redbaron1982

One off-topic recommendation, please make sure to discuss the detailed scope of inspection. I just had a major issue with an inspection that did not caught corrosion, and MSC are now seeing that I didn't ask for them to look for corrotion!

I think discussing who is to blame (if me or the shop) at this point has been already covered. I'm using AOPA services to guide me in possible solutions/compensations, but my main concern is getting the aircraft fixed and ready to fly again. Just as more context info, I requested the shop to do a prebuy and following that a annual inspection. The point was to due all the "inspection" part of the annual as part of the prebuy, and complete whatever was remaining (for instance wheel bearing service due or service the spark plugs) after the purchase. In the annual inspection report they stated: "Finish Annual inspection after Pre-Purchase." And also, at least verbally, they confirmed that during prebuy they opened or the inspection panels. Anyway, it could be as @JWJR mentioned, maybe the annual was done by a different mechanich, and that's why it came up. Also, I agree with @LANCECASPER that I have to value that they were honest in declaring the corrosion and also in saying that they are not able to repair it. So, at the end, they are not gaining anything with this. Also, they are helping me get the quotes from Don Maxwell and dugosh.com. Ando also they offered to help with the ferry permit. I'm not mad at them, nor I want to take advantage of the situation. I just want to try to come to an agreement that is fair. In my view, it is not fair for me to absorb all the cost of this. Anyway, if at the end there is no agreement and no legal way of getting a compensation of this, I will just move the page forward, enjoy the new aircraft, be 15k poorer but feeling confident with a safe airplane.

Yeah, I've read those two post. There anyway the job was to replace the whole spar and not just the lower cap. I don't thinkg that the spar itself should be removed for replacing the lower cap. And that should save some work.

Just to understand a littlbe the extension of the repair, in the scenario of replacing the lower stub spar cap. If I understand correctly, this does not requires to remove the whole spar, right? being the false/stub spar and the cap, it requires to remove the skin (in this case the lower skin) by drilling out the rivers, remove the cap, also drilling out the rivets, then placing the new cap, rivetting, then replacing the skin, and revetting, right? I don't want to oversimplify it, my question is if such repair has a high risk of messing other stuff. I understand taking out the main spar, could lead to things not alinged correctly and such, but replacing the lower stub spar cap, can lead to the same problems?

Well I thought the same, "supposedly" Mooney said that as the corrossion impacted more than 10% of the material, it needs to be replaced. For me, from the picture itself, it doesnt look like 10%, anyway there is still not clean aluminum and more grinding should be necessary. I asked the shop to share with me the reply from Mooney, just to make sure that there is nothing lost in translation.

The airplane has TKS, so I don't think it would 14k to replace the whole wing. Thanks though for the information.

Because of this I'm waiting also the response from swta, anyway, if repairing is 10k and replacing is 15k, I'd rather go with replacing the whole part. I know that is a cliche, but safety if my number one priority. More when I plan to fly with my family onboard.

Following up on this, Mooney have replied to the shop, saying that this will require replacing the stub spar cap. And the shop doesn't feel comfortable doing it. They are helping me contacting Don Maxwell and Dougsh for quotes on the work. I've also contacted a few days ago swta.net, still waiting to hear from then. No I need to get a ferry permit and a ferry pilot. And of course, try to get something from this MSC out, because I still consider them responsible for this. At least a refound on the prebuy and annual inspection.

I've contacted today Southwest Aviation, at Smithville TX. Do you think they would be able to help with this?

@M20Doc so maybe this repair, being in the stub is south of the 150 hours of the other ones mentioned that were in the main spar? I'm just trying to find some hope here while I wait for mooney reply...

I also thought that, but isn't intergranular corrosion a problem of extruded parts and not of rolled parts like the skin?

