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How long should Vans support a kit?

How long should Vans support a kit?

  • 3-5 Years

    Votes: 2 2.0%
  • 5-10 Years

    Votes: 5 5.0%
  • 10-20 Years

    Votes: 9 8.9%
  • More than 20 Years

    Votes: 31 30.7%
  • Until kit sales decline

    Votes: 23 22.8%
  • I never thought about it when I bought my kit

    Votes: 31 30.7%

  • Total voters
    101

bkervaski

Hellloooooooo!
Testing
Time gives way to advances in technology, machinery, methods, and materials. New kits become easier to build and maintain and designs simplified.

How long is "long enough" to maintain parts and kits?

When you bought your kit, what was your expectation?
 
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Another option would be:

x years after a subsequent model is introduced

i.e. 5 years for the RV-4 after the RV-8 shipped.

Understanding that there will be quire a bit of emotion around that discussion with no correct answer. But I think that 20+ years is more than fare.

I also don't believe that will impact RV-4 and RV-6 pricing. The price hits have already occurred many years ago.
 
Between this poll and the other thread I'm worried we are getting ourselves all worked up over something that is honestly beyond our control.

Vans is in business to make a profit. They are providing notice that there is a change that may impact some % of clients. Even so, they still were pledging to continue to support these models, but warning that there may be cost increases or longer lead times. (Most likely just passing on increased production costs for low volume parts).

Honestly even if everyone voted +20 years, Vans has FAR exceeded support for the kits they are impacting. (Support will continue, just at a potential higher cost / longer lead time)
1971 RV-3 (46 years)
1980 RV-4 (37 years)
1986 RV-6 (31 years)

I think I understand why these threads were being locked the other day.
 
Vans is in business to make a profit.

^^^ this x 1000

The poll is just for fun and to see what people expected. I have a hunch how the results will look if people are honest with themselves ;)
 
Between this poll and the other thread I'm worried we are getting ourselves all worked up over something that is honestly beyond our control.

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Hard to say. They probably already go well past the point where less customer oriented companies might have withdrawn support for their oldest designs based on purely economic grounds. The fact that Vans will still produce old parts to order, even though you (quite reasonably) will have to pay more for them and may have to wait a while, is highly commendable.
 
Poll is bad because it uses a generic term - "support" - which means different things to different people.

Does support mean "provides individual kits"?
Does support mean "provides spare parts"?
Does support mean "answers questions about the design for 3rd/4th/5th owners?"
Does support mean "provides service bulletin notices and associated repair kits when applicable?"

...and incidentally, Van's announcement would seem to imply only a time/cost change without change to any of the above listed items.

Lots of hand-wringing going on here lately.
 
@ChiefPilot For the purposes of this poll "support" encapsulates everything you listed or anything you want. Cast your vote!

It's not supposed to be accurate or official, just interesting to see what people think.

It's trending pretty much as expected.
 
exactly, what is support. vans has alwas been number 1 in customer support. the tail kit for the 6 has not been available for years, they are now just scaling back the rest of it. this latest news is a big change for them, this time they just cut the 3 and 4 at one time. there could be someone that just ordered a 4 tail kit last week and now this comes out. that is a big change in business practice. I have to assume that van feels that it is the way they must go to be profitable.

I would be much more comfortable if they has said they were no longer shipping tail kits and would scale back production runs and that the other kits could face longer times as they would only run them when sales numbers reached a certain level. but it sounds like they plan to clean out inventory and that's it for part except for one off parts when the inventory is gone. I can imagine that the prices for formed and heat treated part like a wing rib will go not just up, but sky high. if thats the case i predict that hull coverage will very soon be an issue.

i wish that they would look at the possibility of just cutting the number of parts in inventory to things that require forming, machining and heat treating. i have no problem with having to cut a wing skin to size, but i really dont have the equipment to form and heat treat wing ribs.

bob burns
rv-4 N82RB
 
Poll is bad because it uses a generic term - "support" - which means different things to different people.

Does support mean "provides individual kits"?
Does support mean "provides spare parts"?
Does support mean "answers questions about the design for 3rd/4th/5th owners?"
Does support mean "provides service bulletin notices and associated repair kits when applicable?"

...and incidentally, Van's announcement would seem to imply only a time/cost change without change to any of the above listed items.

