Auto pilot life span

[cstonedent]

I have an 02 B311, this I our second season. Have a Raymarine st4000+ autopilot that was recently serviced as only give the sea talk failed screen. Service was successful for about 2weeks then samething. Service person told us our unit was at the end of it's useful life, should look to replace.
Is this accurate information? If so can just replace defective electronics (was told the mechanical aspect is still sound? Obviously I don't know much so all insights are welcome

 

[cymeyer]

Hard to say what the useful life should be.
We have Raymarine ST60 including autopilot and it is 15 years old with no service.

 

[arf145]

I think they say that because Raymarine no longer supports that model, thus setting themselves up nicely for upgrades ;-)

I have the same wheel pilot and it was going perfectly until a few days ago when one of the clamp brackets broke and fell off the wheel! Inspection showed that another was cracked and ready to go. Luckily you can still find the clamps online -- at nearly $20 each

 

[Stu Jackson]

http://c34.org/bbs/index.php/topic,7129.0.html

 

[James Simmonds]

I recently had a failure on my 2002 Autohelm, luckily a local chandlery had some old parts on hand from replacements he had done. Check them out and see if you can locate what you need.

 

[Gunni]

I was told the drive unit has a service life of 500 hours. Not sure where that comes from, but there is skilled use (boat properly trimmed out, drive lightly loaded), and there is ham-handed use (boat over-canvased, improperly trimmed, huge loads on the helm). So mileage may vary.