Manufacturers estimates for maintenance

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)?

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.

That's not really true in the US for repairs.

Mechanics often split the extra money with the shop, if the job is
finished faster. Here in the US, I have never seen an unexpected
problem, say corroded in place parts or interference from an aftermarket
part, not added to the final bill as extra labor with a corresponding
explanation. The estimate form itself is even preprinted with a legal
disclaimer relating to estimated prices.

Certain PM jobs like oil changes and tire rotations are advertised at a
flat rate, but even they can change. In that case, your broken filter
example would probably hold, but the paper allowing the shop to work on
the car will probably have the same estimate disclaimer.

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

Actual time and materials. Most good aviation shops and A&P's can
provide an estimate, but it's just that, an ESTIMATE. The actual cost
will vary based on individual aircraft equipment and issues uncovered
along the way.

It's perfectly normal to be able to ask different shops what a 100 hr.
or annual might cost on a specific aircraft and get a ballpark figure.
This figure is given with the knowledge that things can change fast.

One can also compare notes with owners of similar craft on past annual
costs.

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

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

Thats a fact.

On Feb 11, 3:02*pm, "Robert M. Gary" wrote:
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.

No - but unless you do worry about it and understand exactly what the
shop is doing, and why, and learn enough to at least inspect their
work, then you do have to worry about flying a piece of crap owned
airplane. Taking your plane to the manufacturer's authorized service
center and paying top dollar is no assurance that the required
maintenance will be done correctly - or done at all, for that matter,
even when it is billed.

I seem to recall you learning that lesson the first time you did an
owner-assited annual.

It is unfortunate, but owning a plane is not like owning a car. It is
a lot like owning a car used to be - at about the time the CAA (later
FAA) got involved in regulating aircraft manufacturing and maintenance
and effectively stopped all progress.

Michael

Robert M. Gary wrote:

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.


And (with no offense intended to any here) that is why I'm never going to own a production
airplane. Homebuilt only for me (whenever I can afford to start building it in the first
place).

There really ought to be an "owner-maintained" system where you can do your own
maintenance and annuals, but the airplane is then subject to experimental regs (like
flying for hire etc) and the manufacturer is released from liability for things other than
inherent design faults.

On Feb 13, 9:10*pm, Bob Martin wrote:
There really ought to be an "owner-maintained" system where you can do your own
maintenance and annuals, but the airplane is then subject to experimental regs (like
flying for hire etc) and the manufacturer is released from liability for things other than
inherent design faults.

There is - in Canada. Interesting bit of trivia - any Canadian
aircraft could get FAA permission to fly in the US including
homebuilt, ultralight, and even advanced ultralight (about equivalent
to our LSA - long before we had LSA). There is only one exception -
owner maintained. The FAA won't allow them to fly here. They know
the truth - if this was possible, we would all do it - and the
mechanics and repair stations would fold left and right. And then the
FAA wouldn't need all those maintenance inspectors.

Michael

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. I
know of one very complex service bulletin job on Cessna twins that
Cessna quoted at 20 hours. The shop I was with took 65 hours to do
the first one and then slowly got the time down to about 30 hours.
Remember now Cessna will only reimburse the shop for 20 hours of labor
so the shop is taking quite a hit on every one of these jobs. In the
end Cessna called the shop to enquire how they got the job down to 30
hours since no one else in the country was doing the job in less than
40 hours!

John Dupre'

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.