Two of three of my current fleet were bought pretty much sight unseen. The reputation of the previous owners of the aircraft made such dealings possible. Both were honorable gentlemen and their aircraft were exactly as represented.

As the old saying goes, when it comes to a complex question like this... "it depends."

When I sold my Baron last year, the first guy came to the hanger, barely looked at the plane, refused to look at the log books (I offered), and spent a half hour trying to talk me into partnering with him. (I knew him for 45 minutes at this point.) He ultimately gave me a small deposit and signed a Purchase Agreement that said the plane was as is but if the prebuy turned up any airworthiness squawks I would fix them. He then asked me for a recommendation on a shop to do the inspection.

Ended up going to a local guy, knew Beeches, who basically did an annual on the thing. Turned up a few minor airworthiness squawks which I promptly fixed, and a half dozen non-airworthy squawks, such as props past calendar TBO. He wanted to walk from the deal and I said no way. All the items were easily found in the log books, or visible to anyone doing a thorough preflight inspection. Pilots are ultimately responsible for the airworthiness of their airplanes. If you don't know how to do a preflight or read a log book, that's on you. I used his deposit to cover the cost of relisting the plane.

Second guy made an offer sight unseen, but needed to close in a week for taxes. I sent him all the logs, and copies of the first prebuy. He didn't trust it and wanted a second one. Ok, flew it down to a different shop and they found all the same stuff the first guy did (minus the airworthy stuff I fixed). He came back and demanded $5k off for the props being out of calander TBO. Again I said no way. It was in the logs and the report! I don't blame him for trying, and he ultimately closed the deal so I can't complain.

Moral of the story is that 90% of the prebuy can be done with a thorough scrubbing of the log books and a good preflight. You shouldn't need an A&P for this. If you aren't mechanically knowledgeable I'd still recommend a prebuy as that last 10% can be a killer, but you can eliminate a lot of candidate aircraft and save yourself a bunch of headaches and money by doing the logs and preflight yourself first.

The prebuy on our Bonanza took less than an hour, so pretty much sight unseen.

My dad came home for lunch and to check phone messages (This was 1989, it would be 2 years until he had a cell phone), and the envelope was on his desk with pictures and specs for the most beautiful Bonanza he'd ever seen. He fell in love.

A long distance call to Tyler, TX, and she was on her way. 3 and a half hours later, and she was sitting on the ramp. The A & P took off inspection panels, looked at the engine, inspected the gear, and they all went flying.

The biggest squawks, and thus bargaining chips were a leaking bladder, a door latch issue, and an ADF was Inop.

After flying for 1.5 hours, my dad called and transferred the money, gave the A & P $100, and flew the salesman to Greensboro to catch a flight back to TX, oh and he buzzed the house.

Many years later, I asked how he could buy an airplane without a comprehensive prebuy, and he said, I just went with my gut.

35 years later, she's still the most beautiful Bonanza I've ever seen. Then again, I'm biased

In my opinion, buying any plane without a quality pre-buy is the equivalent of playing financial Russian Roulette.
Here are a couple examples I have seen over the years:

Performed a pre-buy on a Cessna 210, and noticed someone had somehow put the jack pads that go on the wings on backwards, which ended up bending the wing spars!

Performed a pre-buy on a Piper Cheyenne advertised as no damage, yet the plane had been geared up!

How would you like to find this out after purchase?

Who did the pre buy on your turbine?

Chris

The November '23 issue of AvBuyer had an article related to this very topic which talked about "Buyer's Remorse" after the purchases during the COVID freak-out. Several buyers lamented that they skipped the prebuy (or fresh set of inspections in the case of turbine aircraft), because they were under some pressure to purchase "as is" right NOW - as the broker/dealer had several buyers in line.

With labor shortages and parts delays, some of these aircraft sat in the shop for months or they could not be put on the Part 135 certificate or, or, or . . . This is the point when the buyer realizes that the "deal" wasn't so great after all.

As a rule, buyers generally are looking for an airworthy aircraft they can fly tomorrow versus a project. In my opinion, the prebuy should focus on airworthiness issues and identify any other items to be address prior to the purchase or post-purchase (to be negotiated) as these are not really "airworthy" items. Knowledge is power!

