Hi everyone,
Unfortunately, the display in our King KX165A is partly broken. When the aircraft is in our hangar with the doors closed, so it gets dark, you can only just see the frequency numbers if you point a flashlight towards it. In day light, it’s impossible. According to our avionics shop, it’s a common fault with these units, despite it’s only 8 years old.
We have been offered a Garmin GNC 255A unit, but it’s costly at 6495$ (incl. labor). A repair is possible for 5300USD or replacement for 5400USD.
I just want to check with you, is this reasonable? It’s a lot of money just to repair the display when everything else works so well. Are there any options that we are not seeing?
Thanks a lot everyone in advance!
Should be cheaper than the repair/replacement.
(mine was 3000€ 2 yrs ago)
Thank you both! I didn’t even think about Planecheck for this, don’t ask me why 
Perhaps as good of a moment as any to upgrade it to a 430W. The aero club is most likely intending to sell this beauty soon and I guess a 430W would increase its attractiveness, if it’s roughly the same money as a replacement unit?
430Ws still go for 6-7k€. Plus antenna, install and paperwork, so it would be lot more than 10k. For a very old and largely unsupported (yet very reliable) unit. Impossible to say whether you get that money back on a resale. Sure would make it more attractive on the market though (where selling an aircraft has become more difficult than ever in the last 5-8 years).
Otherwise, I would try to get an off-the-books repair done.
Most people would get one on US Ebay and swap it off the books. The serial number label transfers with a hair dryer 
The KX “A” radios were/are excellent. I have had no trouble with my two, in 21 years and 3k hrs airborne. Many say the comms is much better than any Garmin box.
The displays can often be repaired too – see other threads here on the display repairs.
