Clint, I wasn’t referring to OEM exclusively on purpose.

At the end of the day it's all about price. If the price is cheap enough, the seller doesn't want to mess with flying airplanes halfway across the country, having them torn apart by a shop they don't know, and potentially being abandoned by a buyer with an airplane in pieces. So much of this stuff is a judgement call - as a seller, why would I open myself up to some yahoo, 2 states away, that I don't know, declaring my airplane unairworthy. Now I've got to fly my mechanic over there to override the yahoo and/or get a ferry permit from the FSDO. It's just a huge mess. Not to mention the buyer of a $600k Citation is more likely to get cold feet (thought they could stretch into a jet but then not really be able to swing it, spouse objects, etc.) than a corporation buying a CJ4, Phenom, etc. Not saying that would apply to your customers as I trust you have very detailed conversations about cost to own, figuring out the best aircraft for them, etc. but speaking more generally of a seller's mindset.

If I'm selling a multi-million dollar CJ4, by all means, make sure it is perfect. But with a 45 year old $600k Citation, you just need to expect there will be gremlins. Borescope the engines to make sure all the blades are there, check the usual spots for corrosion and hydraulic leaks, fill it up with fuel and let it sit overnight to check for leaks, do a test flight with someone that has flown a number of the breed and can quickly tell if the performance is in the ballpark and do systems checks (pressurization, etc), and call it a day. Heck my type rating instructor could do the last part. I remember him commenting when we were doing emergency descents how well my cabin held pressure with the engines at idle. It's that kind of stuff that really matters. Conversely, I have a very slow O2 leak somewhere between the bottle and the cabin. We could spend thousands in labor to find it, or I could just turn the valve on the top of the bottle when I park the plane. That method has been working great for almost 2 years now. Was that worth throwing a tantrum about when I was buying it? No. Will I fix it before I sell it? No.

Had a hydraulic pump go out. Textron wanted $41K (of which $36K was a new pump and adapter kit to make it fit since they don't have my PN any more, this would condemn me to always use the new pump from then on). I declined.

I fixed it locally with a salvage pump ($200) and a few hours labor ($1400) and some misc expenses ($200). I now have kept my same PN pump (no mods or left/right asymmetry) and it cost me only $1800 to solve.

BTW, the service center said they wouldn't install the salvage pump I found, only solution they offered was the mod to a new style.


A nationwide multiple location high end branded maintenance shop. Textron, Stevens, Duncan, etc. You know who they are.


There is more than one way to correctly fix a problem and service centers choose the expensive way.


The list of errors on my plane, which was exclusively maintained by Textron before I bought it, fills more than a page.

Case in point, the right engine had the wrong ignitor leads. They had been wrong for years, missed multiple times by Textron. This was found by my local mechanic whom you do not think so highly of.

I've never had problems getting my plane back in service. Indeed, having a local shop greatly helps with getting the plane fixed versus having to fly it to a service center.


My mechanics know what they are doing, they just don't have policies which cost me a fortune.

My plane is in FAR better shape than when I bought it as I have fixed literally dozens of latent faults left in it from past work or lack of care. I have saved literally well over $100,000 using my local guys and being involved in the maintenance decisions.

My one use of a major service center due to being AOG at the time, Jet East, cost me $6,558 to replace one leaking hydraulic line. They require two guys, at $200/hour each, to come to my plane that was 30 minutes away from their shop, when only one guy can fit in the aft compartment at a time. The work was about 4 man hours of actual time on task, but they charged me a dozen hours for the mechanic to drive from 6 hours away instead of from the nearby shop.

Had this been repaired at my shop, probably about $1500 all in.

There are those who think jets can only be maintained by excessively priced shops. That is clearly not the case. Those folks just don't know how to get it done otherwise. The Citation is easy to work on.

If someone takes a 172 to a Textron service center, what do you think will happen? They will get a huge bill. Most people with 172s don't do that for the same reason I don't take my Citation to one.

Mike C.

I have had the same experience as Mike C

For me there are 3 levels of shops. Big, medium, and the small. The price goes along with that description.

As an example today I had my battery cap check done. My local A&P took it out and brought it over to the big shop. They did the test and he put it back in. Last time I had the big shop do the entire job and it cost me double. Same inspection half the price. Yes I had to pay two separate invoices instead of one that that’s OK.

Had a tire change at a big shop then the same tire on the other side at the medium shop. The medium shop was 40% less than the big shop.

I can go on and on. Fact is the big shops are made for guys with big wallets. Until you are using your own money to maintain a jet don’t assume you know how it all works.

Mike

Yep, Bruce has no clue…

I get other owners seeking advice. One owner who bought a Citation V I had also looked at, sent me an invoice from a "major service center" for phase 1-5 inspections which totaled $450,839. Not a typo!

