From: "deckard"
Here is the reply given to me by ASAP when I asked about the MZ engine.
Jerry Deckard
The MZ engine is an engine we worked with for almost 2 years. Initially,
we saw a lot of potential with the engine because of the ideal weight, the HP and the economics of it. When we started working with the engine, we were told by the manufacturer that the engines had been in Europe for over 6 years and that the MZ 202 R (which was the one most suited for our use)
had 100's of hours on it. As we worked more closely with the engine, we soon found that there were problems with the engine and all the engines that we had on our units had to come back at one given time, either for upgrades
or repairs. It was a frustrating time for us but more so for our customers who had bought mostly our Summit Powered Parachutes and continued to have
problems. Each one of the engines were recalled by us to do upgrades or repairs at
our own cost. We wanted to make sure our customers were taken care of so we went the extra mile to make sure they were but when we went back to the manufacturer to ask them to assist us with warantee issues, the same was
not reciprocated.
We did not give up immediately as we continued to hope that the upgrades
and fixes would repair the problems. They did but only for a short time and some of our customers became so frustrated that they demanded they either get their money back for the engine or get new Rotaxes in exchange.
Feeling their frustrations, we complied with their requests. The only problem is when we received their used engines back and either returned their money back or gave them new Rotaxes, we were left with the used engine and no return back from the manufacturer. Not only was this a customer issue problem but it became a financial problem. We have about 25 MZ engines out there and we felt if this hand full of customers had these problems, then what would happen if we had hundreds of them out there. With no support from the manufacturer, it became impossible to continue to distribute the engine. The sad thing about all this was our invested time, our customers who were essentially the test bed for this engine when we had been told
that it had been thoroughly tested and the manufacturer who either blamed our customers or us. To this day, he still does.
The manufacturer set up his manufacturing facility in our town back in
July. We felt positive about this move because we felt if he was on hand, he
could see himself the problems we had faced and continued to face. We felt with his expertise that he would be able to help us out with the customer
issues and problems but it was worse. When we would ask him to come down to our warehouse to look at an engine, he would either do it quickly or say he
did not have the time. His manufacturing facility here consists of himself and one or two other employees. Brent the President of our company and was
also the President of Rotax Canada for 5 years, has been to Rotax Austria. The factory consists of hundreds of employees with three shifts. Rotax will continue to dominate the industry until someone proves to have a product that has been thoroughly tested, that has manufacturer back up and manufacturer integrity......
Well Jerry, that is a condensed version of our experience with the MZ
engine, luckily we pulled out when we did. We continue to be very busy
with
our aircraft sales and have learned to worry about manufacturing our
aircraft kits and not worry about engine distribution. The Rotax continues
to be our main engine line for our units and until someone comes on board
that proves to be equal or better, they will continue to be.....
Thanks
Paulette
Aircraft Sales and Parts |
