Manufacturers estimates for maintenance

On Wed, 20 Feb 2008 09:47:08 -0800 (PST), John
wrote:

On Feb 11, 2:39*pm, 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)?


Piper and Cessna et al do have standard times for routine maintenance
but they do not publish them. You have to be a licensed maintenance
provider to get the information. The manufacturer's also publish
times for various service bulletin work as well. Most maintenance
providers end up wondering just how they arrive at their estimates.

We already know. They tech writer who types up the SB gets data from
a team of factory people who work these things day in/day out in
mostly unassembled form and they say "It should only take blah to
get at that part", completey ignoring that it takes 9 times longer in
the real world when the aircraft is fully put together.

What's even more fun is when the procedures they put out on the
maintenance manuals are physically impossible. For example, replacing
the CO detector in a G1000 Cessna. They call in the MM for you to
pull the MFD and unscrew the 3 screws holding the detector in place.
They don't mention that this is physically impssible because behind
the MFD is a large rack and cage assembly where they put the GEA, GDL,
and some other rackmounted componants I can't recall offhand making
access to the bracket outside of the cage that they mounted the CO
detector unit to impossible through that route.