When you sell a plane.

Morgan3820

Morgan3820

En-Route
Joined
Jun 29, 2013
Messages
4,753
Location
New Bern, NC
Display Name
Display name:
El Conquistador
When you sell a plane and the new owner picks up his new toy, how much gas should you leave in it? No prior agreement ,sold as is where is.
 
When I bought mine it had about 9 gallons of fuel... I had to buy a full bag to leave the airport.
 
As a minimum, leave the new owner enough fuel to get to an operating fueling station, with reserves. Beyond that, "as is, where is". Fill it up to the extent of your fuel usage post the new owner's inspection of the plane.
 
not sure but when I sold my Harley I filled up the tank for them cause that's the kind of guy I am.
 
Like someone else said, enough to get to somewhere with fuel + required reserves, whatever you leave beyond that is gravy
 
My seller flew with me from Phoenix to Dallas and paid for all of that fuel. I paid his ride home with with American.

I don't remember how much fuel was left in the tanks. I do know I was too damn happy to care!
 
Empty. You've spent enough money on it already.
 
eman1200 said:
not sure but when I sold my Harley I filled up the tank for them cause that's the kind of guy I am.
Click to expand...

Filling up a Harley costs $15 max, filling up a plane can cost $250+. Personally, I'd probably leave half tanks or so, enough to get a good distance.
 
Enough to taxi to the pumps and make sure there is no loose change in the cabin. They should learn early a plane never gives, it only takes.
 
Before I went to pick up my plane when I bought it I asked the prev. owner if full fuel tanks were included. He said "Of course" as if that was common practice.
 
It comes with whatever's in it. However much it had when I put it away last is what the new owner gets it with. If that's a full tank, that's fine. If that's basically empty, that's fine, too. I do that with all my vehicles. Some people have gotten nearly full tanks and some people have had nearly empty.

Actually, when I took delivery of the 414 it had full tanks. But we ended up having to dispose of virtually all of to get the debris out from sitting.
 
Fill it up!

Sleep at night.

(Why is everyone so worried about being the master deal maker.)
 
brian] said:
Fill it up!

Sleep at night.

(Why is everyone so worried about being the master deal maker.)
Click to expand...

Well, the 414 has 203 gallons of fuel so you don't always want to fill it up. And filling it up might mean an over gross departure depending on how many people/cargo.
 
Morgan3820 said:
I did. However, I will be in Scenic Clovis, NM hopefully picking up my new Arrow! I certainly, would like to meet y'all. Please keep me in mind for the next rendevous
Click to expand...

oh man that's awesome! good luck and I'll add u to the 'locals' list.
 
Whatever it has. You have no use for the fuel in it nor any incentive to add more.
 
Ravioli said:
Interesting case. These darn flyin' machines.
Click to expand...

Yeah, it was a shame. The guy also put so much marvel mystery oil in that the fuel came out green (really green) and I wasn't comfortable flying until we got the green out of the mains.
 
I'm trying to remember what mine had when I bought it. I think it had a fair amount, plus the previous owner actually flew it down from Atlanta for me.
 
When we sold our Cessna, we flew her to her new home. We had her topped off at our home base and whatever was left in the tanks after 1.5 hours flight was what the new owner got.
 
Each time I fly my planes they get put back up with full tanks. So if someone buys one they will have full tanks. Why would you sell someone a plane with no fuel? That's just plain cheap! You that broke. LOL!
 
When i bought my 182 it had half tanks. Plenty for my 1.5 hour flight home but I topped it off anyway because I'm very anal about fuel.

When I got home & topped it off I had only burned around 9.5 gallons per hour. When I told the seller that he said that I must have run it way too lean.

I've had it a year & a half now & when the annual was done in June the mechanic that did the annual said the plugs were like new & the compression was better than when I bought it.

Lean must work.

I didn't mean to hi-jack the thread. I didn't mind buying the fuel to top off the tanks.
 
Having bought/sold a gazillion things with engines...whatever is in it at the time of sale.
 
I would required it to have full tanks for the prebuy inspection, so they were almost full.
 
When traded in my wife's SUV, it had bald tires and coasted in on fumes. It was 12 years old, I think filling the tank would have raised the bluebook value! :)
 
I think we'll leave the 182 wherever it is fuel-wise whenever we sell it, but buy the new owner a nice bottle of Scotch and put it in the back seat. :)
 
I put mine at tabs. Yeah cost me a couple bucks but I felt it was the right thing to do. Get em off to a good start.
 
when I was a kid I sold a bird (because that mofo bit me all the time) and I included some sections of newspaper for the cage cause that's the kind of guy I am.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top