I don't have a vane but a Raymarine autopilot. We've been 11 years and 25,000 miles and have no spare parts for it. Our autopilot broke once (motor burnt out). Our 'course computer' broke once (who knows, it's electronic). Other than that the auto pilot has worked perfectly. Yes, it takes starting the generator twice a day on a passage for a total of 4 hours in a 24 hour period but we use a lot of energy just in general. When we add the night factor it takes it toll on amps. We also motor a lot. No surprise there as I won't go less than 4 knots if I can get there before sunset. If the math works out I use the engine. No amperage problem. We have a wind generator (Kiss) but I turn it off when we're sailing. Don't like the noise. If I had it on, our amp usage would be balanced in the trades

Raymarine's service has never been a problem except for the fact that once they discontinued something and I couldn't get the part. Then, they'd offer me 50% on new stuff to get it running. Garmin offered me $100.00 off on a replacement chartplotter that was 7 years old when it went south. I can get a better deal from Amazon.

I think that if you had a problem with Raymarine it was the luck of the draw or perhaps a couple of them. We've never had a problem. Garmin's offer of $100.00 off the list price of a new chartplotter was not exceptable.

Of course, that's my experience.