Minor issues became major defects. Work was inflated. Things were replaced willy nilly. Etc.

This entry typifies the service center mentality:

CVR didn't work so they replaced it TWICE, THEN tested the customers unit to find it working, and then finally finding the problem, a loose connection. The SC mentality is to always replace the most expensive box first and try that. So they spent almost $4K in labor on a single loose connection that could have been found in a few hours at most.

Essentially all the workers at service centers are task robots. They take the MM instructions, replace the part. Exceptionally few of them have diagnostic sense to try and find the real problem first.

Not evident in the above is the $600 in shipping charges the CVRs cost to ship in and back out. So this one wire splice cost almost $5K.

BTW, the plane was down for 4 months, so the fast return to service idea, not so much.

About $100K of this was a landing gear issue which could have been solved with some polishing and touch up paint. Instead, they pulled major gear parts off and replaced them at great cost.

I've seen the invoices for my plane and for others at name brand service centers. Those places are used to planes less than 10 years old and they try to make the planes new again and that is just not appropriate.

My brother worked in legacy support at Textron and got calls from the name brand shops all the time. They would ask for engineering reports on a simple spot of corrosion on things as trivial as the air conditioner hour meter bracket. This cost about $2000 in engineering charges from Textron to develop a "fix" since it wasn't directly in the maintenance manual. Any half wit mechanic would just sand it down and paint it, which is what Textron said to do.

Another example, this is the fresh air duct in the tail of my airplane that the Textron service center "fixed" by applying gobs of RTV sealant and putting it back in:

I replaced it with a new double wall CEET duct for about $500 parts and labor. The old duct was letting rain water drip onto my inverters above the baggage compartment (found the drain was routed wrong, too, fixed that).

I found similar use of RTV sealant in the pressure pneumatic fittings. I replaced the fittings (which were only about $15/each, so why not just do the right thing?).

I don't come by my opinions lightly. I have lots of evidence.

Mike C.

People who actually own and operate have told you many times with specific examples. It echos my experience. For example, the big shops will often shotgun replacing everything in sight and often still not fix problems. Smaller places tend to be more willing to listen and test to find underlying problems. Yet… you continue to dismiss that experience.

People who actually own and operate have told you many times with specific examples. It echos my experience. For example, the big shops will often shotgun replacing everything in sight and often still not fix problems. Smaller places tend to be more willing to listen and test to find underlying problems. Yet… you continue to dismiss that experience.

I think the takeaway from this discussion is to do what Tarver and Ciholas have mastered. Know your airplane as well or better than the shop and be fully engaged in all aspects of servicing it. Of course not all operators can do that and some of the larger shops may not want your business. It is best to specify all repairs or expenditures over a set amount require your approval. This can be noted on the work order when signing it.

It always pisses me off when shops refuse to utilize used or owner provided parts. In actuality every part on the plane is effectively “used”.

I will anonymously share a few, just to make my point.

Landing gear overhaul, mid-sized jet, service center does overhaul, 18 months later, medium shop say the corrosion is so bad, no way they did the overhaul.

Service center claims that it was due to operator not having performed proper corrosion protection, including washes.

What? Maybe you don’t understand where these corroded parts are on the airplane you built.

Service center overlooks items in a prebuy…

Question: “Why didn’t you squawk this, it’s in plain sight?”

Answer: “We weren’t specifically asked to inspect that”

Small shop maintains turboprop for ten years, owner knows little about airplanes, gives the shop an open checkbook, even pays the mechanic a monthly retainer to manage it and stay on top of it.

I spend one hour with the records, call the owner and tell him we have a problem. We take it to the medium size shop, $150k in airworthy discrepancies, most of them past due inspection items.

The owner quickly and happily paid the bill, and made the Mechanic call and apologize to me.

Large shops swap parts, charge $150 an hour for walking to the trash can, or doing paperwork. Mike is right they swap parts chasing problems that an experienced tech wouldn’t have to even troubleshoot. Though I am impressed that they were dumb enough to outline the failed journey on the Work Order.

Small shops pencil whip maintenance, I see it all the time.

It’s not that I don’t have the first-hand experience, it’s that I have too much experience. All of these shops will screw you, intentionally or innocently, in fact they look for new and creative ways to disappoint.

Mike likes to post his vent tube with RTV on it, I’m not defending Textron, they would be more likely to replace it and charge double or not even see that it had a hole in it in the first place, than to smear RTV on it. That smells like a small shop.

What Mike doesn’t admit is that he has no foggy clue who put that RTV on there. Unless, they were dumb enough to put that in a log entry, which wouldn’t surprise me.

NO ONE who goes to the kind of shop you recommend posts their costs like I do. I wonder why.

