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Martin Albrecht at MT propeller writes:
Dear Mr. Baker,
We got from the Lancair mailing list your disappointing experience with our
propeller service in the US and we can just tell you that we are working
hard on improving our US Service Center situation and by this obviously
the customer support. We are setting up a new program within the next 2
months to really improve that US Service Center situation. As we are aware
that this situation is not the best we opened MT Propeller USA Inc. and by
this we only can recommend to any of our customers facing some problems
with our propellers contact initially MT in Florida.
In your case I can assure you that this repair would cost you not more than
US$ 700,- and MT Florida would warranty at least the half. I think even if
a repair is not wanted it is still a very fair MT propeller direction.
Your complain should be mainly about the Service Center which performed the
work as they charged you by far more than necessary. With your problem now
I just can tell you please be so nice and clean the propeller and after 10
flying hours send us a digital picture. Then we will tell you which way to
go.
I also can inform you that out of our 6800 flying MT propellers "only"
about 100 propellers were affected which were additionally installed on a
none dampened Lycoming 360 series engine.
We also want to tell that MT Propeller has no design problem of our
propellers as our propellers have the highest safety level of any propeller
worldwide, as we have accumulated more than 60 million flying hours over
25 years without any in-flight-hazardous failure. No other propeller
manufacturer has achieved such a high safety history. Our propellers are
operated on single and multi engine piston as well as on single and multi
engine turbine application commercially and privately operated even in full
IFR and Icing conditions.
We, in Europe we will take care about your propeller and you will get the
best possible service.
Thank you for your understanding, I remain,
With best regards,
Dear Martin,
Thank you for your response and your concern. I will clean the propeller and send a picture after 10hrs. Please note that the plane is down for some minor mainenance and will probably not accumulate those hours for some weeks yet.
I am very happy with the overall performance of the MT propeller, aside from the leak. The "design" issue that I referenced in my email was in reference to me having to pay to have the propeller hub bored, hardened sleeves pressed in, and redesigned seals installed after only a few hundred hours of flight time at a cost of $2,600 or 25% of the original cost of the propeller. I am not an engineer, but to see this problem so early in my expected service life of the propeller suggested a design, material, or manufacturing issue. However, from your comments it appears that my problem is not widespread.
In the interm, may I suggest that given your statement that "Your complain should be mainly about the Service Center which performed the work as they charged you by far more than necessary" that MT should consider contacting Sensenich in Pennsylvania to ensure that their future MT customers are charged fair and reasonable versus MT factory estimates or remove Sensenich from the list of "Distributors and Service Organizations for MT-Propellers" listed on the factory website: http://www.mt-propeller.com/en/distrib.htm#USA .
Best Regards,
Clark Baker
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