Lots of hand-wringing going on here lately.

as i have said before, it the wording of the release that worries me, using words like, Spare parts will also remain available as supplies last. However, once depleted, parts may still remain available, does not give me a good feeling.

bob burns
 
Obviously Vans is a private, for-profit business and it's success depends on many factors. It would be nice if Vans supported their kits for ever as it takes significant time just to get to the first flight stage. This is quite different than a manufacture of a finished product like a Chevy or Cessna. However, Vans has to do what's right for the company. Success of the company is more important than anything one product they make and/or stock. Ultimately they will decide what's best for the company. Whatever that looks like will be what we have to work with despite our desires.

Bevan
 
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Whoa! The race is tightening up! Didn't expect this:

More than 20 Years - 25.64%

Now did you guys really "expect" your kit to have support for more than 20 years or is that just how you feel about it now due to the announcement?
 
. . . . see what people expected.

I expect zero!
Vans product and support are already way past anything else in his business. Van has to make desicions that are right for Van.

Since original poll question was what did I expect when I bought the plane? I HOPED at least until I was done building, I expected nothing. When I started building there were several kit/plans companies that closed and left their builders out in the cold with some builder groups were even trying to buy up company asserts, if I remember right.
 
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FOREVER

As a builder of a Christen Eagle II with my father (I fly the plane we build in the 80's) and now building an RV10 with my family I expect lifelong support. Christen Industries was sold and is now owned by Aviat, there is continued support for the Eagle which just turned 40 and only 1 kit sold in the last 5 years that we know of. There is a catch, pricing. Aviat's price for the Christen Eagle is nearly $220,000 for the KITS ONLY, then add engine, avionics and paint. The original Eagle kit WITH an AEIO-360 was $26,000 back in the 80's. So they will support the eagle owners forever, but at a price. If someone orders the aileron kit (orignially $400 and now over 2K) they know they will have to produce the rest of the kits. The Eagle is not the money maker for Aviat (the husky is) but they will never retire an iconic aircraft or leave their customers behind.
 
supply and demand. I can buy a new brass radiator for my 1915 Ford Model T if I want to pay $1500. However not from Ford Motor Co. Van's or someone else will continue to provide parts as long as it makes sense.
 
The parts are not difficult to make and many of the hardware parts are used on the other models. I don't see a problem supporting the older models for the life of VAN's Aircraft company.
When I switched from a Mazda turbo rotary engine to a Lycoming O-360, I found out that VAN's does not stock conical engine mounts. I had a 2 week lead time. He ordered it from a fabricator in Tacoma WA after I ordered it.
That's the way it goes with obsolete parts, and I was pleased with the service. I think he should support all the models, although I don't expect him to maintain parts on the shelf.
I do expect the parts I order to be put in line for manufacture, and I expect to pay a premium for rare, seldom sold parts.
Consider how good the RV-3, RV-4 and RV-8 are.
 
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Something that would mitigate my answer would be whether drawings were available for the parts. The early kits (-3, -4, possibly -6) had actual plans. The plane could be built from parts that the builder fabricated off the drawings in the plans set (actually done, in a few cases). Newer kits, not so much. Not at all, actually.

Yeah, I can get a part for a '34 Ford, but there were hundreds of thousands produced, and a still-strong market to induce independent production of parts. Total count of all RVs flying, around 10K, according to Van's and a recent thread.

With emerging computer aided manufacturing and high quality processes getting cheap enough for very small shops and short runs, we could see independent sourcing of parts, but production drawings from the original mfgr would make that a lot more likely.

No vote cast, because I don't really get a vote (no stock in the company).
 
Something that would mitigate my answer would be whether drawings were available for the parts. The early kits (-3, -4, possibly -6) had actual plans. The plane could be built from parts that the builder fabricated off the drawings in the plans set (actually done, in a few cases). Newer kits, not so much. Not at all, actually.

Yeah, I can get a part for a '34 Ford, but there were hundreds of thousands produced, and a still-strong market to induce independent production of parts. Total count of all RVs flying, around 10K, according to Van's and a recent thread.

With emerging computer aided manufacturing and high quality processes getting cheap enough for very small shops and short runs, we could see independent sourcing of parts, but production drawings from the original mfgr would make that a lot more likely.

No vote cast, because I don't really get a vote (no stock in the company).

Yes, the 6 did come with a full set of parts blueprints.
 
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