jrod_stat

I tried, even funded an escrow account at the seller's request. After the account was funded the seller became unresponsive and escrow funds were eventually released back to me.

@AF M20J I sent you a PM.

Just an FYI for anyone replying to this classified... There is a scammer who created a user account as "jmB" posing as the seller and negotiating payments. Stay safe out there.

Sent you a PM. I’ve been lurking the forums and salvage sites over a year for this opportunity.

Great advice. Thanks for the feedback.

@Bolter I found the pre-buy mechanic. I had a few conversations with him before proceeding. He wasn't located at the same field so the seller offered to fly the plane to him for the pre-buy. Pre-buy did indicate occasional miss at low idle which seller wanted to investigate himself. Seller stated he found a fouled plug and cleaned/reinstalled. We didn't notice any abnormalities during taxi and runup. Right tank was filled before departing airfield where the plane was picked up. Does not appear to be leaking now. Regardless of what evolves between me and the seller, I will have a local mechanic complete another annual and confirm crank runout is within limits.

@LANCECASPER Thank you for the reply and providing your similar experience. I do want to give the seller a chance to make good on things and would like for him and I to have a cordial conversation about it. Thanks again for the feedback.

Hello, I'm looking for some advice on how I should proceed after the unfortunate series of events that followed my purchase of a Mooney M20F. Below is the history of the purchase. -Purchased a/c unseen in early February. Seller provided all logs and the annual was just completed in late January by the seller. Pre-buy was completed by another mechanic with only minor discrepancies which the seller remedied. Before completing the purchase I discussed with the seller that it would likely be several weeks before I could come pick it up, he agreed to keep it in his hangar only pushing it out temporarily if he needed the space. -I gave the seller plenty of notice that I would be retrieving the plane with a friend on 4/8 to cross county back home to Minnesota (roughly 4 hours of flight time). Seller notified me two days before the scheduled pickup that he would not be present when I arrived as he was out of town. Since all accommodations were already purchase for the trip I decided to continue with the pickup without the seller being there. - During the preflight I did not strain the right tank as it was empty so the seller could reseal it. I did get a small amount of water out of the left wing. There was about 1.5 ounces total and there was no water present after 2 strains. My copilot and I discussed and concluded this was condensation that had settled and we were comfortable continuing. We fueled up and departed. -On departure we experienced an issue with comms. The pilot side push to talk button was constantly transmitting and the right side mic/speaker jack on the panel was inop. There was a second input jack for the right seat on the tower just behind the flap lever that served as the primary input. The seller did not mention any of this and this took us several minutes in air to figure out. We continued by transmitting using the selector switch on the audio panel switching from internal to comm1/comm2. -The plane performed well on the first leg and we made our fuel stop with no other issues. After fueling we noticed the motor was running rough and decided to return to the ramp to confirm the issue. I did not take a fuel sample after fueling at our stop (please beat me up in the replies, I've always been told taking a sample after fueling isn't necessary because any water in the fuel would be mixed and would take several hours to settle). We visually inspected fuel lines, etc. and then decided to take a fuel sample... I pulled almost a quart of water out of the left tank, but the right tank was clean. We confirmed the water did not come from the supply at the fuel stop by sampling fuel from a plane that had fueled that same day and returned to the airfield. -While inspecting the engine compartment I found a 3/8" craftsman wrench between cylinders 1 & 3. This has nothing to do with the fuel issue, but makes me even more leery of the seller. - We spent the rest of the day shaking the wings and waiting for any additional water to settle before taking more samples. We decided to stay over night and see what the fuel looked like the next morning. Fuel looked good the following morning so we decided to taxi around and do a run up. Engine was running better than the day before, but still not quite right. We decided to pull the plugs and inspect, luckily a mechanic was available and willing to help. All but one bottom plug had serious carbon buildup, leading me to believe the plugs were not cleaned at the annual. Top plugs were not too bad. The plane had less than 5 hours on it since the annual, including our 1st leg. I'm not sure if having water in the fuel would foul the plugs this bad, but I'm sure it did not help the situation. -After the plugs were cleaned we started up and taxied for a bit. Plane was operating normally, we discussed and decided to depart after holding over the field for several minutes. Plane ran flawlessly on the hour flight home. Very stressful one hour. -We concluded that the plane was left out in the rain and water gotten in the tank through the cap and was stuck upstream of the sump drain in front of a keel rib and had agitated down to the low point during our first leg. This is the only explanation I could come up with and we are very fortunate to not have an engine failure enroute. With all that said, I'm not sure if I should reach out to the seller and at least discuss these items and my concerns about his truthfulness. I did call during our trip to ask questions while we were troubleshooting. If it was in fact left out during heavy rain storms, why would the seller not communicate that? I feel that would have made me more diligent with the fuel sampling. Should I write a report on this forum and name the seller so other Mooney buyers have this knowledge before purchasing a plane from the same seller?

@jlunseth thank you for the information, I have a call into Eric. Willmar isn't necessarily close to Rochester so I may make a weekend out of it if Eric is willing to fly both Saturday and Sunday. @AIREMATT this is most definitely to satisfy the insurance company.

I'm a new member and new owner of a M20F. I was hoping someone could put me in contact with a CFI in the SE Minnesota area who would be willing to give a few hours of instruction in my plane. Thanks in advance.