IFD 540 Shipping to Dealers

Do I understand right?  Avidyne will be shipping IFD units to a dealer. I'd rather it shipped to me and I can determine which dealer I'd want to use!

Right, our standard practice is to use dealers to do the install.   Therefore, we expect to ship to the dealer of your choice.  As long as they are an Avidyne dealer (there are over 600 I believe), then anyone of those dealers will work and you can have the install done there.

I have yet to decide which dealer of 3 I will use when the time comes for installation .

Be careful what you ask for.

Normally when you buy avionics from a dealer and have that dealer install them the dealer makes a profit on the equipment.  This profit offsets the cost of installation.  Shops charge significantly more for installation if you provide the equipment.

My understanding is that Avidyne is going to give the dealer the profit they would have made if they had sold the IFD 540 or 440.  So your installation cost would be similar to what it would be if they provided the GPS.  If you carried it in yourself and they did not get the sales profit the installation cost would be higher.

There are several good avionics shops in my area which are Avidyne dealers.  I'm going to see what the installation prices are.  I am also planning to replace the audio panel at the same time because the old one has issues and I might as well do it while the stack is being rebuilt.  So I'll have Avidyne ship the GPS to the dealer that makes the best offer.

It would be nice if Avidyne were to offer a good discount on their panel and maybe their transponder to people who pre-ordered a GPS.  A stack with an AMX240, AXP340 and IFD540 interspersed with the KX155A and KAP140 would be real pretty (and very effective).  But I could always go with a PMA8000BT and wait a while before upgrading the transponder.

Velox, I don't know about you, but to me the $5,000 to $6,000 savings on the price of the unit (the pre-buy bargain) seems to outweigh the very minimal cost of having an avionics shop yank the old unit out of the tray and slide the new unit in.  Small potatoes in the scheme of things, am I wrong?  And wouldn't it be nice for your friends at the avionics shop to receive a check from Avidyne for the mark-up they otherwise missed on the sale?  What am I missing here?

Just a simple form to fill out from Avidyne, by the shop to Avidyne would surfice any of these requirements.