Annual Costs - Take the Pledge

Annual costs are a hot hanger topic. All of us who follow GA maintenance
issues have seen how it goes. Preferred Aviation gives good advice so an
owner spends $5000 on his Skyhawk while it's in for the annual. When his
friends ask why the long face, he tells them he just had a five grand annual
at Preferred. They think, wow, I'd better go to Savemore Aviation for my
annual because, I can't afford a hit like that right now. Preferred then
gets a divot taken out of its market share for doing a proper job.

Every year, at the club meeting after our annual, somebody says that Joe
Pinchface gets his annuals done for $800 up at Savemore and why are we
spending all this money? I ask if he's read the report in the newsletter.
He doesn't have to read it because Joe has a damn fine airplane, he's flown
with him many times, and if he can get it through annual for $800 at
Savemore, there's no reason why we can't.

Last year, I had our shop give me two invoices. The first was for the
inspection and just the rock bottom, minimum necessary to legally sign the
plane off. Everything that could be deferred until after the plane had
flown again was put on a second invoice. We are used to spending $2000 to
$5000 at annual time. I reported to the club that we had a $1200 annual and
elected to do $2500 of other stuff while the plane was down and taken apart.
I was a hero and it was the first year I didn't have to listen to the
Savemore speech.

I used to recommend our late lamented shop to everyone. Several people said,
"Yeah, he's good but I can't afford his annuals." After last year's annual,
I told people who complained about our shop's high annuals that ours was
only $1200 on a Skyhawk and they said they might give him a try. If this
kind of billing was more common, an excellent shop might still be in
business.

So, take the pledge. If you are a shop, keep true annual costs separate so
you don't suffer annual cost inflation that scares away customers. If you
are an owner, ask for two invoices so you can better track expenses and not
scare customers away from the shop that you depend on.

--
Roger Long

Great story. It is amazing how many people expect an annual to cost $1000
when the inspection portion alone is $900. They must think that the
airplane is better than new a year after the last annual.

I believe in "efficient" maintenance. It is not efficient to have a part
fail at an inconvienent time, get a hotel, find a mechanic to work on
Sunday, fly the part in ect. When my plane is in for an inspection I want
them to call me with the squawk list before closing it up. If there is a
right side $175 relay that won't pass the test, I want to replace the left
side relay also while it is accessible. It saves money over replacing the
second relay two years later and spending $200 in labor just to access it.
It is generally cheaper to have my parts overhauled than to get an
overhaul/exchange so I try to schedule maitenance so that there is enough
time to have my parts overhauled.

Mike
MU-2

"Roger Long" om wrote in
message ...
Annual costs are a hot hanger topic. All of us who follow GA maintenance
issues have seen how it goes. Preferred Aviation gives good advice so an
owner spends $5000 on his Skyhawk while it's in for the annual. When his
friends ask why the long face, he tells them he just had a five grand
annual
at Preferred. They think, wow, I'd better go to Savemore Aviation for my
annual because, I can't afford a hit like that right now. Preferred then
gets a divot taken out of its market share for doing a proper job.

Every year, at the club meeting after our annual, somebody says that Joe
Pinchface gets his annuals done for $800 up at Savemore and why are we
spending all this money? I ask if he's read the report in the newsletter.
He doesn't have to read it because Joe has a damn fine airplane, he's
flown
with him many times, and if he can get it through annual for $800 at
Savemore, there's no reason why we can't.

Last year, I had our shop give me two invoices. The first was for the
inspection and just the rock bottom, minimum necessary to legally sign the
plane off. Everything that could be deferred until after the plane had
flown again was put on a second invoice. We are used to spending $2000 to
$5000 at annual time. I reported to the club that we had a $1200 annual
and
elected to do $2500 of other stuff while the plane was down and taken
apart.
I was a hero and it was the first year I didn't have to listen to the
Savemore speech.

I used to recommend our late lamented shop to everyone. Several people
said,
"Yeah, he's good but I can't afford his annuals." After last year's
annual,
I told people who complained about our shop's high annuals that ours was
only $1200 on a Skyhawk and they said they might give him a try. If this
kind of billing was more common, an excellent shop might still be in
business.

