Expensive annual

[AndyFromCB]

4 hours ago, M20Doc said:

Hey,

Did you hear the one about the pilot who told the shop owner he wasn't entitled to make a profit?  Yeah he should sell his parts at the prices Spruces charges him(typical Spruce discount 5%) and he should cover the shipping as well and have it in stock when he shows up.  

And his labor rate is wrong, what gives him the right to charge more than he pays his guys?  If you can't make it at that go ask your land lord for free hangar rent and the public utility for free gas and electricity.

Some people shouldn't  own airplanes.

Clarence

Don't forget about the liability and why should he be able to buy insurance so that his kids don't starve when some dumb ass pilot buys the farm and widow includes the mechanic in the suit.

 

Edited December 3, 2016 by AndyFromCB

[jonhop]

13 hours ago, Bob_Belville said:

Sorry but I'm not sure that was unreasonable. I assume you really were not prepared to go buy a tube & tire from ASpruce and you did not have tools to block up the nose gear, remove the wheel, split the rims, lube, inflate and mount the tube.tire, torque the bolts, etc. A business marking up parts from inventory that they have to keep and charging for their time at their shop rate seems reasonable to me. Maybe that A&P was sitting there waiting for you to need emergency service but more likely they pulled him off a job for a regular customer to deal with a transient. Maybe we need a AAA for airplanes.

OTOH, I had a flat tire @ KOSH this year. $275 under the circumstances would have been very acceptable. It turns out that KOSH is probably the best possible place to need help. Volunteers towed the plane to their maintenance pen where I was able to tie down over night, I went by A.Spruce hangar and bought a tube and helped Dave Staffeldt install it. We checked out a whole box of tools from the maintenance shop. Dave wouldn't take anything for what I'm sure was more than an hour and there was no charge for the other services. I was more than delighted to put $40 in their tool kitty jar. I think the Michelin Air Stop tube was $80. so it cost me $120. I was still smiling when the Caravan powers to be decreed my handle would be "Breakdown".  

BICBW

I guess it boils down to me being a new owner with little experience dealing with off airport maintenance. I was flying a friends airplane at the time and we just stopped at F70 to drop my girlfriend off. The owner wanted to come up and fix it himself, as he was 30 minutes away with the tools and parts necessary. I called him off because I didn't want to inconvenience him and didn't think it would be too expensive. I don't really have a problem with marked up tires and tubes but $100 in labor for 30 minutes of work was a bit much for my taste. Now I can say the $275 for a flat off field is normal but I sure don't have to like it...

[mike_elliott]

14 hours ago, jonhop said:

1 minute ago, jonhop said:

I guess it boils down to me being a new owner with little experience dealing with off airport maintenance. I was flying a friends airplane at the time and we just stopped at F70 to drop my girlfriend off. The owner wanted to come up and fix it himself, as he was 30 minutes away with the tools and parts necessary. I called him off because I didn't want to inconvenience him and didn't think it would be too expensive. I don't really have a problem with marked up tires and tubes but $100 in labor for 30 minutes of work was a bit much for my taste. Now I can say the $275 for a flat off field is normal but I sure don't have to like it...

 

I would be really surprised if it only took the A&P 30 minutes to round up the tire and tube, round up the tools, get to the plane or get the plane to him, change the tire and tube, and write up the log entry. $100 is very reasonable labor rate for this task, and seems even more so in $unny California. You are paying him for time spent in your benevolence, not just the time his hand touches a wrench. 

[Bob_Belville]

42 minutes ago, jonhop said:

I guess it boils down to me being a new owner with little experience dealing with off airport maintenance. I was flying a friends airplane at the time and we just stopped at F70 to drop my girlfriend off. The owner wanted to come up and fix it himself, as he was 30 minutes away with the tools and parts necessary. I called him off because I didn't want to inconvenience him and didn't think it would be too expensive. I don't really have a problem with marked up tires and tubes but $100 in labor for 30 minutes of work was a bit much for my taste. Now I can say the $275 for a flat off field is normal but I sure don't have to like it...

Live and learn but I doubt :30 minutes is adequate to change an aircraft tire on the ramp including several trips back and forth to the shop - raise the nose and remove the wheel, take wheel to shop, r&r wheel tube/tire, return to ramp and remount wheel, cotter pin, and doing the log entry.

