I have no dog in this fight. My engine is currently being overhauled. My mechanic got the same quote from Covington as Dallas so no price advantage. We went with Dallas because they have a shop in NC. His opinion is that they do equivalent quality work.

Paul, once complete please share with us what your total overhaul cost.

Thanks Chip- great example. It pays to be an informed consumer, participating in the maintenance.

Very true!

Way to much "this shop is better than this shop" when the engine work itself should be comparable.

Quality of people... quality of experience... that is and can be a huge difference.

As Penman pointed out, the folks at Covington are QUALITY people. Small company, Christian principles, truly the type of folks you want to support.

Are their overhauls twice as good as the other shops? No. Not because Covington isn't great, but because none of them could possible stay in business being half as good. The liability alone keeps these shops consistently operating at the top of their game.

When we talk about overhaul facilities we talk about the DDOF's and the "grey" shops.

The DDOF's are required to use Pratt and Whitney parts and the grey shops can and often do use PMA parts. Some grey shops will install parts with cycle limitations that might not make the next event, buyer beware!

All of the DDOF shops pay the same price for those very expensive Pratt parts and they don't have a huge markup on them, that leaves labor and there's only so much you can discount that. Can one shop be cheaper by 10% on the same exact scope of work on a PT6 overhaul, with the same parts replaced... probably. Can they be half price? No way!

BUT- The premium shops can be heavy handed in what they replace and they won't make the effort to find overhaul-exchange or time remaining Pratt parts unless they are pressured to do so.

I managed one set of -60A's through the shop for a client of ours, partly because I wanted to help him out and partly because I wanted the experience. I had someone to hold my hand, so it was pretty easy and we reduced his bill six figures from the original post tear down quote. I saw first hand how many items add up and how big of a difference saving $10k here or $30k here can make. These are expensive components!

Best advice, hire someone to shepherd your engine through the shop, these guys all know each other, the engine shops now that the expert will question everything, so they'll play it right from the beginning and things will go well.

Translation: you can't trust the shop to act in your interest so you have to hire someone to watch them to keep them honest.

Why is that?

Mike C.

Interested too, I'm about 400 hours away

We all know there's a lot of old wives tales in the aviation world. I get the feeling we might have stumbled across another one. Chip has verified that the seasoned King Air brokers will discount a used King Air if the engine work wasn't done by one of the big name brand shops. Not that it has anything to do with quality or superiority of work. Just the brand name. It's kind of like asking a bunch of brokers if they'd discount the value of a Bonanza knowing that it had been operated lean of peak, and they answer, "Oh yeah, that lean of peak stuff kills engines. No way I'd pay as much." Could this situation be similar? I believe it likely is.

Translation: you can't trust the shop to act in your interest so you have to hire someone to watch them to keep them honest.

Why is that?

Mike C.

That's why having someone in your corner to manage your OH for you before it goes in to the shop, get on their schedule, you will be money ahead. Someone who has worked closely and knows your particular engine front to back. IE -66D in my case. Choose wisely grasshopper...

Could you publish a list of shops you use?

That could save the rest of us a lot of money.

Mike C.

That is sort of it...

What really came to light here is that Covington is a DDOF shop and no one seems to know it. It's not that the King Air dealers (not brokers) are somehow a good old boy network bought off by Dallas Airmotive... it's that when you're buying an airplane if a DDOF shop did the overhaul or HSI, you know they didn't stick crap parts in the engine.

It is really important to point out that of the King Air guys I talked to, and I did talk to several in the last two days, no one had anything bad to say about Covington. They all said the same thing "they're an AG shop" and none of them knew that Covington was a DDOF. The other interesting thing is that none of them have dealt with this because none of them have been presented a King Air with Covington engines to bid.

I also want to reiterate that this isn't a "discount it" mentality, they will not buy an airplane with grey motors on it, not unless it's a 40 year old 200 or a cheap 90.

The fact that Covington is a DDOF makes the difference, based on that they will be able change the perception.

If I were Covington, my website would have TBM's all over it instead of King Airs and I would aggressively go after that market.

The King Air world is slow to change, the latest example is the Bendix Aerovue. Great panel... PC-12 guys like Crandall and Penman love it. In spite of a huge effort by Bendix they've only put a few units in King Airs. Garmin owns the King Air aftermarket.

Could you publish a list of shops you use?

That could save the rest of us a lot of money.

Mike C.

Great! That will tell me which shops to avoid that treated you so badly.

Mike C.

Great! That will tell me which shops to avoid that treated you so badly.

Mike C.

That's the crux of it, isn't it, the difference between spending your own money and spending corporate money. One group cares about value for the price, the other cares about the blame if something goes wrong. It's fine to save the company money, but if anything breaks during the life of the engine it'll be your fault, it'll be assumed it wouldn't have happened if you'd gone with the big name shop. Whereas, if you went with the highest price/big name option, then you did all you could and it must be just one of those things. Easy decision when you're spending someone else's money.