Actually, I'll post it. Who cares.
I'm near Pitts. Less than an hour actually. I flew to Premier Avionics in Fort Wayne IN for both my autopilot install and my dual G5 install.
First off, let me get this out of the way. I understand that "if you want it done right, do it yourself". I understand that no one will treat your baby the way YOU treat your baby. So I think it's irrational to expect absolutely perfect service.
Here's the good.
The AP install went smoothly and came out nearly perfect. The only gripe I had is they "forgot" to give me a panel mount "mode select" switch. They gave me AP disconnect and Alt hold switches, but not the mode select, which comes with the kit. So I had to use the button on the gauge itself. This is actually pretty annoying. Maybe knock 5 points off of a 100 score.
They were happy to drop what they were doing and answer my questions, of which I called sometimes multiple times per day. Stumbling into the 21st century with avionics was hard for me. I had a MILLION questions. They handled them w/o the slightest frustration. This doesn't sound like a big deal, but I've called this shop probably 100 times in two months with 30 second questions. Both the owner and the avionics manager are very nice and will talk to you all day long.
Price was very competitive to other shops. Some were nearly twice as much.
Here's the bad.
My latest work was a Dual G5 install, FlightStream 210, 400W install. That's a fair amount of work. They knocked it out in 3 weeks right during xmas holiday. There weren't really any delays, just the expected vacations and time off during the holidays. 3 weeks is more than fair.
Upon picking it up, I found a lot of crooked stuff. A small subpanel piece that holds some switches was way crooked. My one G5 was crooked. I found a crossthreaded air fitting behind the G5. The silicone around the WAAS antenna is not cleanly applied.
They pulled my venturis off the side of the plane since no more vac system. The resultant cover-up plates they installed don't look right or good. They're an eyesore. The white doesn't match the white on my plane. HOWEVER, there wasn't much they could do here. This is a literal band-aid that was going to look bad no matter what. I can't really blame them for this. I think I am going to put the venturis back on as cosmetic-only displays.
Due to the holidays, I had two or three techs working on this major project. I would have much preferred just one guy, sticking to the job the entire time. This may be par for course for all shops, though.
Back to the good.
That was a LOT of work, with some brand new tech, to get all talking to each other. And they got it right on the first go. The only thing I adjusted was the GPSS gain to stop overshooting waypoints. But they admitted the G5 HSI is so new that there was no way for them to know the best setting. I am actually blown away that they *were* able to get six different devices to talk to each other w/o any hiccups whatsoever.
Minus the crossthreaded air fitting, the wiring looks pretty clean and organized.