[NotarPilot]

7 hours ago, M20Doc said:

Hey,

Did you hear the one about the pilot who told the shop owner he wasn't entitled to make a profit?  Yeah he should sell his parts at the prices Spruces charges him(typical Spruce discount 5%) and he should cover the shipping as well and have it in stock when he shows up.  

And his labor rate is wrong, what gives him the right to charge more than he pays his guys?  If you can't make it at that go ask your land lord for free hangar rent and the public utility for free gas and electricity.

Some people shouldn't  own airplanes.

Clarence

Thanks for boiling down my post to your opinion that I shouldn't own an airplane Clarence. Did you even read my entire post? Not sure if you did or did not but I'll summarize that the reason I posted it was to give someone in my position an idea on what to expect in a similar situation. I didn't find any posts about Crownair Aviation so this was partially a shop review documenting my experience. I didn't bash the shop or speak negatively about their work.  I just questioned some of their billing practices, time to complete tasks and stated what I thought about their parts mark ups. Some of us Mooney owners are "frugal" to say the least. Had I known they marked up their tires that much I would have declined it and had my local guy done it and saved some money doing it. 

A shop owner is absolutely allowed to make a profit. I believe in a free market and not socialism so no issues there. However, as owners we have a right to manage maintenance costs and safety doesn't have to be compromised in the process. I felt I was nickled and dimed on some (not all) of the billing. Being billed for 30 minutes for something that takes 2 is unreasonable to me and it becomes an issue when the bill is higher than I expected. Being billed $22 to take an oil sample also seems unreasonable. That's almost the cost of the test itself.

If the bill came out to $3,500 I probably wouldn't even have mentioned it. And I'm not saying I wasn't happy with the work as they found issues with the plane I was not aware of. I just wish I had been given better communication on what the costs were adding up to so it wasn't such a shock when I got the final invoice. I didn't know what certain things were going to cost until they were done. Is this my fault, yes, I'll say it partially is but perhaps the next guy can learn from this. But I guess questioning some billing means I shouldn't own an airplane, right? I guess I should just open up my check book and let them fill in the amount and just smile. 

Steve

[LANCECASPER]

1 hour ago, NotarPilot said:

I didn't find any posts about Crownair Aviation so this was partially a shop review documenting my experience.

If you type in "Crownair" under the search you'll find a lot has been written about them.

[OR75]

Trying not to throw oil on the fire but here is a question :

An annual has a base cost ( in this case $2100). So if someone is charged fir things like taking an oil sample and putting cotter pins , then what does the base cost include ? 

 

[Bob_Belville]

Some shops use a popular job/billing software package that seems to purposely distribute labor to every task. (Lynn tried it and immediately rejected it.) That might explain petty seeming charge for the seat rail cotter pins. When I got the bill for the engine r&r for the prop strike @ Minuteman there must have been 20 line items for labor. When I moved charges into a spreadsheet that I could make sense of I found that the bill included 40 hours to shim the engine Lord mounts. (The engine still was not well lined up with the cowl. Lynn and I redid it, took 2 hours.)  

[nels]

I guess I understand NotarPilots's position. I've had similar experiences and you do feel rather violated at times. Sometimes I wonder if certain shops are lean on business or have over spent on personal toys one month and the mechanics are told to make work at the expense of the poor soul that just happens to wonder into the shop at that "wrong time".

[M016576]

13 minutes ago, OR75 said:

Trying not to throw oil on the fire but here is a question :

An annual has a base cost ( in this case $2100). So if someone is charged fir things like taking an oil sample and putting cotter pins , then what does the base cost include ? 

 

That all depends on the shop/A&P; I'd say.  

there are those that think $5000.00 is perfectly reasonable for an annual, as this thread has exposed.  And others that don't.

my biggest issue in the past has been being billed $110.00 / hr shop rates by a "reputable shop", then picking up my plane only to find multiple issues... like spark plugs only hand tightened, and a condition lever rod bent, so that the prop cable would stick after engine mount shimming.  Needless to say- my plane will never go to that place again.  I honestly hope that my aircraft was an anomaly at an otherwise reputable shop.

there are those that would rather have a big shop take care of their plane, or a famous MSC that does lots of business and are happy to throw money that direction.  Personally, I like having a local A&P that I know, and trust. An A&P that has met my wife and kids, and can put their faces to my plane.... not just another "mooney in a string of mooney's.".... But I'm lucky to have found that kind of a person, and to have access to their skill set.

