About to buy 2003 Diamond Da40 - is it out of the norm to ask for annual?

[Heybluez]

I found a da40 about 1900 miles from me! we've agreed to price and moving into contract. That said, I have not seen the plane yet ( in real life that is, I have seen pictures and logs ) and the annual is coming up;

question, is it ok if I just ask them to do the annual as part of the deal? Suggestions?

Also, what's typical on deposit? Fixed amount? % of purchase price?

Anything else?

Btw, this is my first plane purchase.

Thanks!
MJP

 

[Theboys]

Pretty sure they would do annual for you if it's within few months. If you do a prebuy you could just turn it into annual. Down payment is usually real flexible but I'd think 5 to 10% depending on your payment plans would be reasonable. For me, if I was selling plane in that price bracket would like 10g for taking off market.

 

[weilke]

The DA40 has a couple of items in chapter 4 of the maintenance manual that have mandatory replacement intervals (rudder cables iirc). There is a whole raft of things in chapter 5 that have replacement intervals, but those are not mandatory for a FAA part 91 operation. Performing all of those is about a 20k bill when billed at diamond center block rates.

If the plane is due for an annual, you want the mechanic who will maintain the plane for you perform the annual as part of a pre-buy inspection. He needs to be familiar with composite planes.

It would be advisable to have a written agreement with the seller on who pays for what. It is up to you to agree on terms with the seller and everything is up to negotiation. A reasonable division would be for:

- you the buyer to pay for the inspection fee
- the seller to pay for any airworthiness items that come up

If you decide to go forward with the purchase based on the inspection:

- you pay all for the 'while we are here' and 'you really outta' items
- the mechanic/IA signs it off as an annual, you fly home

If you decide not to go through with the purchase:

A. Seller reimburses you for the inspection fee ---> Your IA signs it off as an annual (with or without discrepancies, if the seller wants him to fix them he has to pay)
B. You pay the inspection fee --> Your IA buttons up the plane and pushes it to the edge of the tarmac, it remains a pre-buy inspection.

Most sellers would want some 'earnest money' to be at stake before they allow you to tear into their plane and risk the plane to be left with a discrepancy list from an IA that is outside of their control. It is a good idea to have that money held by the escrow company rather than making a deposit to the seller.

 

[tlrussell]

The DA40 has a couple of items in chapter 4 of the maintenance manual that have mandatory replacement intervals (rudder cables iirc). There is a whole raft of things in chapter 5 that have replacement intervals, but those are not mandatory for a FAA part 91 operation. Performing all of those is about a 20k bill when billed at diamond center block rates.

If the plane is due for an annual, you want the mechanic who will maintain the plane for you perform the annual as part of a pre-buy inspection. He needs to be familiar with composite planes.

It would be advisable to have a written agreement with the seller on who pays for what. It is up to you to agree on terms with the seller and everything is up to negotiation. A reasonable division would be for:

- you the buyer to pay for the inspection fee
- the seller to pay for any airworthiness items that come up

If you decide to go forward with the purchase based on the inspection:

- you pay all for the 'while we are here' and 'you really outta' items
- the mechanic/IA signs it off as an annual, you fly home

If you decide not to go through with the purchase:

A. Seller reimburses you for the inspection fee ---> Your IA signs it off as an annual (with or without discrepancies, if the seller wants him to fix them he has to pay)
B. You pay the inspection fee --> Your IA buttons up the plane and pushes it to the edge of the tarmac.

Most sellers would want some 'earnest money' to be at stake before they allow you to tear into their plane and risk the plane to be left with a discrepancy list from an IA that is outside of their control. It is a good idea to have that money held by the escrow company rather than making a deposit to the seller.

Please don't take this the wrong way but it sounds like you have not purchased many planes. I recently bought one 900miles away form me using a pre-buy service and I would highly recommend it. If you have an interest I'd be happy to expound.

 

[Unit74]

I say it's always a good ideas to annual plane over a prebuy. Spending the money now could save you a significant amount later. Plus you walk away with a fresh annual.

If some thing serious pops up, you may be out some cash if you walk from it, but that's better than finding out on your next annual you bought a lemon.

 

[frfly172]

I usually start with a pre buy and turn it into an annual if the pre buy looks good.

 

[flyingriki]

I say it's always a good ideas to annual plane over a prebuy. Spending the money now could save you a significant amount later. Plus you walk away with a fresh annual.

If some thing serious pops up, you may be out some cash if you walk from it, but that's better than finding out on your next annual you bought a lemon.

Excellent advice. An annual has somebody's license in the log, only as valuable as the the quality of his work. A pre- buy means nothing and can amount to a great inspection or a bunch of hooey. What do they put on the log?

 

[Henning]

I found a da40 about 1900 miles from me! we've agreed to price and moving into contract. That said, I have not seen the plane yet ( in real life that is, I have seen pictures and logs ) and the annual is coming up;

question, is it ok if I just ask them to do the annual as part of the deal? Suggestions?

Also, what's typical on deposit? Fixed amount? % of purchase price?

Anything else?

Btw, this is my first plane purchase.

Thanks!
MJP

Yes, it's quite common to do an annual in the purchase process, especially if due or close. On a deal like that typically a deposit will cover the annual inspection phase with the owner covering any airworthy issues. There should be a clause for refund if the seller does not want to make the repairs. When I bought the 310 the seller paid for the fresh annual.

