Garmin g1000 reliability

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Getonit

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Mark
I am looking at a mooney equipped with g1000.
I know nothing about is system but I am always concerned with costs of repair, reliability, etc. I realize it generates a really pretty display but I am more concerned with topics mentioned above. Any advice appreciated.
 
Very reliable.

I have owned two and have to replace one AHRS...and has one other minor issue with pins that feed data to the system...easily solved.

I fly and Avidyne now and wish I was flying a G-1000.

Do not be afraid of the system. One cool thing to note that is...if something does throw up on itself, it can be replaced pretty quickly...
 
Mark,
None of the Mooney G1000 have a path to 2020 compliance. Garmin of course has stuff to make it so, but Mooney has to approve before anything can be done. Mooney has a lot on its plate right now so you might not see their answer for a while. Mooney's solution maybe very pricey.
 
Put 5000 hours on our G1000 while we had it. Only replaced the flux compass in the wing twice, and it was surprisingly cheap. $600 if i recall. It was a training mule, so it was not remotely loved..

The standby battery replacement was breathtakingly expensive from Cessna ($3k or so iirc), but there are alternate parts available for less ($400 iirc)

The G1000 system is now only wha, 10 years old? Hard to make longevity assumptions on the same scale as our ancient airframes. :)
 
1,100 hours flying behind G1000s in two separate planes. Nothing that ever kept me out of the sky or made me wish I was on the ground.
 
Getonit said:
I am looking at a mooney equipped with g1000.
Click to expand...

Drool.

I know nothing about is system but I am always concerned with costs of repair, reliability, etc. I realize it generates a really pretty display but I am more concerned with topics mentioned above. Any advice appreciated.
Click to expand...

Well, I am a confirmed Mooniac but the one I fly has steam gauges. I also fly a DA40 with G1000 in my flying club, and I am the maintenance officer thereof.

It's been very reliable in our experience, though not perfect. A mechanic replaced a brass bolt with a steel bolt close enough to the magnetometer that we had an occasional red X on the heading. There's been one or two other issues, but they're always resolved pretty easily. Most repairs to the system are a flat-fee swap-out so you're back up and running quickly. Garmin's use of Line Replaceable Units that are interchangeable between aircraft types is a big help there.

Cost-wise, you'll probably come out ahead. If a G1000 PFD goes dead, IIRC that's a $1400 swap-out. In my steam-gauge Mooney, if I lose my AI, I'm looking at $6,000 (I have a flight director). A simple AI or DG is cheaper than a G1000 PFD swap, but not by a whole lot - I think the last DG we bought for the club was north of $1000.

Hope you get the bird and enjoy the hell out of it. I know I enjoy the Ovation immensely, but there's another one at my home field with FIKI and G1000 that makes me turn green every time I see it.
 
schmookeeg said:
The G1000 system is now only wha, 10 years old? Hard to make longevity assumptions on the same scale as our ancient airframes. :)
Click to expand...

That's the part I worry about. We have airplanes with ~40 year old KX170s that work just fine, will we be able to say the same about the G1000? Will parts be available? I'd guess the answer is no but maybe people won't care either.
 
I flew some G1000s nearly everyday for a year or so, don't recall the G1000 ever going down for mx, they seemed to handle spins well too.
 
Nice thing about the G1000 is there's a lot of redundancy built in, so if you lose something, you've still got something else.

Only exception is the Diamond installations, where they have only a single AHRS and single ADC, and failure of the only AHRS puts you rather behind the 8-ball -- if you have a Diamond, ask your instructor to pull the c/b and demonstrate that some time. Not sure what's in the Mooney installation, but if it's a single AHRS, get some training with it inop every six months or so.

That said, I've yet to see an inflight system failure in a G1000 -- even the less redundant Diamonds. They've been far more reliable for me that old-fashioned steam gauges and King/Narco radios.
 
Walt said:
Mark,
None of the Mooney G1000 have a path to 2020 compliance. Garmin of course has stuff to make it so, but Mooney has to approve before anything can be done. Mooney has a lot on its plate right now so you might not see their answer for a while. Mooney's solution maybe very pricey.
Click to expand...


Walt,
I was under the impression (maybe mistaken) that that only applied to Stec and Bendix autopilots? The one I am looking at has a GFC700 autopilot? Again right now I am just doing high level research on this and there is a lot of discussion about this on another board about how much of a problem (meaning cost) this is going to be or not be. No one seems to really definitely have an answer, but no number on a solution makes me extremely cautious.
Thanks,
Mark
 
Ron Levy said:
Nice thing about the G1000 is there's a lot of redundancy built in, so if you lose something, you've still got something else.

Only exception is the Diamond installations, where they have only a single AHRS and single ADC, and failure of the only AHRS puts you rather behind the 8-ball -- if you have a Diamond, ask your instructor to pull the c/b and demonstrate that some time. Not sure what's in the Mooney installation, but if it's a single AHRS, get some training with it inop every six months or so.

That said, I've yet to see an inflight system failure in a G1000 -- even the less redundant Diamonds. They've been far more reliable for me that old-fashioned steam gauges and King/Narco radios.
Click to expand...

Ron,

The Cirrus Perspective is the only single-engine G1000 I'm aware of with dual AHRS. The Diamond isn't any "less redundant" than a Cessna.
 
schmookeeg said:
Put 5000 hours on our G1000 while we had it. Only replaced the flux compass in the wing twice, and it was surprisingly cheap. $600 if i recall. It was a training mule, so it was not remotely loved..

The standby battery replacement was breathtakingly expensive from Cessna ($3k or so iirc), but there are alternate parts available for less ($400 iirc)

The G1000 system is now only wha, 10 years old? Hard to make longevity assumptions on the same scale as our ancient airframes. :)
Click to expand...

I was just at the Cessna dealer today and I asked them what the standby battery cost based on your comment. They said $700 and an hour labor to R&R. Sounds like they may have come down. They are also a Beech service center, the G36 is like $3500 still.
 
I have about 40 hours either flying or being a passenger in the right seat of an "older" G1000 Cessna 172. Only once has it ever thrown an error and it appeared to be a non event that just required a refreshing of the G1000 error logs. Documented it here:

http://www.pilotsofamerica.com/forum/showthread.php?t=72752

In the two years our club has owned the plane its never been down for the G1000.
 
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