[NotarPilot]

1 hour ago, LANCECASPER said:

If you type in "Crownair" under the search you'll find a lot has been written about them.

I must have missed that one Lance, my bad. I'll look for it again.

49 minutes ago, M016576 said:

That all depends on the shop/A&P; I'd say.  

there are those that think $5000.00 is perfectly reasonable for an annual, as this thread has exposed.  And others that don't.

my biggest issue in the past has been being billed $110.00 / hr shop rates by a "reputable shop", then picking up my plane only to find multiple issues... like spark plugs only hand tightened, and a condition lever rod bent, so that the prop cable would stick after engine mount shimming.  Needless to say- my plane will never go to that place again.  I honestly hope that my aircraft was an anomaly at an otherwise reputable shop.

there are those that would rather have a big shop take care of their plane, or a famous MSC that does lots of business and are happy to throw money that direction.  Personally, I like having a local A&P that I know, and trust. An A&P that has met my wife and kids, and can put their faces to my plane.... not just another "mooney in a string of mooney's.".... But I'm lucky to have found that kind of a person, and to have access to their skill set.

Good point, I forgot to mention that I too found an issue and unfortunately I didn't notice it until flying home last night upon reducing power for landing. The MP was not working. Both my analog gauge and engine monitor were showing about 29" MP so obviously something was not reconnected. I somehow missed this on start up and didn't notice it in flight since it appeared normal at a glance. So now I'll need to get the local guy to fix something from the annual. 

[ThorFlight]

I'm about to "buy my ticket to the dance" with an '81 J. And after reading this interesting thread, I feel that I have likely budgeted my annuals too low at $3K. Fortunately, that's not a deal-breaker.

That said, in preparation for my first ownership experience, I have found Mike Busch's webinars on the EAA site particularly informative on a number of certified aircraft ownership topics, including a pragmatic, structured approach to annuals to help avoid sticker shock and keep the process on-track. I'm compelled to share two of them here based on the thread topics that others might find them helpful too:

• All About Annuals
• All About Tires

Recommend staying to hear the Q&A too.

[mike_elliott]

1 minute ago, ThorFlight said:

I'm about to "buy my ticket to the dance" with an '81 J. And after reading this interesting thread, I feel that I have likely budgeted my annuals too low at $3K. Fortunately, that's not a deal-breaker.

That said, in preparation for my first ownership experience, I have found Mike Busch's webinars on the EAA site particularly informative on a number of certified aircraft ownership topics, including a pragmatic, structured approach to annuals to help avoid sticker shock and keep the process on-track. I'm compelled to share two of them here based on the thread topics that others might find them helpful too:

• All About Annuals
• All About Tires

Recommend staying to hear the Q&A too.

Congrats! Depending on the condition of the plane right now, $3K annuals should be fine for a fine J. You are fortunate to be located close to a great group of guys Eric and Paul of Oasis Aero in Willmar, Mn. They will put and keep your new mistress it top shape reasonably. They are Mooney's newest MSC

[ThorFlight]

1 minute ago, mike_elliott said:

Congrats! Depending on the condition of the plane right now, $3K annuals should be fine for a fine J. You are fortunate to be located close to a great group of guys Eric and Paul of Oasis Aero in Willmar, Mn. They will put and keep your new mistress it top shape reasonably. They are Mooney's newest MSC

Thanks! Yes, Eric and Paul have been my sherpas in this entire process. They are doing the pre-buy and then we plan to flow right into the annual. Very excited!

[NotarPilot]

38 minutes ago, ThorFlight said:

I'm about to "buy my ticket to the dance" with an '81 J. And after reading this interesting thread, I feel that I have likely budgeted my annuals too low at $3K. Fortunately, that's not a deal-breaker.

That said, in preparation for my first ownership experience, I have found Mike Busch's webinars on the EAA site particularly informative on a number of certified aircraft ownership topics, including a pragmatic, structured approach to annuals to help avoid sticker shock and keep the process on-track. I'm compelled to share two of them here based on the thread topics that others might find them helpful too:

• All About Annuals
• All About Tires

Recommend staying to hear the Q&A too.