 

[weilke]

Excellent advice. An annual has somebody's license in the log, only as valuable as the the quality of his work. A pre- buy means nothing and can amount to a great inspection or a bunch of hooey. What do they put on the log?

There are planes that an IA could sign off for an annual and they would still not be a good buy. The inspection has to be both, a pre-buy and an annual (e.g. the plane could have a bunch of deferred maintenance that is not airworthiness relevant yet expensive to fix, a plane can be airworthy but have signs of a prior accident that wasn't disclosed by the seller etc.)

 

[timwinters]

I say it's always a good ideas to annual plane over a prebuy. Spending the money now could save you a significant amount later. Plus you walk away with a fresh annual.

If some thing serious pops up, you may be out some cash if you walk from it, but that's better than finding out on your next annual you bought a lemon.

A properly completed pre-buy evaluation performed by the buyer's mechanic is more exhaustive than an annual...

But nothing goes in the logbook unless it's converted to an annual. And converting it to an annual is then a simple matter of paperwork.

Someone here with years of A&P IA experience really should put together a guide on this...that's then made a sticky so the same bad advice can quit being thrown out every time this question is asked.

Edit: Weilke gave the best advise here by far except that there shouldn't be a potential for a "discrepancy list" because the pre-buy is an evaluation and not an inpection.

Edit: sure you can ask the owner for an annual as part of the deal and if he provides the annual with his mechanic then you'll likely get the finest pencil-whipped annual that his money can buy.

 

[CTLSi]

I found a da40 about 1900 miles from me! we've agreed to price and moving into contract. That said, I have not seen the plane yet ( in real life that is, I have seen pictures and logs ) and the annual is coming up;

question, is it ok if I just ask them to do the annual as part of the deal? Suggestions?

Also, what's typical on deposit? Fixed amount? % of purchase price?

Anything else?

Btw, this is my first plane purchase.

Thanks!
MJP

You agreed to a deal and now you want the seller to pay for a $1000 or more annual after the fact? What is your best guess.

 

[timwinters]

You agreed to a deal and now you want the seller to pay for a $1000 or more annual after the fact? What is your best guess.

He said they're moving on to the contract and...

If the contract isn't written yet then the price is agreed to but not the terms.

 

[BG305]

I'm in the process of buying my second plane right now. I had the seller do the annual first and on Tuesday I am having the A&P do the pre buy. I found an A&P that owns the same model plane I am buying so he knows the plane very well. He knows what to look for as far as AD's and model specific problems that only an owner or some one familiar with the model would know. The plane that I was looking at buying before this one had the front third recovered and painted. It had no damage history with no 337's on file and the current owner had no clue why this had been done early in the planes life. I would never buy plane without a thorough pre buy done on it.

 

[Kristin]

A pre-buy inspection is not an annual inspection. It looks for things that relate to the value of the airplane, i.e. the maintenance items that are likely to bite you in the first couple of years of operation. An annual is a snapshot looking at whether the aircraft meets the minimum standards for airworthiness at that moment.

Case in point. I recently finished up with an annual inspection on a nice Piper Comanche. The owner had purchased the airplane a few months ago. But, since he knew the owner, and knew the mechanics, he didn't need no stinkin' pre-buy, so he bought the plane. Had he paid me a few hundred dollars, I would have told him that his fuel tanks were on their last legs and that he had a 1000 hour landing gear AD due in a few dozen hours. Had he done an annual inspection, he will would not have learned about the fuel tanks as they hadn't started to leak yet and there was still a few dozen hours on the AD. But he might wanted to know that he was facing an AD mandated inspection in the first year that was going to cost him $3-5K. He might wanted to know that he would spend $6K in the first couple of years to replace the fuel tanks.

Anyone who thinks that an IA's signature in a logbook is some guarantee of quality hasn't been around aviation too much. I have another Comanche in the shop that has had the aforementioned AD signed off 20 hours ago. It was pencil-whipped. That is not the first and will not be the last I see. I have seen aircraft with obvious and illegal repairs that have gone through 17 annual inspections.

A previous post hit it on the head when he said that you need to find a mechanic/pilot that knows the particular aircraft that you want to buy. If they haven't owned them and worked on them, they probably are not sufficiently familiar with them, regardless of what they tell you. Once you have found an owner/mechanic that knows the aircraft you want, then go looking. You can save money by getting copies of the logs from the sellers or going yourself and photographing the logs and key parts of the aircraft. I have a checklist that I give prospective buyers telling them what photos to take. I can spend a couple or three hours going through those and save money on travel costs, and I can rule out a whole bunch of airplanes just from the logs. Once one passes muster, then traveling to the aircraft for a physical inspection usually results in a deal.

The scope of a pre-buy does not have to be as thorough as an annual. I don't need to check the control cable tensions and if they are out of spec, it doesn't affect the value. Ditto for dozens of other items. I look at the places the planes break. I look at the engine thoroughly, as that can cost a lot of money to fix. I look at all the expensive stuff. I test fly the plane to make sure that it flies straight and all the avionics, etc, works. When was the last time your IA did a check of the avionics and autopilot on an annual inspection?

Now if the airplane is in the shop here, rather than my traveling to it, and the annual is due soon, then there is money to be saved by rolling the pre-buy into the annual inspection, but the annual is not a substitute. If you use an annual as your pre-buy, sooner or later you will get burned.

 

[BG305]