The avionics shop called...

[denverpilot]

... and they'll be sending a courier over for your wallet.

The work we had done looks like it's costing $1000 more than the highest of what we estimated. LOL!

Ahh, the joys of ownership! (GRIN!)

Still waiting on the final detailed bill, but here was "the list" going in...

- Remove Cessna/ARC ADF and antennas.
- Repair/replace clock.
- Remove autopilot control head or get it in-op'ed properly.
- Replace AI
- Install new plastic panel covers, wire in "post" lights. (We provided them.)
- Do IFR/Static check (was due Jan 31st)

Due to a phone call from them that they'd found the autopilot problem, and it was the Turn Coordinator sending bad voltages to the hunk-o-junk Cessna/ARC 200 AP... we authorized switching the "plan" to replacing the TC with a serviceable one.

The bill today... $3700. $380 of that was the IFR/static check and finding and fixing leaks (good!) during that process.

Parts were estimated at just over $1200 last week... so it'll be interesting to see what they actually were. That would be a used AI, a serviceable TC, and a clock. Yep, just got the fax... $1300 for parts. Okay...

(And I'm guessing with the leaks, they may have replaced some old hoses and connectors/fittings and what-not. Hard to say yet.) Yep, $30 worth of junk to straighten that out I see on the final bill.

So, $1900+ in labor. And not a bit of it itemized by hours or individual jobs on the work order. ARGH. I hate that. Aviation businesses are their own worst enemies, I swear.

Not complaining. When I stopped by the shop and poked my head in on Friday of last week, the quality of the work looked excellent.

They'd cleaned up a number of "junky" things someone had done behind the panel over the years, including two wiring harnesses and a mic plug that apparently weren't wired to anything at all... that someone had just left back there. (Ugh. That's just crappy work.) I see no charges for that, so I'm sure it's in the "slush" hours there somewhere.

And the rest looked good. Really good.

Just a bit of "sticker shock" if that's all labor... assuming $100/hr (their shop rate could be higher or lower... they don't detail THAT either... ARGHHHH!!!) that's 19 hours of labor. Seems a touch high for that list we had.

Have had lots of positive references from folks in the area for this shop...

Anyone think this is "high", "in the ball park", or "low" for that list above? Just curious. Sadly, there was virtually nothing on this list that anyone with the ability to change oil on a car without screwing it up, their own screwdriver, and half a brain, couldn't have accomplished... except maybe taking the ADF antennas off. (How the hell do you reach the top of the tail, and where do you put the ladder?! The elevator/horizontal stab is in the way! LOL!)

Fun fun... where's my hammer? You know, the one where I hit myself in the head the next time I think about letting the airplane go into an avionics shop? (BIG GRIN!)

Oh well, it'll be nice to not have plastic falling out of the panel if you poke at it with a finger, an AI that isn't flopping like a dead fish, and the Cessna 200 AP back to tracking "S-turns about a course" again...

 

[steingar]

My airplane has nothing. The price tag to turn it into an IFR trainer will be well north of ten AMUs. Forgive me if I'm not entirely sympathetic.

 

[Ken Ibold]

For a city like Denver, that's not out of line at all. I would, however, insist on a breakdown on time and labor rates. Maybe you've got the work order and it'll be on the bill or something.

 

[Ted]

19 hours worth of labor doesn't seem too out of line for that. Avionics work is typically some of the most time consuming from what I've seen, because everything is burried so far in. So it wouldn't surprise me if it was about 2.5 days worth of work to get that stuff done.

The $1900 is the high-sounding part, which comes down to $100/hr for labor. On the high side, but probably makes sense for being near a more metro area. I think the avionics shop out here is $85/hr book, but they typically charge me about $65/hr. Of course, they end up doing about 20% worth of work that I don't ask them to do, so I guess that breaks out even. As such, I really try to avoid going to the avionics shop.

 

[murphey]

which shop?

 

[denverpilot]

Good comments. Totally understand that it's a blessing to even have a fully IFR capable bird.

As for the work order, it just lists the work done, no number of itemized hours, not even the hourly rate. I was a little surprised at that. (Thus the comment that aviation businesses, even good ones, are often their own worst enemy. It's pretty easy to automate that kind of invoice on a PC these days. This thing looks like it was done on a typewriter. Ha.)

Freedom Avionics at KBJC. Huge positive recommendations from all sorts of local owners. And as I mentioned, the work looks top-notch. I stopped by Friday last week and stuck my nose into the hangar and talked at length with Cliff. I liked what I saw. And I'm a picky wiring harness guy in my telco and data-center work when it's my data-center. Bundles done correctly, tied down properly, good quality connectors, etc.

So, if $1900 is what it takes to get that level of work... I can live with that. Just a little surprised at the level of detail on the printed work order. I'm sure Cliff would detail it if we talked to him in person or on the phone.

Having done a lot of radio work over the years, comparing what the commercial two-way, and cellular guys get paid vs. Avionics... Wow. If I were looking to change careers I'd go into avionics! ;-)

 

[COFlyBoy]

Freedom installed my Garmin in the 6 3 weeks ago.

We negotiated a price up front and they stuck to it even though they had to replace an extra antenna.
I had found package deals advertised and using retail prices for the boxes in the package deals I managed to back out what the total labor cost should be. So I went to Freedom with that number and they took it.
About 40 hours and ~4000$.

I am very pleased with the work and the price.

 

[denverpilot]

Yep no complaints here on the work. Just was looking for opinions on the labor hours, and it sounds like they're in the ballpark.

