“Before even going into a formal prebuy make sure yourself or with a competent friend everything works. Try all the avionics, lights, heating, aircondition and whatever features the plane has got. Especially all electric systems.”
Agree. And go over the logbooks. If unfamiliar with logbooks, get someone to explain one.
If there are discrepancies,and the seller explains them rather than confessing, walk away.
Three of us went to look at a number of aircraft being sold-off as a school was closing. Two of us looked at the aircraft and logbooks. The other guy just chatted to people. We didn’t offer for any of them, and our local engineer agreed with our assessment.
PS we looked at another aircraft, he traveled from Inverness to Cornwall to inspect, and we bought it.
Peter wrote:
Don’t use someone who contacts you via a forum (any forum including EuroGA). If you get such a contact, ask for references.
Despite this warning, I will shamelessly offer to do that. Don’t have much in the way of references, as my license is pretty fresh, but at least I hope I am sufficiently known here on the forum (including participation in the Zoom session on ownership), I have owned and maintained my own aircraft for 9 years, and I am willing to negotiate the terms. There will be two of us, and we’ll drive to your location. My colleague is a B1 guy with experience in Pipers and will check the airframe, and I am a B1/B2 and will handle the avionics, the logbooks and some of the airframe in the remaining time.
https://www.piper.com/dealers/arlt-aircraft-service/
These guys are good in Worms.
Peter wrote:
There is a huge amount of expertise here on EuroGA and with ~250k posts a lot of good stuff has been written. I would recommend reading through the prebuy search link I posted, to get the basic ideas.
Tons of good advice has been posted on this thread on my (similar) situation:
https://www.euroga.org/forums/aircraft/11314-considering-aircraft-purchase-finally
Btw I’m still in the process. ;-)
