Aveo Engineering - Great Post Warranty Support

jacobsja

Disclaimer: I will gladly share the overall experience, while at the same time am deliberately holding back on some specifics like actual cost and names. Reason is that prices, policies, and names change over time and I do not want anybody influencing a supplier based on a snapshot in time, especially on price.

Am happy to report that when it comes to LED nav lights, Aveo Engineering is standing behind their products.

Scenario is that I recently went through a pre-purchase and the 6 year old LED nav lights were flagged as questionable based on opaqueness of the lens. The warranty period had long passed, so I had no expectation of a free replacement and new units are rather expensive. At the same time, if this was normal I did not want to get stuck in an expensive loop even if the seller would adjust the price downward.

Here is a nav light photo taken during the pre-purchse:

First instinct was to post a picture on the forums to gather experiences of others. Final decision was to contact the manufacturer first.

Sent an E-mail on a Friday afternoon which included the above photo and serial numbers of both nav / strobe lights. Did not realize that Aveo Engineering's corporate support was in Europe which by that time was closed for the weekend. Did not expect a response that day anyway. The next Monday morning I got a call from Aveo Engineering's US facility as my E-mail was forwarded by the European HQ. Conversation with the US rep was very informative and included direct phone and E-mail.

Turned out that the installed units required periodic maintenance where details were included with the new product packaging. Maintenance seemed fairly straight forward as it was no different than the type of buffing required for current car headlights: see yellow / hazing, buff yellow / hazing out. But, it was also obvious that the previous owners did not do the maintenance. There was commentary where Aveo had seen this generation of lens turn opaque when exposed to a significant amount of sunlight such as near the equator, but in this case it was from simple lack of maintenance.

Fortunately, Aveo Engineering decided to change the manufacturing process and their new LED nav lights do NOT need any maintenance. This was good to hear as it eliminated my concern of the expensive replacement cycle.

The awesome news was that even though the plane's nav lights were long out of warranty, and that their required maintenance was not performed, Aveo Engineering offered a warranty upgrade. All I had to do was return the existing nav lights (and make sure that the serial numbers were visible) along with a check for a nominal amount (reminder, am not going to detail actual price, but will go so far as to state that it was definitely NOT current retail), and upon receipt Aveo Engineering would send a set of NEW maintenance-free units.

After the phone call with Aveo Engineering, I touched base with the seller to go over the pre-purchase squawk list. When the nav lights came up, the seller initally balked due to replacement cost of new units (and that I had already negotiated the price down a bit). Once I relayed Aveo Engineering's warranty upgrade offer, it was a done-deal as the seller quickly agreed to take care of the replacement.

Here is a photo of the nav lights when I took delivery of the plane:

While recognizing that corporate attitudes change over time, Aveo Engineering is currently providing outstanding support for their products and a factor to consider when looking at making an expensive upgrade. Sometimes a product's price is only part of the justification to buy.

Scott Sherer

Great story about a great company. Thanks for posting it!