Lycoming IO360-A1A overhaul cost on a Mooney M20F

wby0nder said:
I just bought an E and have looked at a lot of Mooneys in the last few months. I'm wondering if your F is the one at Santa Fe?

Anyway, I know of an immaculate F in Wisconsin that is going to be coming on the market soon. I flew it last summer and would have bought it if it was in my price range. It's expensive but after looking at 8 birds I'd say its worth every penny. PM me if you want more info
Click to expand...

Was this F N6995V out of Ladysmith, WI?
 
What's kind of funny though is that 4 years later, it looks like N6995V was put on the market in May 2018 and just sold 10 days ago.
 
I got that same flier in the mail. That's a ****ton of money for a 1950's engine design. I'm mean, its not a harley or anything...
 
Thanks for the kudos guys! Sold the shop to an employee in '16. I still hear good things. I read this, the red board and BT almost every day to try to help keep folks out of trouble when I can. The bottom line is still the same. Most of the time you get what you pay for, seldom more, and all too often less. The "bottom feeders" sell overhauls for less than the real cost of the parts and vendor services. How do they do that?? My PM is zephyrengn@aol.com Charlie Melot
 
bflynn said:
What's kind of funny though is that 4 years later, it looks like N6995V was put on the market in May 2018 and just sold 10 days ago.
Click to expand...
I actually bought it in August. After transition training in California, it took about 11 hours to get it back to Wisconsin. I met the previous Wisconsin owner last week to obtain some of the winter gear that he had held onto. I've got about 50 hours on it now and enjoying it very much.
 
charlie said:
The "bottom feeders" sell overhauls for less than the real cost of the parts and vendor services. How do they do that??
Click to expand...

Same applies to turbine engines. When I was looking at shops for the hot section on the MU-2's right engine there was a wide variety in pricing, but for the most part you could figure out where the variety came from (parts they would replace regardless of need, new vs. used, shop rates, etc.).

One shop stood out at being way below the rest with numbers that sounded too good to be true. I didn't opt to use that shop.

By the way, Charlie, the engines you did for the 310 in 2012 are still going strong. The Continental lifter issue hit them but otherwise I think they're around halfway to TBO now.
 
whats the concensus these days on conti jugs. go aftermarket or cmi?

ETA: oops nvm, no aftermarket jugs for a io470k. moot point.
 
hindsight2020 said:
whats the concensus these days on conti jugs. go aftermarket or cmi?

ETA: oops nvm, no aftermarket jugs for a io470k. moot point.
Click to expand...

I'll answer anyway. It's been a moving target as there have been a lot of changes. Chinese investment has caused Continental to significantly update their cylinder manufacturing practices. Meanwhile ECi had their issues, went out of business, Superior got bought up and is now a competitor...

When I had to put cylinders on the 414 I went with Superiors, and had done ECi on the 310. To my knowledge the ECi cylinders on the 310 (now about halfway to TBO) have been doing fine. The 414 cylinders probably don't even have 100 hours on them so hard to say. For a while Continental was the worst manufacturer of cylinders for their engines (note this refers to the standard "D" rocker cylinders, not the GTSIO cylinders), but I've heard good things these days.

In other words, flip a coin.
 
I just can't imagine where the money is going for these really high engine overhaul estimates. Short of a catastrophic failure or having to replace a crank or case I just cant see where the money adds up to. Granted I haven't had to overhaul a big 6 banger but the most I have ever invested in an overhaul is 10k in parts. If the rest is labor I'm sure glad I am mechanical inclined.
 
Ted DuPuis said:
I'll answer anyway. It's been a moving target as there have been a lot of changes. Chinese investment has caused Continental to significantly update their cylinder manufacturing practices. Meanwhile ECi had their issues, went out of business, Superior got bought up and is now a competitor...

When I had to put cylinders on the 414 I went with Superiors, and had done ECi on the 310. To my knowledge the ECi cylinders on the 310 (now about halfway to TBO) have been doing fine. The 414 cylinders probably don't even have 100 hours on them so hard to say. For a while Continental was the worst manufacturer of cylinders for their engines (note this refers to the standard "D" rocker cylinders, not the GTSIO cylinders), but I've heard good things these days.

In other words, flip a coin.
Click to expand...

Wow. I'm just amazed what a captive audience is willing to put up with. Any other venture, and people would be storming the corporate offices if you sold them 6 by 2-3amu installed automotive contraptions with a 50 pct rolling life expectancy from advertised, and RnR is on you to add insult to injury. Amazing indeed.
 
hindsight2020 said:
Wow. I'm just amazed what a captive audience is willing to put up with. Any other venture, and people would be storming the corporate offices if you sold them 6 by 2-3amu installed automotive contraptions with a 50 pct rolling life expectancy from advertised, and RnR is on you to add insult to injury. Amazing indeed.
Click to expand...

One thing to remember is that you're talking about designs that date back to the 60s when these things were certified in the first place. Getting 100,000 miles out of a car was a big deal in those days, I remember my uncle telling me that 75,000 miles was when a car was "used up." Meanwhile my Mercedes has 227k. Add in the fact that the FAA makes changes difficult to certify, and you've got the same status quo that dates back to when our planes were built in the first place. Ultimately cylinder reliability isn't a whole ton different than it was 50 years ago.

When you compare to the reliability of our cars today, yes, that's abysmal. When you compare it to the reliability of cars 50 years ago, it's pretty comparable.

The market has also shown that many care about price more than longevity. Just take a look at Lycomings. Factory new Lycoming cylinders almost universally last to TBO. But they cost a bit more, so a lot of people will go aftermarket.
 
