lowandslow wrote:
What shall we budget for a prebuy (excluding fight) with boroscopic?
For a piston Malibu I would calculate with 2.000 to 2.500 EUR. No experience about what the turbine adds to the cost.
About 500 EUR of that for the phase 1 which is the document review – which is obviously highly depending on if it is a 5 year old plane in “like out of factory” condition or a 30 year old one with long history of applicable ADs, changes in avionics, etc.
Malibuflyer wrote:
For a piston Malibu I would calculate with 2.000 to 2.500 EUR. No experience about what the turbine adds to the cost.
The turbine plane should not be any more expensive. Borescoping the turbine should usually even be easier than a full inspection on a piston engine.
My A&P/IA does a lot of prebuys – doesn’t travel much right now though – and reckons 1 day to check the paperwork (ADs etc) and 1 day to check the plane.
THEN you need somebody 100% familiar with the aircraft systems / avionics and that is nontrivial since no mechanic I have ever met (and who is a pilot) knows avionics well. And there is a potential for a lot of €€€ outflow because e.g. fixing an autopilot can be costly. In fact it is quite possible that an autopilot has never worked properly since the day it was installed and nobody noticed.
There are people who buy planes almost unseen. I think a lot of dealers do this. They know what to look for, a simple plane won’t hide much, and anyway they will flip them fast.
I purchased my (9 year old at the time) Meridian approx 1 year ago. I did the prebuy with UNI-FLY A/S in Denmark. The plane was straight out of annual (done by different shop). UNI-FLY found discrepancies which costed 50kEUR+ to fix (seller agreed to fix them at their expense). Amongst others there was a heated windshield that had to be replaced. UNI-FLY charged 4000 EUR for the prebuy (it basically covered EVENT 1&2 + boroscope insp od the engine + checking the heated windshield and state of boots)
TomekZ wrote:
Amongst others there was a heated windshield that had to be replaced
That is a classic but the windshield will more or less deteriorate like a tire. Installing a new one does not fix this forever. So depending on its condition it could be a better option to take the money and wait until it is so bad it has to be done. There is a huge difference between a windshield which no longer passes the Piper inspection and one which no longer works when in icing.
lowandslow your email address is dead.
I do a full annual + boroscope now instead of just prebuys.
Before I bought my Meridian, I had Event 1 and Event 2 plus borescope done by a UK company. They found around £35k of defects that effectively assessed the aircraft as unairworthy and placed the seller in a bad and unhappy position. In the end we settled on a new price to include rectification and I bought it. The windshield heater was fine.
4 years later when sold, I had just £3k worth of agreed deductions. Then again, I had just spent £180k on engine defects and Event1/2 in the past 12 months so it should have been and was, close to perfect.
I had just spent £180k on engine defects and Event1/2 in the past 12 months
Wow. Did the airplane have a hot start or some other event that led to this ?
Not a hot start – Electrical Discharge Damage. Bit of a thread drift to go into it further but I could start a new thread if people are interested.
2020 was a grim year for my Meridian experience including avionics woes you wouldn’t believe….
