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My Garmin 430W needs repair

Maverick972

Well Known Member
Have been having some trouble with Garmin 430W, so I used a nice weather day to fly to my favorite avionics shop in north Texas. They pulled the 430w, tested it and checked the airplane. It was determined that it (430w) needs to go back to Garmin for repair.

I have been kicking around the idea of an upgrade, even though I don?t find the 430 offensive.

Opinions please.

Would you:
A. Send it for repair
B. Swap I it with an Aviyne 440 IFd unit
C. Swap it with a Garmin 650Xi

Thanks, Sean
 
What is the cost of the repair? Does the condition of the 430W make a difference on the 440 trade in?
 
Repair starts at 1550... If you can still find a IDF trade in deal, the condition matters.

1550???

This particular repair? Or Garmins fee just to look at it? That seems very excessive for an evaluation fee on a 10-year old product line that sells new for $8k...
 
1550???

This particular repair? Or Garmins fee just to look at it? That seems very excessive for an evaluation fee on a 10-year old product line that sells new for $8k...

Garmin has adopted a fixed cost for repair model. Simple or hard, same price.
As to the OP’s original question, there are no good choices here.
 
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I guess I should have clarified in that I welcome the opinions of the group.

I am probably going to go with the 650.
 
IFD 440 would be my choice. That's what I'll do when the 430W in my plane pukes, I'm not going to play Garmins game.
 
My personal choice would be the newest Garmin gps (is it a 175?) and a used SL30. That also removes a single point failure (all apples in one box 430), and I think gives you the same (actually a bit more - ?sort of? dual vor) as you had now for the least cost.
 
The big question is how long will Garmin continue to support the 430/530 units? If you can afford to upgrade then I would do it. $1550 to fix it now, then maybe another $1550 down the road if something else breaks. You may very well get 5+ more years out of the 430, or it may turn into a money pit. It's a gamble, the new Garmin units are quite nice, and they would be happy to sell you one.
 
After three repair returns to Garmin two at full price and one at half price I sold my 430 and went to Avidyne 440. I will never go back to Garmin.

Best thing was no installation cost involved!!
 
Sean,

As Bob mentioned, your situation is tough. However the bright spot I see is the option to upgrade to an Avidyne IFD440 relatively cheaply. Avidyne offers generous trade-ins for 430s. It's fortunate you have a 430, that makes the IFD440 upgrade truly a simple plug & play swap. The 440 uses your existing 430 tray and backplate.

One other really neat and unique feature of the IFD440 is the IFD100 App. With that you can get all the increased size advantages of the larger screen IFD 540 for free. The IFD100 App is free and acts as a large screen fully functional IFD440 "remote control" if you will.

I'm not an Avidyne dealer or anything, I just appreciate their progressive, fresh approach to avionics that are also very user-friendly.

Happy shopping!

George
 
Sean,

As Bob mentioned, your situation is tough. However the bright spot I see is the option to upgrade to an Avidyne IFD440 relatively cheaply. Avidyne offers generous trade-ins for 430s. It's fortunate you have a 430, that makes the IFD440 upgrade truly a simple plug & play swap. The 440 uses your existing 430 tray and backplate.
but the catch 22 is that the 430 needs to be operational and flightworthy per the Avidyne trade-in notes. So wouldn't the OP need to spend the $ to get it fixed anyway?
 
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