So, take the pledge. If you are a shop, keep true annual costs separate
so
you don't suffer annual cost inflation that scares away customers. If you
are an owner, ask for two invoices so you can better track expenses and
not
scare customers away from the shop that you depend on.

--
Roger Long

"Mike Rapoport" wrote in message link.net...
Great story. It is amazing how many people expect an annual to cost $1000
when the inspection portion alone is $900. They must think that the
airplane is better than new a year after the last annual.

Of course the converse is that shops will quote "$700" annuals when they know
there is no way the plane will leave the shop for that amount.

It also depends where you live. Here in Billings I could bring my 182
to the Cessna dealer on the field. They get about $70 an hour for
labor. I bring in a pristine plane I cannot get out of there for less
than $2000. I have had them do a few things to my plane, but damn few.
I'm not going to pay that labor rate when I can pay $40 per hour for
arguably better work at a field 30 miles SW of here. His flat rate on a
182 annual is $450, which except for the Cessna dealer, is the going
rate around here. I have built up a relationship with this guy over the
last 5 years. My annuals have been between $1000 and $2500. The only
things I defer is the stuff I can do myself, like tires, brakes, etc.
Simply saying a $5000 annual is better than a $500 annual is silly.
There are a few IA's around here that do annuals out of their pickups in
their spare time. They do damn good jobs for very little money,
although I have no interest anymore in opening/closing up the inspection
panels to save a few hundred dollars.

Ron Natalie wrote:
"Mike Rapoport" wrote in message link.net...

Great story. It is amazing how many people expect an annual to cost $1000
when the inspection portion alone is $900. They must think that the
airplane is better than new a year after the last annual.


Of course the converse is that shops will quote "$700" annuals when they know
there is no way the plane will leave the shop for that amount.

You completely missed the point. Read it again.

--
Roger Long

Newps wrote in message
news:iKbRb.125071$nt4.552583@attbi_s51...

Simply saying a $5000 annual is better than a $500 annual is silly.

A good idea! Seperating the inspection and mandatory work from the repairs
and better to fix it nows is a wise idea.

I have been going to a Savemore (first shop I ever used), and boy was I
PO'd when I got stuck 800 miles from home only 1 week after the annual for
fully broken exhaust.

Other things that they had let go or missed had been hassles in the past,
but this one could have killed me. They lost my business.



"Roger Long" om wrote in
message ...
Annual costs are a hot hanger topic. All of us who follow GA maintenance
issues have seen how it goes. Preferred Aviation gives good advice so an
owner spends $5000 on his Skyhawk while it's in for the annual. When his
friends ask why the long face, he tells them he just had a five grand
annual
at Preferred. They think, wow, I'd better go to Savemore Aviation for my
annual because, I can't afford a hit like that right now. Preferred then
gets a divot taken out of its market share for doing a proper job.

Every year, at the club meeting after our annual, somebody says that Joe
Pinchface gets his annuals done for $800 up at Savemore and why are we
spending all this money? I ask if he's read the report in the newsletter.
He doesn't have to read it because Joe has a damn fine airplane, he's
flown
with him many times, and if he can get it through annual for $800 at
Savemore, there's no reason why we can't.

Last year, I had our shop give me two invoices. The first was for the
inspection and just the rock bottom, minimum necessary to legally sign the
plane off. Everything that could be deferred until after the plane had
flown again was put on a second invoice. We are used to spending $2000 to
$5000 at annual time. I reported to the club that we had a $1200 annual
and
elected to do $2500 of other stuff while the plane was down and taken
apart.
I was a hero and it was the first year I didn't have to listen to the
Savemore speech.

I used to recommend our late lamented shop to everyone. Several people
said,
"Yeah, he's good but I can't afford his annuals." After last year's
annual,
I told people who complained about our shop's high annuals that ours was
only $1200 on a Skyhawk and they said they might give him a try. If this
kind of billing was more common, an excellent shop might still be in
business.

