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Tosten Grips

Roy Thoma

Well Known Member
I have Tosten CS-8 grips in N174RT. I'm happy with the ergonomics and functionality of the grips. Sometime last year my electric aileron trim stopped responding to commands from my left stick grip to roll right. I pulled the seat pans looking for an issue and did not find a problem so I concluded the hat switch had failed. I sent a note to Tosten asking about repair or replacement. Kevin Williamson replied that he would repair my 8 or 9 year old grip if I sent it to him. He also offered to fix it in my plane if I could stop in Carlsbad. Since I did not look forward to pulling the grip out of the plane, I arranged to fly to Carlsbad after we left Rosamond while Capt Sandy drove the Van & Airstream north.

I flew to Carlsbad to met Kevin on Easter Sunday. We had a nice visit while he took the grip apart in the plane and replaced EVERYTHING with new updated parts. Then the trim STILL did not respond to roll right commands. I felt both dumb for miss diagnosing the problem and bad that Kevin gave up part of his Easter Sunday afternoon to give me a new grip for a problem that I did not have.

This week I pulled the seat pans (again) and traced the red wire as Kevin suggested. Found the red wire broken at a dsub pin! Easy fix.

Kevin was VERY gracious. Genuinely seemed very happy to meet me and to work on my plane. He was sorry that the problem was not fixed. I can't say enough positive things about the great experience and support I got from Kevin and Tosten manufacturing.

Kevin's pup Lexi helped keep us entertained while Kevin worked replaced the grip.

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Kevin is a good guy, and he really does go out of the way to take care of customers. Even stopped by to do a personal delivery when I bought the grips.

I had his grips in our RV10, and got a very similar treatment when I decided to upgrade the right grip to the CS8.

The Rans S21 is getting his grips also.
 
They're awesome grips, I agree. They have a "military-like" feel, without the military look of the Infinity grips (which is fine if you've got a military paint scheme/theme going on, but a little out-of-place when the rest of the plane is non-military looking). I'm glad to hear that service down the road will be a positive experience. :)
 
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