A number of buyers also skip the appraisal too and this can bite them later on when they attempt to finance the purchase and damage history, missing maintenance entries or missing logbooks are found. These buyers probably went with their gut too.

Good luck.

I get pre-buys on cars.....

In a lot of cases, we're talking about purchase prices that are similar to buying a home (or a second home, for some of you). Are you guys also buying those properties without an inspection?

Yes, I have never had any sort of professional inspection of any property I own. Again, after owning them I wouldn't do it any different. One of them in fact was a brick building down town, after a while of having it I learned one of the walls was separating and needed structural repairs and enforcement. Got that done to the tune of about 80K. The person we bought it from wouldn't have lowered the price $1.

Chris

It depends, but yes. I worked as a contractor and I’ve built my own plane, so I am very comfortable with my own abbreviated inspection giving me a good idea of what I’ve buying.

I’ll skip the prebuy if I think I can squeeze enough off the purchase price on an as-is deal to come out ahead. If I can’t, I do a full third-party prebuy and hit the owner for everything I find.

This applies to both houses and planes.

I am absolutely positively ahead with this strategy in the long run, but I’ve been burned once or twice. If you don’t have enough transactions to average it out, it may not be the best way for you to work.

It depends, but yes. I worked as a contractor and I’ve built my own plane, so I am very comfortable with my own abbreviated inspection giving me a good idea of what I’ve buying.

I’ll skip the prebuy if I think I can squeeze enough off the purchase price on an as-is deal to come out ahead. If I can’t, I do a full third-party prebuy and hit the owner for everything I find.

This applies to both houses and planes.

I am absolutely positively ahead with this strategy in the long run, but I’ve been burned once or twice. If you don’t have enough transactions to average it out, it may not be the best way for you to work.

Lots of things are missed on a prebuy. Some of the big ones, like structure cracks and corrosion, require too much effort to be accomplished in a prebuy.

The only plane I bought without one was my Citation. In the late 2020 time frame, finding a shop to do a prebuy was basically impossible. Had I waited for that, I would have lost the tax benefits that year, and the price would have gone up as they did in early 2021.

I did do a shake down flight and had the engines borescoped. Everything looked good with only minor issues noted (like a few bulbs out).

After working on the plane, I haven't found anything major wrong with it, and likely what was found would have been missed on the prebuy. There were a lot of little things wrong that I fixed, some so subtle that shops missed them for years (like wrong ignition leads on right engine).

My experience buying planes with and without prebuys is that there is always stuff to fix up when you get a new plane. The prebuy might catch a few of them and you might get some cost reduction, but in the end, you never really know what is wrong without owning it and flying it a while.

Ironically, I think it is less risky to buy a turbine airplane without a prebuy than a piston one. The level of care and attention the turbine stuff gets, plus the intrinsically better designed and built aircraft that it is, makes the risk lower.

You can find horror stories of people who bought planes without a prebuy.

You can find horror stories of people who bought planes with a prebuy.

Basically, owning an airplane puts you at risk of a horror story.

Mike C.

I’d suggest having someone do logbook and AD research, borescopes, and look at what is coming due. Negotiate based on that.

It’s possible to be burned even with a pre-buy. I know someone with a 900B that had six figures of corrosion behind the forward lav that would never have been found on a prebuy. The throttles were stiff so they traced the problem there.

I would be indifferent to a thorough pre-buy or a discounted price. One benefit of a discounted price is there’s no haggling over what items are “airworthiness items” and must be fixed, which shop, who pays for transport, what happens if the plane is rejected (usually you’re out the pre-buy costs) etc. Time has a cost as well.

I think it pretty obvious that a pre-buy, whether airplane, car, or house, is not a guarantee. It’s a risk mitigatior. If you are happy accepting the higher risk of buying naked, or there are other factors which mitigate the risk sufficiently for you up to you.

A "pre-buy" is whatever you make it. Generally for me that consists of a logbook review and a few hours crawling around the plane with a screwdriver, flashlight, and mirror. But I'm not buying a jet or anything else requiring a lot of specialized tools and knowledge.