Jim Cattanach

I was flying my MB339 the other day & had four great flights. A couple of minutes into the next flight, there was a loud bang & the turbine stopped. I managed to land ok. The force of the incident had broken one of the wooden turbine mounts & the turbine had turned in its own mounts, causing them to twist. I removed the turbine & saw that two blades were missing from the turbine wheel & the tailcone was bent & twisted. There was rattling from under the FOD cover. When it was removed, a number of screws fell out. The festos had all been destroyed.
I bought this turbine new just over a year ago & it has not had much running. As Wren only guarantee their turbines for a year, it will be out of warranty. I have shipped it back to them for examination & can only hope they agree that this type of incident is not what would be expected & repair it at a reasonable cost. It looks an expensive repair.
Has anyone else had a similar incidentwith a Wren 160?

Wren Turbines USA

My Feedback: (39)

As Wren is closed in England until the 4th for the holidays, you'll not get an answer from them before then. In the mean time, rest assured that Wren will take care of the problem.


Happy New Year,

Jim Cattanach

Thanks Ron. It is worrying, as I have a second Wren 160 in my large Viperjet.

rhklenke

My Feedback: (24)

I would also say that this kind of failure is not exclusive to Wren. I had a buddy who had the same thing happen to a Jetcat P-160 - bent the mounts and everything...

Bob

mick15

I too hope they treat you better than you disserve, it would have been nice for the company to respond to your problem before plastering it all over the internet!

m

G4guy

My Feedback: (13)

Seriously! Give them a chance!

bluescoobydoo

as a wren customer i am sure wren will help you as much as they can thats what they are well known for but i would have contacted them first before putting it on the internet. they will be closed untill the new year.

perche

Yupp. What they said.

siclick33

I think 'explodes' is a bit sensationalist. I was expecting you to say that it tore your model apart but it sounds fairly well contained.

I'm sure Wren will sort you out fairly, in or out of warranty, even if it turns out that it wasn't their fault. They're generally good like that.

Jim Cattanach

The last response I had was to charge me one hours labor when one of my Wren 160's was one month old & had a problem.
At least they respond, which is more than you did when I asked about the shipping cost to Cyprus of your Fry Eagle jet you were selling. People in glass houses etc.

Jim Cattanach

It seems you cannot post anything on this forum without some people taking a pop at you. All I did was state what happened & ask if anyone else had experienced a similar problem. I have no doubt more shills will come out of the woodwork.
I also have no doubt Wren will, in the circumstances respond favourably to the problem & I will be glad to post the result on here.

mick15

An untrue statement for two very good reasons:-

1. I have had two major problems with jets of a foreign import; I did not flood the internet, this turned out to be the correct decision as the company rectified both problems in an exemplary fashion. So I never will disclose.

2. I did you a huge favour not selling you that F15; it was such a complete pile of poo I couldn’t bring myself to sell it to anyone so I burnt it!

Regards m

Jim Cattanach

Don't see it as sensationalist. The turbine exploded & was contained within the casing, which is about the only part that is in one peice.

rhklenke

My Feedback: (24)

I see nothing wrong with what he posted. If we were at the field or at a flyin when this happened, we would have seen it and known it for ourselves. Sharing the experience one has with a product on the Internet is not a bad thing, it should be encouraged, that way we all learn. I learned that Wren, which appears to be a good company from the general experience of their owners, can sometimes have a catastrophic failure of their turbines. That is good information to me as I know that Jetcat, which in my experience makes excellent turbines, has experienced the same thing. So has Pratt and Whitney, RR, GE, and others. I don't think sharing this is unwarranted and he should be hammered for doing so.

Bob

mick15

Clearly you don't but if I were a manufacturer/supplier I would feel decidedly intimidated at this point.

m

cairoman

Beer and pop-corn on New Year's eve, instead of Champaign and Caviar!!!

Happy New Year to all.



Chris

nxtdoor

My Feedback: (10)

The problem with posting this prior to finding out the cause is the undue harm you cause the manufacturer. From your post we can assume two things, either product failure or user failure. All you are doing is causing harm and alarm.

I agree this should have been taken care of with the manufacturer first. If they failed to provide a suitable answer to the problem then one might bring it to the attention of other users.

I have a fairly new Wren 160 and while the failure is troubling, I will presume nothing from it because there is no known pattern of failure as yet with these engines.

Please post once you find out the cause; that is when we would benefit the most.

Jeff

dubd

The "don't post until you get a response from the manufacturer" attitude is rampant on the RCU Jet section more so than any other part of RCU or any other RC related web site I've seen. If a product fails, do whatever reason, than it is reasonable for the user to post about it on the internet. It's not like Jim is bashing Wren.

FILE IFR

I'm 100% with you. It's the first I've heard of the 160.. or ANY of the Wrens doing this.

It is tough not to post a problem or loss without mentioning a brand name to 'warn' others, but throwing in an "it's out of warranty" is an un-called for black eye for the manufacturer.

nxtdoor

My Feedback: (10)

The "don't post till you an answer from the manufacturer is rampant" on the forums because of the sky is falling mentality of posts like these. Typical of today's internet: post for sensationalism no matter the consequences.

What is the point of notifying everyone without a cause; none.

Jeff

noahb

My Feedback: (67)

Sorry guys, but this is the internet. This is one of the many reasons for RCU. I for one have no problem posting a problem. You guys attack him (not only you guys, but if somone post on another brand they get attacked as well). Turbines, no matter who they are made by can have failures. However, it's how these failures are dealt with that make the mfg. stand out. I am sure the poster will post back on how Wren decided to handle this situation.

If I was in the market for a Wren, I would like to know how they handle this situation before I purchased their product. That is why I like to see people post situations like this. I don't own a wren, but think they are high quality turbines with great support. If they had just fixed the turbine prior to him posting, whose to say he would have posted at all. It's this kind of info that others need to know. This is what forums are for.

bigplumbs

Why did they charge you the 1 hour when it was only a month old that seems a little naughty of them. Would not have happened when Sarah was there

bigplumbs

The point about the internet is that it is quite reasonable to post what the user likes. The internet is unregulated and it is not even clear what laws apply or from what country. He has had a failure and he has told us about it I cant see anything wrong with him telling us what happened.

I own 7 wrens and I hope they sort out the problem

Dennis

andernamen

My Feedback: (3)

I HATE threads like this one! Good luck with your turbine.

invertmast

My Feedback: (23)

I wonder how many would be screaming about an issue being posted, if it was a larger company/product like a spektrum or FASST radio or..........