I know of one other local Denver owner who swears by the avionics guy in Casper, WY and always tool his plane up there, but would have to ask him to find out why. He put a LOT of avionics into his Skylane, and now it's up for sale. Like all Skylane owners, he succumbed to the itch to go faster.

 

[Henning]

19 hrs sounds around right. Here's the deal on itemizing the labor on jobs like that, half the time is "accessing", and once you've accessed, you are doing several things, so how do you break it down? I know it's a bit frustrating, but having done been on the other side of the billing, I'm sympathetic. If I have three jobs going on behind a panel and had to document exact time spent towards each job, I'd have to charge you at least an extra two hours in calculating the bill. I'd probably have to have another guy there with a clock and holler out from under the panel "ok, chasing wire on job A, now pulling hose on job B, Back to wire on job A, made it to plug on job C...." All the components are intertwined so is all of the work.

When I get a bill that I think has too much time on it I just ask "What the heck took so long?" and they need to have a good explanation. I guess I have a bit of an advantage in that I have personal experience at how long things take. If I see high quality very neat work, I realize that somebody took some extra time over the minimum required to get the job done, if it is a reasonable amount, I'd much rather that it went that way because down the road, it's going to save me time and frustration and the money that goes along with that. As long as what I am looking at and what the bill say square up in my experience, I'm fine.

On my panel redo it came out a few thousand $$$ higher than estimated, but the estimate didnt include removing over 200 pounds of old avionics and wiring. When I looked at the end result, I had no complaints.

 

[flyingcheesehead]

19 hrs sounds around right. Here's the deal on itemizing the labor on jobs like that, half the time is "accessing", and once you've accessed, you are doing several things, so how do you break it down? I know it's a bit frustrating, but having done been on the other side of the billing, I'm sympathetic. If I have three jobs going on behind a panel and had to document exact time spent towards each job, I'd have to charge you at least an extra two hours in calculating the bill. I'd probably have to have another guy there with a clock and holler out from under the panel "ok, chasing wire on job A, now pulling hose on job B, Back to wire on job A, made it to plug on job C...." All the components are intertwined so is all of the work.

Our avionics shop (and our maintenance shop) do have itemized billing, but in Avionics there's usually only one "discrepancy" at a time. When there's two, it seems to get split between the two as far as taking things apart and buttoning them back up. I'm pretty sure I've never seen more than two on one bill.

BTW, we pay $75/hr for avionics and $65/hr for maintenance. Pretty reasonable.

 

[SCCutler]

After my 430W upgrade, which included some significant cleanup and the like, I was a little bit miffed at the labor charged, in large measure because of my experience in technical service and electronics and my resultant belief that what they did should never have taken so long.

Since that time, I've done some panel-diving, and my opinion has eased up quite a bit. It is not an easy environment in which to work, and you have to be one part contortionist, one part magician to get it done.

If you could just yank out the panel and place it on the bench, work on it there, it would save a great deal of trouble. Then again, if cattle could grow wings, their hooves wouldn't hurt.

I see interesting possibilities in things like the Approach Fast Stack system ( http://approachfaststack.com/ ), as well as some of the new engine instruments that carry signal on a data bus, with a data acquisition unit connected to probes on the noisy side of the firewall, and the display unit connected with a network cable. But, given the modest volumes involved, I don't see much chance of this kind of thing developing into enough of a standard to be of much use.

 

[Ken Ibold]

I see interesting possibilities in things like the Approach Fast Stack system ( http://approachfaststack.com/ ), as well as some of the new engine instruments that carry signal on a data bus, with a data acquisition unit connected to probes on the noisy side of the firewall, and the display unit connected with a network cable. But, given the modest volumes involved, I don't see much chance of this kind of thing developing into enough of a standard to be of much use.

Oh look, an Eclipse 500!

 

[denverpilot]

If you could just yank out the panel and place it on the bench, work on it there, it would save a great deal of trouble. Then again, if cattle could grow wings, their hooves wouldn't hurt.

I think you've just hit on one of the many possible design changes that would lower GA costs... Panel comes out as a unit... you get the panel in any color you like, as long as it's black... to paraphrase Henry Ford...

 

[TangoWhiskey]

Do avionics shops charge labor the way some auto shops do? That is, the "book" says it should take 4.3 hours to do a <insert job name> job, so you're getting charged 4.3, even if it only took the mechanic 2.6?

 

[Clark1961]

Do avionics shops charge labor the way some auto shops do? That is, the "book" says it should take 4.3 hours to do a <insert job name> job, so you're getting charged 4.3, even if it only took the mechanic 2.6?

On most jobs I've been charged a bid price. How they figure the price is up to them and which bid I accept is up to me.

 

[Henning]

Do avionics shops charge labor the way some auto shops do? That is, the "book" says it should take 4.3 hours to do a <insert job name> job, so you're getting charged 4.3, even if it only took the mechanic 2.6?

No, there is no Mitchell Manual for aviation. With avionics typically they bid for the job and include the typical things they will need to do in that bid. However, if they get back in there and find issues beyond the scope of the bid, then that is usually charged at actual time billed.

Like my plane, there were 3 generations of avionics boxes and wiring that no one knew about until things got opened up. All the extraneous wiring and boxes were removed and much of the 50 year old wiring and hose was replaced. Considering what I saw in the result and how long I figured it had to take, I'm guessing they charged me about half the time that went beyond the bid job.