So, take the pledge. If you are a shop, keep true annual costs separate
so
you don't suffer annual cost inflation that scares away customers. If you
are an owner, ask for two invoices so you can better track expenses and
not
scare customers away from the shop that you depend on.

--
Roger Long

Roger Long wrote:
snip
So, take the pledge. If you are a shop, keep true annual costs separate so
you don't suffer annual cost inflation that scares away customers. If you
are an owner, ask for two invoices so you can better track expenses and not
scare customers away from the shop that you depend on.

Good post, Roger. I wish more people understood the distinction between
an annual inspection, the work needed to make the airplane airworthy as
a result of that inspection, and all the extras that make sense to do
while the airplane is in pieces.

For the annual on our 172 that just ended last month, our mechanic
quoted us 18 hours of labor on just the inspection. Turned out he did a
VERY thorough inspection in that time and managed to come up with lots
of little things that others had missed over the last few years...which
brings up another important point.

It doesn't matter what you spend on the inspection portion of an
annual...it's the quality of that inspection that matters. Some guys
can do it in more time, some in less...but what matters is whether the
IA actually does his job. We are fortunate in that respect to have a
good long-time friendship and business relationship with our mechanic.
He knows we are particular about the airplane and takes pride in his
efforts to find all the stuff that others may have overlooked.

The inspection plus parts and labor to fix various things (new brakes,
etc.) totaled about $2000. Quite reasonable, and about average for this
airplane. Of course, if I mentioned outright that the total bill for
our "Annual" reached $7200, my mechanic would likely have no business.
In truth, half that cost was the propeller and governor overhaul that we
(not our mechanic) made the call to do, and the remainder covered lots
of little items that we considered important to do in the interest of
safety or cosmetics and "while the hood was up".

FYI, if you want to read the full story on our annual, I've written a
three part series of articles and posted them on my site. Click through
"Aviation-Articles-Maintenance".

-Doug

--
--------------------
Doug Vetter, CFIMEIA

http://www.dvcfi.com
--------------------

The annual on mine last year - no work needed, just the inspection,
cost just over £1700. Includes a radio check and a recurring "use a
mirror to look at the prop flange" AD.

They do a thorough job though, but I'd expected (before I bought
the place) the inspections to be only about £1000.

Crossposting this to uk.rec.aviation. How much are annual inspections
on everyone else's planes in the UK? (just the inspection part)

Paul

"Doug Vetter" wrote in message
et...
For the annual on our 172 that just ended last month, our mechanic
quoted us 18 hours of labor on just the inspection. Turned out he did a
VERY thorough inspection in that time
The inspection plus parts and labor to fix various things (new brakes,
etc.) totaled about $2000.

I learned a lesson recently relating to annual cost vs value. Two
years ago I took on the renovation of a 78 Piper Lance that had sat
outdoors untouched for 3 years. As the service dept. of the flight
school I was teaching at was too busy to fit the plane in, I ended up
having the annual done at another shop on the field. In retrospect I
should have gotten a ferry permit(it was out of annual) and taken the
plane to another airport to have the work done.
IIRC, the total bill was around $1400. This for a plane that sat 3
years without having the engine pickled(!). They replaced the tires
and tubes(only at my insistence) the battery, and ELT batteries (they
used the wrong type) and the wheel bearings on the mains (sprayed a
little Corrosion-X too for good measure) I flew this plane for a year
(about 30 hours) until the next annual. During that time I had a gear
emergency in the pattern (frozen in mid-extension) due to a severely
corroded power pack that was never inspected by the first shop.
My flight school service dept did the 2nd annual. The service mgr.
told me the plane was "scary" there was so much wrong with it. The
second annual cost over 23k, as the squawk list had 130 items on it. A
bunch of these were cosmetic, but mostly airframe related stuff.
Admittedly it was dumb to accept a $1400 annual as a thorough
inspection of a neglected airplane. At least now I know the plane is
safe to fly, and as someone else was paying for the service work I
offer this anecdote to anyone else in a similar position.
In aviation, you really do get what you pay for.

Will

In article ,
(Wiley) wrote:

In aviation, you really do get what you pay for.

but it's not always what you thought you were going to get.

:-(

--
Bob Noel