Grum.Man said:
I just can't imagine where the money is going for these really high engine overhaul estimates. Short of a catastrophic failure or having to replace a crank or case I just cant see where the money adds up to. Granted I haven't had to overhaul a big 6 banger but the most I have ever invested in an overhaul is 10k in parts. If the rest is labor I'm sure glad I am mechanical inclined.
Click to expand...

I arrive at the same place you do, but from a different direction. For me, the value added to spending a new auto purchase's worth on these engines, considering the "flip a coin" variance in outcomes already highlighted by @Ted DuPuis , is simply just not there for me. This is more so when you account for my lack of resale consideration when I make maintenance decisions and on behalf of my family.

This is one place where I disagree with the moniker of you get what you pay for. In general I don't see people getting their moneys worth on 2018 price indexed engine reman/OH, especially in the continental side. I just don't. I've flown aggressively post tbo and I've heard enough nightmare stories from the infant mortality crowd to undergo that level of expense for such little upside (resale). I'm not swayed by the safety argument; I think many on this hobby are scaredy cats and incur placebo costs in order participate. Nothing wrong with that, but that doesn't make the premium universally valuable.

Furthermore, given the low utilization rate I incur, its more of a disincentive, given the highly time perishable nature to these contraptions in low use environment. Revenue operation? Yeah I'd do it then and pass the cost to the airline dreamers.

I think I'd be more likely to swap the betraying engine for another used engine and bolt on, than go for 2018 PRICED retail engine work. A 30+ horsepower conversion would probably be another exception I'd make to my argument.

Cylinders are a joke. They're pretty much considered consumables at this point in my tenure in this hobby. As such I'd never buy those new, which drive me further away from bottom end overhauls by proxy.
 
Ted DuPuis said:
One thing to remember is that you're talking about designs that date back to the 60s when these things were certified in the first place. Getting 100,000 miles out of a car was a big deal in those days, I remember my uncle telling me that 75,000 miles was when a car was "used up." Meanwhile my Mercedes has 227k. Add in the fact that the FAA makes changes difficult to certify, and you've got the same status quo that dates back to when our planes were built in the first place. Ultimately cylinder reliability isn't a whole ton different than it was 50 years ago.

When you compare to the reliability of our cars today, yes, that's abysmal. When you compare it to the reliability of cars 50 years ago, it's pretty comparable.

The market has also shown that many care about price more than longevity. Just take a look at Lycomings. Factory new Lycoming cylinders almost universally last to TBO. But they cost a bit more, so a lot of people will go aftermarket.
Click to expand...

I hear ya, but conti engines and cylinders are generally as or more expensive than Lycos of the same power rating (with some exceptions on the lyco angle valve side) and look at the longevity delta. So I fail to see the correlation of paying a premium for what you aptly pointed out, is in the end a 1950s tractor engine with corresponding frozen reliability.
 
hindsight2020 said:
I arrive at the same place you do, but from a different direction. For me, the value added to spending a new auto purchase's worth on these engines, considering the "flip a coin" variance in outcomes already highlighted by @Ted DuPuis , is simply just not there for me. This is more so when you account for my lack of resale consideration when I make maintenance decisions and on behalf of my family.

This is one place where I disagree with the moniker of you get what you pay for. In general I don't see people getting their moneys worth on 2018 price indexed engine reman/OH, especially in the continental side. I just don't. I've flown aggressively post tbo and I've heard enough nightmare stories from the infant mortality crowd to undergo that level of expense for such little upside (resale). I'm not swayed by the safety argument; I think many on this hobby are scaredy cats and incur placebo costs in order participate. Nothing wrong with that, but that doesn't make the premium universally valuable.

Furthermore, given the low utilization rate I incur, its more of a disincentive, given the highly time perishable nature to these contraptions in low use environment. Revenue operation? Yeah I'd do it then and pass the cost to the airline dreamers.

I think I'd be more likely to swap the betraying engine for another used engine and bolt on, than go for 2018 PRICED retail engine work. A 30+ horsepower conversion would probably be another exception I'd make to my argument.

Cylinders are a joke. They're pretty much considered consumables at this point in my tenure in this hobby. As such I'd never buy those new, which drive me further away from bottom end overhauls by proxy.
Click to expand...

I’ve had way too many bad experiences with used engines. I agree with you though that a lot of people in this hobby spend more at overhaul to have something new that may not need to be. I have no problem running chrome cylinders, never had a problem with them. I have had the opposite experience on Conti vs Lyco though my lyco experience is limited to 0-235 which constantly ate cylinders. All my conti engines have been bulletproof. The only overhaul I will do on an airplane not used for compensation is a field overhaul. Send the parts out for inspection. If they are good reuse them, if they are bad referbish them, if they aren’t saveable buy a used one that is.
 
hindsight2020 said:
I hear ya, but conti engines and cylinders are generally as or more expensive than Lycos of the same power rating (with some exceptions on the lyco angle valve side) and look at the longevity delta. So I fail to see the correlation of paying a premium for what you aptly pointed out, is in the end a 1950s tractor engine with corresponding frozen reliability.
Click to expand...

My 1950s tractors are pretty much bulletproof. :)

Price by itself doesn't necessarily mean better engineering or design goes into it, and keep in mind that planes typically either have only Lycomings or only Continentals, so you're stuck with what you've got.

When it comes to overhauls, you do tend to get what you pay for. The cheap ones are cheap. The expensive ones are usually better. Is it a guarantee? Absolutely not. But like @Grum.Man I've seen too many problems with used piston engines.
 
My O-360 was overhauled by Zephyr. Total cost for everything including removal and re-install, hoses, mags, etc was $27,000 about 5 yrs ago. For a fuel injected engine I would think you will be close to $30,000. Plus you will likely have to do the prop as well, so you better research the likelihood of that expense at the same time.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top