Just to set my position on this, my objective is not making a mess of this. Attorneys would be the very last resource. My objective is to complete the annual, and get an airworthy and safe aircraft, so I can start walking (should I say flying) the road (should I say victor airway) of aircraft ownership and XC the US with it. Everybody makes mistakes, it happens all the time. From my point of view, this is a mistake of the shop doing the prebuy. If this mistake cost a "reasonable" amount, let's say ~3k to fix it, I'm ok with paying for it without any complain or anything. I would be saying "hey, thanks you discovered that!" and paying the bill and that's all. Now, if this comes to be a, let's say 15k repair, then, considering that this was the shop mistake (in my view), I would like the shop to recognize the mistake and split the repair, maybe I cover the parts and they cover the labor? I don't know, whatever agreement that ease the impact of me of their mistake. If in the second scenario (big repair) we cannot come to an agreement I would move to other type of actions, starting by making sure as most people in the GA buisness are aware of this, writting to Mooney (with all the issues Mooney is having now, I'm not sure this would be of much impact) and lastly, using my brand new AOPA membership for legal advice on how to proceed. Let's hope that this is all resolved by either being a not huge repair, of if it is, for the shop to come forward, recognize their mistake, and taking part of the hit.

yes

The point is that so far, the shop is saying that they did a descent prebuy, and this was something not be caught in a prebuy.

They said that it was really hard to see, because they had to look "back and down". I don't agree, for me a 360 inspection in each panel would be standard. I could accept to using a boroscope to get into corners that are not visible (if there is any) but this you can tell that was just catch in the annual by taking a picture with a cell phone. Honestly, regarding the other point of the impact on the resale price, I don't care "much". I'm not planning to sell it anytime soon, and I'd expect any potential owner to understand that it was correctly fixed and, as a learning experience, the airplane was extensively inspected every year, and treated against corrotion (that's what I plan to do anyway, for my own safety). I'm not saying this is going to be my first and only airplane, but hey, except things go *extremely* well on my professional life I'm not going get a Ovation or Acclaim anytime soon. For all what I've read, M20J is almost as best as you can get in terms of bang for you buck! Maybe a M20F is better in that sense (I understand almost same performance with considerable less price).

BTW: I've shared this information with Soutwest Aviation to see what hey have to say. The current MSC said that if they don't feel comfortable doing the repair suggested by Mooney, or if I don't feel comfortable with them doing it, they would help me getting a ferry permit to fly it to another shop.

Here the pictures of the corrossion... main take away for me? It was easily visible from an inspection panel... hard to miss. It does look like exfolliation/intergranular, which is bad, but the extension is not great, and after cleaning doesn't look like much material was lost...

I don't see a huge issue with aircraft owners having to get really involved in the maintenance of an aircraft, on the contrary, it should result in better safety. A pilot who knows the ins and outs of his aircraft should (in theory) be more prepare to handle unplanned situations in flight. I used to be a yachtmaster several years ago, and maintenance on sailboats (although much easier) is also a owners task most of the time. I don't see GA growing so much to be mass market, as it might have been expected in the 70s. Generation after generation the technical knowledge of the average people has been declining, and I don't buy that flying an aircraft is like driving a car. Anyone can drive a car but I'm sure most people cannot (safely) fly an airplane. And is not a matter of ability, but a matter of interest. Most people who drives a car, they don't care about the car or it's mechanics, or why it's important the camber, toe and caster of the wheels. They just don't need that knowledge to drive a car. But you do need that kind of knowledge to fly (safely) an airplane. Haven't said that, I do agree with the comments that the lack of expertise in many shops, even "official" shops, does not help in getting more people involved into aviation. My case in particular, if the worst scenario comes true, and the aircraft need a major repair that does not make sense to perform relative to the total value of the aircraft, I'm most likely never going to buy an airplane again. And most likely it will result in me leaving aviation altogether (I don't trust rental aircraft to do long XC flights, and they are mostly C172 or PA28 that are almost as slow as a car!). And if this happens, would be, in part, due to a MSC that was not profficient in Mooneys.

Yeah, that's correct. In case of Texas, you have 6.25% sales tax, which you are exempt if the transaction is done between "occasional" salers, meaning, people who do not do this for a living. In order to go down this road, the seller needs to sign a paper declaring that he is not in the buisness of selling airplanes. This has been already resolved, and now I have the paper to present in the state of Texas for the exemption, so I don't have to pay the 6.25% tax here. Maybe this will help cover some of the corrosion repairs!

I don't want to hijack this topic, you can follow the outcome on the other topic, so far it's an ongoing matter.

Sorry I didn't replied to this. I did get the message and the contract says any airworthiness issues found at the prebuy. So I think is on my side to handle this now. The previous owner used to fly the airplane daily, so I'm quite sure he was not aware of this either. The next thing to do is to get the pictures so I can share them with another MSC, probably Southwest Aviation, to see their opinion. And also getting the response from Mooney on this. With that then I will decide which is the best course of action.

