Misd-again:
After twice asking the FO in private, for any concerns he might have (once I had to close the c0ckp1t door, so that our 'colorful' Lead FA 'fellow' from south Texas would leave us alone and not interject every 10 seconds...
), we both agreed to cancel the flight.
We had asked the two inbound pilots if they would accept it. They had said "No" just before they went to the hotel. My FO felt that the APU might be less reliable than an engine generator. Even with an inop APU generator, I would always cancel the flight with similar destination weather which was forecast to remain around the airport. Our contract allows us to cancel for inop autopilot, APU, or an engine generator, even manual pressur. with no special explanations.
With the huge level of outsourced maintenance, many of us are not so confident in less-than-normal system redundancies. And two line mechanics told us that they were ordered to do fewer line checks than necessary. Something wrong might be found. One was called by one of his company VPs.