Prebuy in San Diego area

[manoflamancha]

Hello fellow Mooniacs,

I am considering a nice Mooney in San Diego for sale and looking for a decent place to have a prebuy done in the area. Not sure what Mooney Service centers are in San Diego or good place to take it for a prebuy inspection.

 

[kortopates]

Suggest you check the logs to see who did the last annual first. But CrownAir is the only MSC in SD and I recommend them if they didn't do the last annual. Which model?

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[LANCECASPER]

Crown Air did a pre-buy for me a few years ago. They did a great job

[manoflamancha]

Thanks guys, I will check and see who did the last annual. Hopefully it was not Crown Air otherwise I will have to convince the seller to take it farther for a good pre buy. Unless there is another good shop in San Diego, Riverside or Orange County that has Mooney experience. The seller has been great to deal with so far and I am looking forward to see if it works for me.

Plane is a nice 231. It has all the things you need like intercooler and automatic waste gate that fix the weak points in the 231 which were later added to the 252. I figure it costs half as much as a Bravo or 252 and can serve me well. I fly 99% by myself and the other 1% with a friend so the payload even with full fuel is sufficient. If I had kids or flew tons of people around then I'd need something like a 210 or Bonanza. 

Checking on 231 the performance is good. I plan to fly on trips to Seattle, New Mexico, Idaho for fly fishing and hiking and really need a turbo charged airplane to get over the Rockies safely. Otherwise, I would just buy a newer 201J and be done with it. Love the Bravo but operating costs are MUCH HIGHER than a 231 I think. 

Scott

 

[jonhop]

Scott,

Good luck on your purchase and inspection. If using CrownAir, make sure the seller is ok with allowing them to do the pre-buy at their facility if the plane is not located at Montgomery. They will not perform an inspection unless the plane is brought to them... I bought a J in December and CrownAir delayed my purchase by two weeks by promising to do the inspection at Gillespie--KSEE--at the beginning of the service manager's two week vacation and then renigging on that promise upon his return. I had to call him repeatedly to find that out... kmyfm20s, Karson put me in touch with a local A&P who performed my prebuy and even helped with the inspection. I am a recent happy J owner. PM me if you want the local A&P information if Crown does not work out for you or you can't get the bird into a MSC for the inspection. Otherwise, I'm sure there has to be a MSC in SOCAL who can do the inspection...

Jon

[manoflamancha]

Nice plane! Guy is willing to let me do prebuy at another shop. Work has been done at CrownAir. We test flew it today and it had some issues so seller will have it looked at. Other than that a fantastic equipped 231 with great setup. Guy really babied it. 

[kortopates]

Nice plane! Guy is willing to let me do prebuy at another shop. Work has been done at CrownAir. We test flew it today and it had some issues so seller will have it looked at. Other than that a fantastic equipped 231 with great setup. Guy really babied it. 

Are you looking at Gordon's 231 at MYF?

[Bolter]

In the Mooney Makeover articles, Pia took her plane to Rick Egan of Unlimited Airworks in Ramona, California.  I don't know anything else about him, but he is close to MYF.