Looking For A Someone To Do Pre-Buy Inspection In Southeastern US

[JohnD]

I was looking to use Don Maxwell for my pre-buy inspection but the aircraft is in Alabama so I was looking for a facility in the southeastern part of the US. Any recommendations? Thank you for your help with this matter.

 

John D

[Jeff_S]

The obvious first choice would be to take it to Joey Cole at Cole Aviation in Rome, GA. He is a dedicated MSC (I've never seen anything BUT a Mooney in his shop) and is well-known and respected.  He will be very thorough, but will give you good information you can use in your negotiation.

[PMcClure]

I second Cole Aviation. Joey will shoot you straight and he even let me attend the inspection and look over his shoulder. He also did my initial transition training from the F to the R model. 

[PTK]

John, my first choice in that area would be Dan Kendall of DLK Aviation, a MSC at KRYY, Cobb County Airport.

http://www.dlkaviation.com

Dan did my pre-buy. He has many more years of experience and is an honest upstanding gentleman.

I still call him today when I have a question or need some advice on something and is always happy to help.

I have only good things to say about my experience with Dan and Tracie.

[TWinter]

Will keep dlkavaition in my favorites on the computer. Only 5-6 drive time from me. Cole is in my saved list. Thanks for the info.

[Parker_Woodruff]

If just have it flown to Don Maxwell anyway. Pay the gas and get the pilot an airline ticket home.

Seller pays airworthiness squawks and if he balks at selling, he's on the hook for all expenses.

[ArtVandelay]

Do sellers actually agree to those terms, Parker? There is no way that I would.

I would hope so, the seller is claiming the plane is airworthy, so if its not, shouldn't they pay. And if they won't, it's their plane.

If I was a seller I wouldn't hesitate to agree with those terms.

[BigTex]

The gentlemen I purchased my plane from picked up the tab for any Airworthy items found.  It was all agreed to up front in the contract.

[mike_elliott]

Do sellers actually agree to those terms, Parker? There is no way that I would. I have only sold two planes, though. One was a handshake deal to a friend and the other was a sight unseen trade in to a broker at wholesale.

That's exactly what happened on a J model I helped a friend buy a couple of months ago, Jim. Seller flew the plane to Maxwells, prebuy done/ airworthiness items and other squawks negotiated, prebuy converted to annual. I flew to Longview for 39.89 from TPA to DFW on Spirit Airlines, and took amtrack to GGG for 19.85. Picked up the plane and flew it back to KCLW where it is waiting for its owner to come train in this weekend.

Buyer saved about 10K all said and done, maybe more!

[Parker_Woodruff]

I bought the guy who sold me my 252 an airline ticket from GGG to Arizona as a good faith gesture. But I would expect him to pick up the prebuy labor if he didn't want to sell me an airworthy airplane.

Good thing to do before a prebuy anyway. Anything that may be about to break due to deferred MX or inactivity will have a nice long flight to do so.

I also put down $1000 or more immediately to show I'm committed.

[rbridges]

The obvious first choice would be to take it to Joey Cole at Cole Aviation in Rome, GA. He is a dedicated MSC (I've never seen anything BUT a Mooney in his shop) and is well-known and respected.  He will be very thorough, but will give you good information you can use in your negotiation.

 

Another vote for Cole.  When I dropped my C off at Cole's for bladders, Joey showed me some planes at his place,  There was one in particular that Joey said would be a $10k annual--the first annual for the owner since she bought it, and Joey said she wasn't going to be happy.  You don't want to be that person.  Whoever you go to, make sure you get a thorough inspection from someone that knows the plane well.

[carusoam]

This works well when the sale goes through.

What happens when the sale fails to go through?

To avoid failure...

The plane needs to be well represented and the buyer and seller need to be gentlemen. The buyer must intend to buy and the seller must intend to sell.

This become mores challenging the further things are away.

The plane needs to be seen and flown by the new owner as part of the process. Then PPI as outlined above.

This makes more sense for the expensive planes. Less sense for lower cost or less complex planes.

Unfortunately, most people are humans, and have low experience in buying or selling machinery. Some "buyers" would request moving the plane accross the nation, then realize it's not what they want....

Best regards,

-a-