I would reccomend a knowledgable broker, just so you can learn from my experience/mistake, you can take a look here: I've just bought an aircraft, that seemed to be in great shape (the previous owner flew it regularly, 2 per day for commuting) and 20 days after closing I get the report of the annual where the found corrosion on a wing spar cap. I know for sure the previous owner did not know anything about this condition (otherwise, he wouldn't have flown it 2 per day risking his life) and I made the mistake of assuming that MSC would do a descent job without explaining them what to do. That was my mistake. They didn't look for corrosion during the prebuy.

I don't want to continue looking into the past, but reading to this article, some take aways: 1) "First, the pre-buy examination* must be done by a shop or mechanic with extensive expertise with the specifi c aircraft make and model involved. Since the mechanic will have only a limited amount of time to examine the aircraft, it’s essential that he know exactly where to look for problems—i.e., what this model’s most common and serious problems are." "Ideally, the pre-buy should be done at a factory-authorized service center or type-specifi c specialty shop." I chose a MSC, officially published in mooney.com. I think I did the right call here. 2) "Second, the shop or mechanic chosen to perform the pre-buy must have no prior history maintaining the aircraft and no prior relationship with the seller or (if applicable) the seller’s broker" Again, the MSC I selected had no previous history with the airplane, the broker or the seller. 3) "Third, the pre-buy needs to be done within a reasonable distance of where the aircraft is located." It was a 40 minutes fly from the home airport of the aircraft. 4) "Once the pre-buy shop has been chosen, the next order of business is providing specifi c guidance to the mechanic on the desired scope and detail of the examination" This one I didn't do. 5) "While there are a lot of variables, we generally figure a pre-buy examination should require roughly:" "Eight hours of labor for a retractable or advancedtechnology normally aspirated piston single like a Bonanza or Cirrus" I paid for 17 hours, more than twice the 8 hours suggested in this article. 6) Takeaways, apart froom the ones mentioned above: "The pre-buy and any ferrying expenses should be paid for solely by the buyer. Never agree to have the buyer and seller split the costs of the pre-buy, because in that case the seller will want to control the location and scope of the pre-buy" "Never structure a pre-buy as an “inspection”—particularly not as an “annual inspection.” "Once you’ve bought the aircraft, it sometimes makes sense to convert the pre-buy into an annual inspection." I've done all of that. So again, having read that article, would have changed much what I've done. Ok, I give it that I may have listed to the shop the list of things I wanted them to take care of (actually I did that, but where basic things that I looked my self when I went to see the airplane). Or maybe I'd have asked for a detailed list of activities to be performed, and if something big was missing, I may have asked them to include it. The document says "A prebuy should be target to find showstoppers", I paid a official MSC 17 hours of labor, I would have expected them to do that. I know, people don't do what they are supposed to do, it happens to me every day, my own team, my internal clients and suppliers, they don't do what they are supposed to do, many times. So I take that, I should have had everything on written, I should have treat the MSC as if they were doing the first pre buy of their life and were completely new in the buisness. The thing is, that I was the "new" here, trying to buy my first airplane.

I'm thinking how to handle this forward and what type of conversation I'm going to have with the MSC on Monday. The current situation is: The airplane has no prop, because on the pre purchase they detected a minor grease leak. They contact MT and the prop was under warranty so now the prop is in a shop for inspection/repair. The airplane has no muffler because it was showing signs of corrosion and a new muffler is on it's way. The airplane is technically until last they of February airworthy as per the last annual. I'm not sure if after this annual the airplane is still airworthy, I mean, they would have to enter in the log book that an inspection was done but not the result itself, because that would render the airplane not airworthy. Sounds shady. So, again, I'm still trying to figure out what type of conversation and what to request to the shop on Monday. And of course, first thing,.for them to share the pictures of what they found. Any suggestion on how to handle this is appreciated. I'm considering flying it to your recommended MSC but again, I'm not sure if the airplane is AW or not. Also, I'd be losing 4.5k for the annual/prebuy that were a complete waste of money.

I got a instructor to do the transition after a post here in MS. I'm planning on doing around 20 hours. We will see how it goes. Same for insurance, I got it from a post here in MS.