Robbie Owners,
Welcome to reality.
On larger aircraft I could show you 50 SB's just like this.
The wording of SB's is written by a lawyer to avoid admission there is normally a problem. "may" "could" "possibly" "to increase the reliability" "in certain circumstances" blah blah etc are a few of the gems used.
If something does go wrong they can say "we told you so" without admission of responsibility.
Depending on your type of operation and the way your aircraft is maintained, SB's of course may or may not be mandatory.
Keep in mind that SB's are part of the Instructions for Continuing Airworthiness (ICA's) and are part of the Type Certificate requirements.
Normally ASB's (Alert Service Bulletins) are mandatory and will probably but not in all cases be accompanied by an AD. Normal SB's need to be interpreted with their compliance requirement which can also be mandatory.
Manufacturers sometimes will offer the required parts FOC depending on how silly the problem makes them appear. If it is not a real safety but reliability issue they will just make you eat it.
You are correct if it was a car it would be fixed with a recall or somesuch. If manufacturers of helicopters operated this way I doubt there would be any still in the civil business.
