Recommended OWNER maintenance tools

First, I have never had an avation mechanic come back and charge me less than estimate. Usually they come back about 10-15% more so I cannot identify with this guys saying he bid high to leave room to make you happy.

A 3 year old Turbo fixed gear Cessna with 500 hrs, with no major parts to replace or significant problems as indicated by the estimate: I would expect the annual to be about $3500 including iran mags and new spark plugs replacement.

I forgot to mention but he was quoting 1.5 hrs per plug 9 hrs....I do not see plugs taking more than 2 hrs to do them all so that is between 5-7 hours beyond what it should take.

My gut feeling is this is not a square deal.

Tony-

If I take the inspection, oil change, mags, and plugs I am at $3500. The labor on the plugs is $127.50 total. So I guess I'm not following you.

In fairness to this shop they have always been at or under the estimate, never had an overage in 3 years.

The estimate concerned me as we'll or I wouldn't have gone through all of this, but now that is has been revised it is closer in line with most of the comments so far.

Thanks again for looking at it.
 
The new numbers are sounding better. For ROP flying like you do, cleaning the injectors every 500 hours is probably fine. As a LOP pilot, I like them cleaned every year or 100 hours - minor imbalances are important. I'm still surprised about the extra time that they list for the injector cleaning, but I haven't looked at an AJ1A in a while so maybe there are aspects that I'm missing.

I'd figure that a smaller shop would probably be about 2/3 the price. The plane has 500 hours on it. Even though you won't have the aging airframe issues, the various sorts of vibration/chafing issues I'd expect. The reality of planes is that the same problem seems to get fixed time and time again.

I'm going to take your advice and have them cleaned. The shop is also highly recommending the cleaning. I also questioned the time and the comment was once again to do it right takes more time, so this is where I am.

On my prior birds I notice I had cheaper annuals, but more downtime do to failures that started out as chaffing. So it might just be a pay me now or pay me later kind of thing.

I'm coming to the same conclusion you have, it might just be the nature of the beast that there will always be a lot of attention required regardless of age.
 
I'm coming to the same conclusion you have, it might just be the nature of the beast that there will always be a lot of attention required regardless of age.

As I've seen this happen on newer planes belonging to other friends of mine, it's made me less interested in that "new plane smell." On the 310 and Aztec, we have had some "old plane" issues, such as redoing some of the wing skin rivets at last annual. But I think that most of the things that have been done on the plane have probably been done a dozen times before.
 
my mistake, I guess I thought it was 1.5 hrs per plug.

Tony-

If I take the inspection, oil change, mags, and plugs I am at $3500. The labor on the plugs is $127.50 total. So I guess I'm not following you.

In fairness to this shop they have always been at or under the estimate, never had an overage in 3 years.

The estimate concerned me as we'll or I wouldn't have gone through all of this, but now that is has been revised it is closer in line with most of the comments so far.

Thanks again for looking at it.
 
my mistake, I guess I thought it was 1.5 hrs per plug.

Me too.

With estimates like this one I can understand why they never go over on the final bills.

the items that really caught my eye was the 50 bucks for a filter and 9 bucks per qt of oil.
 
Actually, I prefer having a high estimate and having it come in low. But for annuals I've never asked for a quote, and just stay informed and involved in the progress. It's always been pretty much what I've expected.
 
Tony-

If I take the inspection, oil change, mags, and plugs I am at $3500. The labor on the plugs is $127.50 total. So I guess I'm not following you.

In fairness to this shop they have always been at or under the estimate, never had an overage in 3 years.

The estimate concerned me as we'll or I wouldn't have gone through all of this, but now that is has been revised it is closer in line with most of the comments so far.

Thanks again for looking at it.
Keep in mind that if they are doing the annual they've already removed all the spark plugs.

Much of this quote reads to me as if you were starting from nothing and decowling and recowling for each job. The truth of it is everything is pretty ripped apart and much of this can be knocked out in 5 minutes a line item, some less.

What is the point of having fifty grand worth of Snap-On if you don't put it to use? Find yourself a local A&P-IA, do it in your hangar, learn a ton about your airplane, and save lots and lots of money.
 
A gear strut bracket (aka gear leg adapter, gear leg bracket, etc) was a STOUT metal U-bracket formed in the angle of the gear leg. IT is slipped under the gear leg and a small bent triangular welded bracket was formed from the U-bracket material and used to accept a jack arm.

Works fine on tapered-flat-spring gear.

Cessna still made bolt-on, temporary jackpoints for their fixed-gear planes, because sometimes you have to lift the plane off the gear.

And that was before they came out with the straight-tube gear struts, where the U-bracket doesn't work.

BTW, your 5-gallon-bucket-on-the-horizontals idea is a great way to screw up the horizontals, from the rim on the bottom of the bucket -- which is probably why Cessna doesn't give this as an acceptable practice. Instead, they say to use bags of shot or sand, or use the tail tiedown eye.
 
