Well, this one is pretty close! Has 2/3 of my panel and the first digit in the asking price is a 6:
viewtopic.php?p=3435256#p3435256

and damage history! That's always fun

Seriously? Anything wrong with the repair would have manifested in the ensuing 40 YEARS of flying (and inspections). But thank you for reinforcing the point of this thread. Buying an old plane is different than buying a new plane.

Seriously? Anything wrong with the repair would have manifested in the ensuing 40 YEARS of flying (and inspections). But thank you for reinforcing the point of this thread. Buying an old plane is different than buying a new plane.

You continue to make my point. If the price is right, none of that matters.

1) Pay cash
2) Hull value is already low so insurance should not be an issue or you could skip hull insurance all together
3) You are getting a discount so you pass that discount along when you sell it.

And my corollary to Chip in this thread - at the low end a seller is not going to jump through a bunch of hoops for a buyer. It's just not worth the time and headaches. Will that eliminate some buyers? Yes. But I would argue it's eliminating people that you don't want to buy your plane anyway.

Anyway Brian, this clearly isn't your market.....

First of all, I am a mammal like a dolphin and love shiny and fast. I respect both Chip and Dr. Tarver. Frankly, I hope "Tarver's Gently Used Jets" takes off and he becomes the next Elliott or Stevens. I hope the economy recovers and Chip has a bunch of people annoying the poo out of him to take them on as clients and find aircraft for them.

Lastly, I had an IT client that bought a Gulfstream IV a few years back. A popular shop missed a blue juice leak out of the aft lav after they reinstalled it. My client's DoM sent the aircraft to Gulfstream Savannah for a pre-buy inspection and Gulfstream found the issue. Even with the zinc chromate, and stellar Gulfstream build, it caused some corrosion that needed repaired. The plane would be nearly 30 years old today if I recall correctly. The current owner paid for the repairs and the aircraft was sold. A handshake, and a few pieces of paper (and likely a wire) later, and the issue was resolved. On the backside there were probably aviation attorneys talking to the E&O attorneys at the shop's insurance company.

I never said it was? And on that note, who’s paying 10% or more of hull to a broker to find a legacy king air or citation meeting that criteria?

I'll give you an example of my maintenance bill on my 501 from yesterday. I own the shop and work on my own airplane with help.

Squawk "left strut low". Pumped it up with fluid/nitrogen per the the mx manual. After letting it down off the jacks the strut collapsed. Adding more air would not increase the strut level. WTF. Great, now I'm sleeping on the couch in the hangar and can't fly home. I read the manual again and worked on it a few more hours. I get up early and do the procedure two more times; still not working. So I start removing the strut to rebuild it and realize I'll be sleeping on my couch again. I call a guy with more experience and he tells me my floating piston is stuck and it's not really accepting fluid. I hook the Skydrol handcart up (I've been sprayed in the eye twice already and smell terrible) and force the moving piston to shuttle back down. I repeat the procedure and it worked perfectly. This trick is no where in the manual on the main struts. 15 hours later it's fixed and I know what to do if it ever happens again to a customer. This was my personal massive "bill". The next guy would get a 1 hour bill.

Stuff like this is common for any airplane; many times you are paying for someone else to learn.

I can't get my air conditioner blowing cold. I took everything apart, flushed the lines, cleaned the expansion valves and serviced it to perfect pressures. Everything is working as it should but it's not cold. After the expansion valve is freezing cold but the return off the evaporator is not cold. I'm taking it to a specialist to learn how to fix this problem going forward. I just can't figure it out.

My HSI wasn't auto-slaving properly so I replaced the gyro and the flux gate. Still not fixed. So I replaced the remote compensator. Another massive "Bill" fo something I could have fixed in 30 minutes with 1 part.

Every problem is a learning experience that gives future customers a better and cheaper fix.

Unfortunately, most places have so much turnover and so little experience that these little $100 problems can quickly turn into $10K problems. Is it wrong for the shop to throw parts and labor at something and bill you for it? Probably yes and probably no but it's the reality of the world we live in. All the old salts have died or retired and we are learning the forgotten lessons from 30 years ago. I'm trying to learn those lessons as quickly as possible.

The invoice is just half the story - the other half has been reported in detail by someone I respect as being extremely precise.

And yeah, as a matter of fact, I can get a pretty good idea of the level of pencil whipping going on from a simple logbook entry or invoice, even 10,000 miles away ...

SKYDROL? The original salesman for Skydrol would swallow a tea spoon of it in demonstrations at aviation conventions Yes true verified by his daughter directly
to me.
Don't take a piss after working with Skydrol until you wash your hands 3 times with
soap and water!!!!!!!!!!!!

Cliff?

Cliff?

Yes?
If you have ever worked with Skydrol you know what I'm talking about

Right. It all sounds good on the internet. I’ll make sure to send you the next invoice I don’t like.

I used to make these kinds of comments but after 30+ years in and around shop floors, I go straight to the discrepancy and the mechanic and I’m rarely in disagreement with what mechanics show me. My theory of aircraft maintenance is to fix everything that’s broken and hoping nothing else bites you in the ass in the dark of the night. So far, so good.

Of course, there’s an ass for every seat but I’ve seen the results of deferred maintenance and too often it’s a bunch of pilots wondering what happened on CT when those who know the attitude involved precipitating the crash are not shocked in the least. No clearer example than the Aerostar fleet. Sexy planes bought by those who can’t or are unwilling to properly care for them crashing left and right.

Yep. Safety glasses and nitrile gloves always. Denatured alcohol in a spray bottle cuts it quite well.