I found this today on an old 500 that I am parting out. This is from a few years ago at a big name shop.

All I can tell you is look at the number my finger is pointing at this. This is a 10,000 hour inspection with some squawks on an airplane that is probably worth double of what this bill was.

This is pretty standard and I’ve got many more examples just like this.

You cannot take your 500 series airplane brand-name shop unless you think this is OK. I assure you the quality of the work they’re doing is not any better than we do for probably 20% the cost.

Well Chip does it have to be Mike P or will Mike T work? Or will $115 every 6 months portable fire extinguisher check work? Fact is Chip, and completely understandable, you don’t know squat about Legacy Citation maintenance. End of story.

Do you have the list of what was fixed? The total doesn’t mean much without the line items. I don’t see how you can make the claim you can do the work for 20% of the cost without that information.

Perhaps the bad decision wasn’t choosing the wrong shop, it was choosing to have it fixed instead of parting it out. I bet this bill was run up without any intermediate discussions with the owner about whether or not the patient was worth saving.

When Mike C published his cheap inspections, he included the details of exactly what was fixed. To have a fair comparison, an expensive series of inspections should include the same level of detail. Without the detail, there’s no way to reach an educated conclusion.

Where is all of this money going when we pay $6,500 for a rheostat that costs $5? What are those meetings like when Textron decides to charge $1,800 for a seat rail bolt?

I am building a kit aircraft, the entire airframe is $28,000 and I think half of that is profit. We have a worn seat rail we’re just leaving as is because that single piece of aluminum track that should cost $40 at Autozone is somehow $7,000. It’s not even made by Textron.

Is that a Cessna part? It's $7000 from Textron? If so, ask Textron for a pricing review. I think you need to have an account with https://ww2.txtav.com/Parts/ but that's easy to set up. They might reduce the price.

Chip,

This is the kind of stuff that winds we active owners up. What on earth could cause "$50k plus in discrepancies" to come up on a well-maintained plane? Is it possible? Sure. There is a thread on CJP where someone with an 1,100 hour Mustang, a crack was found on an interior rib of the horizontal stab. Textron is quoting $100k. But your statement that the seller would "know" that a Phase 5 will generate $50k in discrepancies is nuts IMO.

I haven't been through a Phase 5 but I just finished my 1-4. Total discrepancies were a bit of ducting in the tail (heat exchanger exhaust ducting), a set of peri seals for one bleed air connection in the tail, 2 spots of corrosion found on the flaps (likely rocks kicked up that chipped the paint and then more dirt/salt etc flung into the area and caused corrosion) that was fixed with $2,700 of sanding and paint (and that also included touching up some other paint areas since the painter was there), and a leaking sump drain that needed a new o-ring.

I'm 3 years out for my Phase 5 but I would absolutely take you up on your offer - I am confident that I would come out ahead on that deal.

Again, stuff can happen whether it's a 172, a Bo, or a jet. That's why we do the inspections in the first place. But the bottom line is that if someone "knows" that that they are going to have $50k plus in discrepancies during an inspection, then they are NOT maintaining their airplane, period.

The guy that was helping me when we got the quotes won’t respond. I have spent the last hour going thru emails. We have had Duncan do some other work and for everything they do there are 50 emails. LOL. So it’s been a research project.

Still looking and asked for a new quote from them in case I can’t find it.

I can’t believe I am spending my morning proving something to Chip. LOL. Like arguing with a special needs person.

Duncan is on my field. I wanted so bad to use them as the cost for me to move my plane to TX is a lot. Just to reposition there and back probably cost me 4 total days and more than $8k in cost.

If Duncan was only $20k more I would have used them. I actually remember the number was well over $65k but I think it included a few other inspections. I didn’t make the number up.

Going thru the Duncan stuff we did have a door hinge get damaged. Could not fly the plane so had no choice but to use Duncan. Duncan charged $40k to repair it. Called Skyway and they would have done it for $15k.

Fortunately that was an insurance claim as one of my dry lease guys slammed the door and did the damage.

Can’t believe I am wasting my time on this. But I will keep working on it.

Mike

I used this logic, I needed a pair of wires ran from one audio panel to the other, Duncan was on the field, so I got a quote, I authorized the work based on the reposition costs I estimated, as well as my time involved to do so

$4000 to run a pair of 24 gauge wires, so that the co-pilot mic on audio panel 2 could be used by the sat phone interface in audio panel 1

Impressively expensive, they were done 3-4hours after I gave them the hangar door code

I hear this a lot:

"I maintain my plane well, so my Annuals/Phases/whatevers are easy. We only found 3 discrepancies at my last annual."

That makes NO sense. The annuals and phases ARE the maintenance. They find things that you don't find during normal operations and you have no way of finding UNTIL you do the annual.

If you take a fifty year old plane in for an annual and you get a list of three discrepancies- that's not because you're maintaining it well. It's because you're lucky.

If you go through five annuals in a row finding only three items each time, you're not maintaining it well. You're missing things, and the next owner is going to pay for it and complain about what a cheapskate you were.

This rant has nothing to do with cost, it's about the sheer amount of work required to keep a fifty year old airplane airworthy. Yes, some brands are built better than others. But all airplanes are machines, and machines need maintenance. There is no fairy godmechanic who keeps your bearings smooth forever.

Still waiting for the 1-4 quote. But here is a good example I did find. Take a look at all of these little inspections. You can also see the quote was done for Mike Hopkins the guy that was helping me. It was not sent to me directly.

Duncan is twice as much as Skyway for these, double. Which again skyway is a premium shop and at the top end of the spectrum of pricing. Duncan is twice as much. Not sure if you call that good plated but it’s crazy high. I think gold plated is a good description.

Would love to know what I get for paying double the price. Not a damn thing except making guys like Chip feel good.

Mike

We bid on a job a couple years ago. We were $1mm less than the other bid and offered more services. We thought we had the job in the bag. We didn’t get it and I figured it just blew it as a sales guy or maybe we were too cheap and they thought we were not as good quality.

A couple months ago it came out that the GC got a $800k kick back from the sub contractor. The customer found out somehow. I was shocked. I never even thought that could happen. But sure enough it did.

You just never now what’s really going on when cost are way higher than they should be.

Mike

Gotta compare apples to apples. Your Duncan Phase 20 quote includes RVSM. The Skyways quote has that as a separate line item. They are very close to each other once you account for that.

I worked for Duncan 24 years. Honest company that treats their customers and employees well. They will never be the cheapest but do good work.

That's a pretty sneaky way to insinuate Chip is getting kickbacks from his gold-plated shop preferences.

Just telling a story. Kind of like how Chip tells all of his stories. Maybe relevant maybe not. LOL.

I am just saying you never know. When things don’t add up it possible you don’t have all the info.

Mike

Gotta compare apples to apples. Your Duncan Phase 20 quote includes RVSM. The Skyways quote has that as a separate line item. They are very close to each other once you account for that.

I worked for Duncan 24 years. Honest company that treats their customers and employees well. They will never be the cheapest but do good work.