I have to agree - I know many people with well maintained machines that go WELL beyond the recommended TBO.
I was told independendently by two different people not to give up my Pierburg fuel pump until it seeps. One even offered to buy it off of me - because they are that good. Seems to me like doing your homework, knowing your engine, and matching repair with wear is a better solution.
Maintenance induced failure. When my rotax 912 rolled past 600 hrs, I sent my carburetors to Lockwood Aviation for an overhaul. They did a great job and I had no problems with them.
When I reinstalled my carbs, I did not tighten the clamp on one of the coolant lines on the carb heat deicer blocks enough. I had a very slow leak of coolant there that I did not notice. On a long multi-day XC trip around New Mexico, I noticed my engine temps slowly increasing, I throttled way back and limped into the next airport. I let the engine cool down and then topped off the coolant, but now some of the elbows under the engine that pass coolant were leaking. The locktite 648 had broken down in the high temps. I never had high engine temps again, but I had to keep topping off the radiator fluid. When I got back home, I thought the radiator hoses were damaged, so I replaced them, but that wasn't the problem. Finally, a year after the initial incident, I figured out it was the locktite 648 had broken down and I had to remove all the elbows, and re-locktite them. This was a huge hassle, I had to pull of the the intake manifolds just to gain access to some of the elbows. But afterwards, all the leaks had stopped.
One little mistake induced by my carb maintenance causes problems in a different part of the engine that lasted a year.
It is time to overhaul my carbs again. I hope I do better this time.
Thanks Guys... i will take this on board and follow my judgement. I think the best for me is CDM but before 1st May 2014, so I will keep my pump on order so that I have one when I need it.
As far as I know I have pump A - Pierburg. People swear by them. Given the apparent inability of rotax to supply a robust pump since then, I'm hanging on to mine.
The one comforting thing is that Service Bulletins aren't mandatory for most aircraft. Smart to take under advisement mind you, but not mandatory.