A TruTrak customer service experience under Bendix King/Honeywell
I?ve been flying a TruTrak autopilot since 2010. I?ve been pleased with the product and TruTrak?s technical support over the years. I was always able to get prompt, knowledgeable phone support in a timely manner, and rapid parts shipment when needed. After the Bendix King acquisition of TruTrak, that is no longer the case.
Several weeks ago my TruTrak roll servo failed in flight. I pulled the servo to investigate. When I disconnected the servo?s little push rod, the servo?s control arm and spindle fell out of the roll servo housing (yikes). The thing that kept the spindle and control hardware from falling out in flight was the pressure exerted by the shoulder washer installed (per the instructions) on the rod end at the bellcrank.
Here?s the failed servo with the spindle/arm that fell out:
I shipped my servo back to TruTrak. They received it on 23 Sept 2019. Initially I was told it would take two weeks to repair, then there were problems getting parts, then more problems getting parts, then TruTrak said they?d just send me a new one, then they couldn?t get any new ones, and finally they shipped me a refurbished roll servo on 24 Oct 2019. I wasn?t pleased about all the hardware supply chain issues, but Carrie, the office manager, was quite good about keeping me informed during the various delays.
I didn?t want to make any errors reinstalling the servo, so I consulted TruTrak?s RV-10 roll servo drawing. I had a question about part of the drawing, so I called TruTrak?s phone number for help. TruTrak?s tech support number connected me to Bendix King (oh no). After navigating a bunch of automated menus, a Bendix King employee required me to create a new ?customer service? account, then revealed that they had nobody to answer my question, but they might get back to me that day (they didn?t). The next day I got this curt email message from Bendix King:
Tim,
That arrow is pointing to the hole in the corner. This is where AN3-3A is installed.
Thanks for contacting BendixKing. I will be closing this case and you will be receiving an autogenerated survey asking to rate our performance. If you have more questions about this subject, just reply to this e-mail and the case will automatically reopen.
S**** P***** (name removed to protect the guilty)
Manager Field Service Engineer
BendixKing Technical Support
That answer is completely wrong. Mr. P***** didn?t fully understand the TruTrak document, didn?t observe that the ?hole in the corner? of the servo already had a bolt installed, and he didn?t call to discuss my question. He just emailed me bad information and closed the case.
There are good people at TruTrak who know what they are doing, and who want to help. But now TruTrak/BK have set up their telephone system in a way that blocks customers from communicating with those people.
I understand other TruTrak customers are running in to support problems similar to what I encountered. FWIW, Here?s how I got some help and *accurate* info:
[email protected] for technical answers,
[email protected] for hardware repair shipping/status.