miss on response/lead times factored into my decision to have my O-360-A4M overhauled rather than going with a rebuilt from Lycoming...
 
idahoflier said:
Lycoming being hit or miss on response/lead times factored into my decision to have my O-360-A4M overhauled rather than going with a rebuilt from Lycoming...
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Yeah unfortunately ours has almost 7000 hours on it. I ran the engine history and the oil reports past Americas in Tulsa and several other shops. Everyone had the same thought that our engine has a high likelihood of rejecting at inspection. At that point the cost to overhaul exceeds the cost of a rebuilt.

Another option is STC holder Air Plains as they have factory new engines in stock. That would add about 8k to the cost. I’ll give Lycoming another week to get back with Air Power before I start knocking down doors. Air Power has been extremely nice during all of this. They only know what they’ve been told by Lycoming which is that the employee that approves cores is out of the office.
 
My nephew is about to place an order for a factory new Lycoming that's almost identical to one I ordered a little over a year ago. They're saying 6 months after receipt of deposit and he'll pay nearly 25% more than I did. All indications are that business is pretty good.
 
Can't you just start the call with, "I'm with the FAA...."

and get a fire lit under them?
 
I’m curious, is it a logistics issue or just unusually high demand? I had the impression that Lycoming did some kind of exchange program where they have engines ready to ship out once they receive your old one, so the downtime was greatly reduced. Of course that all depends on being able to get a hold of them in the first place I suppose. :)
 
I have a O-320-nada just removed from my lancair I can sell you today, and way cheaper than new...:)
 
Ryanb said:
I’m curious, is it a logistics issue or just unusually high demand? I had the impression that Lycoming did some kind of exchange program where they have engines ready to ship out once they receive your old one, so the downtime was greatly reduced. Of course that all depends on being able to get a hold of them in the first place I suppose. :)
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Probably a little of both. I have no idea how their staffing or business practices work but buried in their site you can get a feel of there inventory by what engines can ship now. When I did that search a year ago it appeared they had very low inventory of ready to ship engines. The OP mentioned Air Planes have O-360-A4M's in stock. My guess is that Air Plains put in an order for a number of them and Lycoming produced that number and a few more for one off orders then went on to build some other model. If you hit it right and want an engine they are close to putting in production you have a small wait. If you miss a window then you likely have to wait a while until there is enough backlog to begin producing that model again. The rebuilt line may be similar? They probably produce a low number of new engines and staff accordingly and with such a large number of models it's no surprise there is a backlog.
 
Ryanb said:
I’m curious, is it a logistics issue or just unusually high demand? I had the impression that Lycoming did some kind of exchange program where they have engines ready to ship out once they receive your old one, so the downtime was greatly reduced.
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That's what their ad in Flying says.
 
idahoflier said:
Lycoming produced that number and a few more for one off orders then went on to build some other model.
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ive done the factory tour, it doesn't work that way... they make a mix of all models, depending on orders... there are no runs. Also, they discovered inventory costs money, so less of that than in the past as well. They don't even check avails before quoting. So you won't know true delivery time until after you order. Frustrating.
 
PaulMillner said:
ive done the factory tour, it doesn't work that way... they make a mix of all models, depending on orders... there are no runs. Also, they discovered inventory costs money, so less of that than in the past as well. They don't even check avails before quoting. So you won't know true delivery time until after you order. Frustrating.
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Interesting! How many people did they have assembling engines?
 
Update: It only took the VP of Sales at Air Power calling the VP of Lycoming to get our core approved! +1 for Air Power!!

I finally received a engine ship date this evening of Feb 9th. Looks like they’re running about 12 weeks which is about 4 weeks longer then our quote paperwork. Either way we have a brand new engine, cough rebuilt, heading our way!!

Our JPI 900 should be here sometime around Christmas.
 
Recession, what recession? Folks are throwing huge amounts of money at Lycoming for old school technology 4-bangers and they won’t even take the money....first world problems.
 
Johnbo said:
Recession, what recession? Folks are throwing huge amounts of money at Lycoming for old school technology 4-bangers and they won’t even take the money....first world problems.
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K-shaped society.
 
PaulMillner said:
ive done the factory tour, it doesn't work that way... they make a mix of all models, depending on orders... there are no runs. Also, they discovered inventory costs money, so less of that than in the past as well. They don't even check avails before quoting. So you won't know true delivery time until after you order. Frustrating.
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Yes .... on average they do about half new engines and half rebuilds at the factory.

Robinson helicopter has needed at least 8000 new engines since 1980 which has been good when the fixed wing sales are down.

Here is a fast paced look at the assembly line for those who have never taken the tour

 
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