On Feb 11, 11:39 am, SabbaSolo wrote:
Do Piper or Cessna publish estimates for maintenance work, that repair
shops use for charging or estimating?

In Europe, many car manufacturers use estimates like this for car
repairs and maintenance work. Say the manufacturer specifies 45 min
for an oil change. That is what you are charged for, whether the
change takes them 20 min because they work fast, or 1.5hrs because the
filter broke off when they were removing it.

If this doesn't exist, how does one estimate aircraft routine
maintenance (like 100hr inspections) or repair (like replacing a
vacuum pump)?

In the US we do the same for cars too. Remove/Replace engine = X
hours. If the mechanic does it in less time; bonus for him. If he
takes forever, it's on his time, if you come back because the job was
done wrong, his time again.
However, this does not apply to airplanes. There is no reliable way to
estimate maintenance for a given airplane unless its still under
warranty. No on can tell you if a mag, fuel servo, or cylinder will go
out this year (my Mooney with mid time engine built in 98 had all 3 of
these this past 12 months). Also, no one can tell you what these
repairs will really cost until you get the final bill. I once got a
bill for an annual that was over $10,000, the shop had estimated the
bill would be $3000 after they had completed the inspection. Not sure
what happened between the inspection and the bill.

So the short answer is, don't worry about it, just know its going to
cost you a crazy, insane amount of money but you'll never had to worry
about flying a piece of crap rental plane.

-robert