Meanwhile, the people who actually OWN these airplanes repeatedly give testimony about how they can be maintain economically and well.

This general dismissing of "small shops" fits your "pay more to get more" narrative (which includes hiring expensive consultants, too). But it actually doesn't track in real life.


The plane was Textron service center maintained since birth. First by Milwaukee, WI when SC Johnson owned it, then by Newburgh, NY when WR Equipment own it. Nobody else has touched it.

That was one of its "selling points" which I am sure you would have emphasized to your customers. Look, a FSC maintained airplane, you should pay extra for that!

In reality, the plane has numerous latent faults and shoddy work all over it that has been corrected. It was kind of discouraging the first year having so many things to fix, but getting everything fixed right has resulted in a very reliable airplane.

The plane had been through a phase 1 to 5 by Newburgh, NY FSC only 18 months before I bought it. Most of the faults we found had been there for several years at least. The fresh air duct doesn't degrade like that in just a few months and someone clearly tried to "fix it". Had I left it in place, at least one of my inverters would have failed with water damage.

The prior owners are exactly your kind of customer, pay the big bucks for the big shops to get "quality" work. They were the sit in back types. The last owners sold the plane because it was getting unreliable and "too old". They bought an Encore and are taking it to the same FSC.

What was unreliable was the maintenance the plane was getting. Now it is fine after getting proper TLC by a quality small shop and an involved owner. Airplanes respond really well to that kind of care.

Nothing has been pencil whipped on my airplane, I assure you, and clearly the FSC let some things slide by.

Mike C.

Mike,

With all due respect, you do not know who my clients are, where their airplanes are maintained or what it cost.

You have nominated yourself as King Chief Citation expert, so your way is better than everyone else’s we get it. You have made it abundantly clear, you wear everyone out beating them over the head and then when you feel the sentiment turn negative towards you, viola you disappear for a few months and then the cycle repeats.

All the while you beat your anti-Chip drum and I keep helping good people buy good Citations and taking them to shops of all sizes.

You’ve bought one Citation in your whole life, had just a few Citation maintenance experiences.

I can’t count how many purchases I’ve headed up over the years, how many maintenance visits… but I don’t know what I’m doing… got it.

NO ONE who goes to the kind of shop you recommend posts their costs like I do. I wonder why.

Meanwhile, the people who actually OWN these airplanes repeatedly give testimony about how they can be maintain economically and well.

This general dismissing of "small shops" fits your "pay more to get more" narrative (which includes hiring expensive consultants, too). But it actually doesn't track in real life.


The plane was Textron service center maintained since birth. First by Milwaukee, WI when SC Johnson owned it, then by Newburgh, NY when WR Equipment own it. Nobody else has touched it.

That was one of its "selling points" which I am sure you would have emphasized to your customers. Look, a FSC maintained airplane, you should pay extra for that!

In reality, the plane has numerous latent faults and shoddy work all over it that has been corrected. It was kind of discouraging the first year having so many things to fix, but getting everything fixed right has resulted in a very reliable airplane.

The plane had been through a phase 1 to 5 by Newburgh, NY FSC only 18 months before I bought it. Most of the faults we found had been there for several years at least. The fresh air duct doesn't degrade like that in just a few months and someone clearly tried to "fix it". Had I left it in place, at least one of my inverters would have failed with water damage.

The prior owners are exactly your kind of customer, pay the big bucks for the big shops to get "quality" work. They were the sit in back types. The last owners sold the plane because it was getting unreliable and "too old". They bought an Encore and are taking it to the same FSC.

What was unreliable was the maintenance the plane was getting. Now it is fine after getting proper TLC by a quality small shop and an involved owner. Airplanes respond really well to that kind of care.

Nothing has been pencil whipped on my airplane, I assure you, and clearly the FSC let some things slide by.

Mike C.

You aren't the shops customer, even during a transaction, the seller is the customer- you represent buyers...

And if you have a bad experience with a shop, why would you guide another customer to them? Are you saying all shops are bad?

The problem is you think all small shops are bad and all big shops are good. That simply isn't true.

In the end, it matters a lot which shop you use. This should not be news to anyone.

If you go to a big shop, the person who actually does the work will vary. You cannot control that. So you can trust a big shop only the the extent of their worst worker who is one of dozens if not hundreds.

At a small shop, you know the workers individually.

What is absolutely true is that the big shop will cost you more, be less open to alternatives (like disallowing salvage parts), and think they make all the decisions.

BTW, the airlines use salvage parts ALL THE TIME. There is a whole industry for handling that. Using them on our planes is JUST FINE. But get a FSC to do it? Good luck on that!

My shop saves me a ton of money because they involve me in the decisions, they use common sense on fixes, they let me use salvage parts, and they let me buy my own parts. I won't get any of that with a service center.

Mike C.