Keep in mind that if they are doing the annual they've already removed all the spark plugs.

Much of this quote reads to me as if you were starting from nothing and decowling and recowling for each job. The truth of it is everything is pretty ripped apart and much of this can be knocked out in 5 minutes a line item, some less.

What is the point of having fifty grand worth of Snap-On if you don't put it to use? Find yourself a local A&P-IA, do it in your hangar, learn a ton about your airplane, and save lots and lots of money.

Your last comment gave me a little chuckle. I use those tools to offset a lot of $125+ an hour labor, the airplane is a bargain by comparison. One of the truck dealers I used to deal with had a minimum charge of $500 labor, if they filled a tire with air it was $500. I've had John Deere bill me $700 for 15 mins. of work as another example. It was always a motivator to buy tools and they've already paid for themselves several times over. I could post some of those old invoices and you guys would freak out.

I will think about getting an independent A&P to work with. The problem is you give up access to the factory information. For example the exhaust ring clamps not being safety wired, this came up after Cessna reported some problems in the field with them breaking and separating. There isn't an AD and probably won't be unless it becomes more common, but regardless it's nice to deal with it before it becomes a problem on my bird. Also, I'm not sure all IA's are setup to test things like Amsafe bags, etc.
 
BTW, your 5-gallon-bucket-on-the-horizontals idea is a great way to screw up the horizontals, from the rim on the bottom of the bucket -- which is probably why Cessna doesn't give this as an acceptable practice. Instead, they say to use bags of shot or sand, or use the tail tiedown eye.

That's why I use a rubber mat between the buckets and the surface. I didn't think I had to spell out that sort of detail. I've dropped one of those shot bags on my foot, and water pouring out of a bucket is a whole lot softer.

Tie down ring is fine if (a) you've got someone to help you while you fasten it and (b) you've got something to fasten it to.
 
That's why I use a rubber mat between the buckets and the surface. I didn't think I had to spell out that sort of detail. I've dropped one of those shot bags on my foot, and water pouring out of a bucket is a whole lot softer.

So, don't drop the bag on your foot. I didn't think I had to spell out that sort of detail. ;)

Seriously, YES, you have to spell out that sort of detail, or some guy might do it the way you said it.

Personally, I'll just keep doing it the way Cessna wrote it into the Service Manual. And not drop the bags on my foot.
 
I believe you still have access to all SB service bulletins (come from factory) and also service difficulty reports which are maintenance items written up by all mechanics and sent to FAA. Service difficulty reports are probably the best ones to watch. They are listed with FAA.

You have the option of taking the plane back with any discrepancies not conformed to by the shop. It is still a complete annual and then you can comply with those discrepancies and then the annual is in force. You do not even have to go back to the original shop again. Once the A&P in your hangar signs off the work the plane is in annual and airworthy.

Also, you can have the shop comply with the items of airworthiness and then take it back completed but do the non air worthy items, service bulletins, safety ties, spark plugs, clean injectors and such later.

BTW the ox bottle is probably not expired but expires between now and next year, so you can also have your A&P RR the ox bottle and you can take it to a certification authority and probably pay less than the $250 quoted. Last I heard it was more like $100 so no doubt they are marking up the payment to the ox cert guys which can be saved.

Its a fair deal-You paid the Cessna Dealer $1900 for the annual that is pretty fair to them and about $600 more than most shops charge. They owe you what they did for you but you do not owe them anything else but a check and a thank you for the annual.

You set how the relationship is going to be handled from here out. You can give them blank checks for expensive cost maintenance, double billings on many line items and it goes on every visit or you could get them to complete the annual by logging it in the books and have the discrepancies performed by another A&P. Many knowledgeable parties recommend not having the IA who do the annual not do any of the discrepancies. This way you never have to worry how much greed effects his opinions on air worthiness or needed maintenance. He knows he is not getting that maintenance so why stretch the truth.

This is also safer in that you get a 2nd set of eyes on the plane.

In Wichita, experienced A&P's who come to your hangar charge a bit more than half of shop rates. Our cheapest shop is Webco Comanche specialists and they are $55 per hour and someone to come to the hangar is about $25, 30 per hour.
Your last comment gave me a little chuckle. I use those tools to offset a lot of $125+ an hour labor, the airplane is a bargain by comparison. One of the truck dealers I used to deal with had a minimum charge of $500 labor, if they filled a tire with air it was $500. I've had John Deere bill me $700 for 15 mins. of work as another example. It was always a motivator to buy tools and they've already paid for themselves several times over. I could post some of those old invoices and you guys would freak out.

I will think about getting an independent A&P to work with. The problem is you give up access to the factory information. For example the exhaust ring clamps not being safety wired, this came up after Cessna reported some problems in the field with them breaking and separating. There isn't an AD and probably won't be unless it becomes more common, but regardless it's nice to deal with it before it becomes a problem on my bird. Also, I'm not sure all IA's are setup to test things like Amsafe bags, etc.
 
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