Mike Busch's webinars are great. I've listened to most of them at least once and a few even twice. He's got several great ones that deal with engine maintenance and annuals specifically that has me think the way I do. I think if you listen to Mike then you're already way ahead in the game. I too think $3,000 is reasonable if you know how to manage your costs correctly and not just give the shop a blank check.

[Guest]

3 hours ago, NotarPilot said:

Thanks for boiling down my post to your opinion that I shouldn't own an airplane Clarence. Did you even read my entire post? Not sure if you did or did not but I'll summarize that the reason I posted it was to give someone in my position an idea on what to expect in a similar situation. I didn't find any posts about Crownair Aviation so this was partially a shop review documenting my experience. I didn't bash the shop or speak negatively about their work.  I just questioned some of their billing practices, time to complete tasks and stated what I thought about their parts mark ups. Some of us Mooney owners are "frugal" to say the least. Had I known they marked up their tires that much I would have declined it and had my local guy done it and saved some money doing it. 

A shop owner is absolutely allowed to make a profit. I believe in a free market and not socialism so no issues there. However, as owners we have a right to manage maintenance costs and safety doesn't have to be compromised in the process. I felt I was nickled and dimed on some (not all) of the billing. Being billed for 30 minutes for something that takes 2 is unreasonable to me and it becomes an issue when the bill is higher than I expected. Being billed $22 to take an oil sample also seems unreasonable. That's almost the cost of the test itself.

If the bill came out to $3,500 I probably wouldn't even have mentioned it. And I'm not saying I wasn't happy with the work as they found issues with the plane I was not aware of. I just wish I had been given better communication on what the costs were adding up to so it wasn't such a shock when I got the final invoice. I didn't know what certain things were going to cost until they were done. Is this my fault, yes, I'll say it partially is but perhaps the next guy can learn from this. But I guess questioning some billing means I shouldn't own an airplane, right? I guess I should just open up my check book and let them fill in the amount and just smile. 

Steve

Yes I did read your entire post, several times in fact.

Sorry if you took offence to my post, non was meant.  However as a career maintainer and shop owner I am amazed when I read posts by people complaining about maintenance.  So many are happy to call shop owners crooks and mechanics idiots.  Just look at the post where the shop must have had a slow month or overspent on toys and as a result too the mechanics to stick it to the next guy. Many of these same people seem to happily blow the wad on new avionics which take even more money to keep current, then bitch when they were "over charged" for something relating to maintenance.

I'm not defending the shop's invoice or their billing practice.  But  to take just the tire, if it "lists at Spruce for $100.00 the shop might have bought it for $95.00 marked it up to $130.00 and then added on the shipping charge.  I know my shop doesn't get free shipping from Spruce or any of my other suppliers, so as a natural part of business it gets added to the price.

I don't know if there is tax on maintenance where you live, but here it's 13%in many cases the government makes more on a job than I do.  It's a tough business to make a decent living in.

Clarence

 

[Danb]

Clarence I do the accounting and taxes for a few a/p's and shops. A lot of these guys are excellent mechanics but terrible in business, being very cost conscious to a fault wondering why they have a hard time making ends meet. One shop e.g. was not marking up his items enough and had a low shop rate, it boiled down to me almost forcing him to mark up 50% or increase his shop rate. After 5-6 years we finally have a realistic rate and about 30% markup depending on the item. It's a tough business he got ill when I calculated his entire overhead breaking it down in fixed, var and semi variable rates. He now gets it and can almost pay for his food.

[NotarPilot]

33 minutes ago, M20Doc said:

Yes I did read your entire post, several times in fact.

Sorry if you took offence to my post, non was meant.  However as a career maintainer and shop owner I am amazed when I read posts by people complaining about maintenance.  So many are happy to call shop owners crooks and mechanics idiots.  Just look at the post where the shop must have had a slow month or overspent on toys and as a result too the mechanics to stick it to the next guy. Many of these same people seem to happily blow the wad on new avionics which take even more money to keep current, then bitch when they were "over charged" for something relating to maintenance.

I'm not defending the shop's invoice or their billing practice.  But  to take just the tire, if it "lists at Spruce for $100.00 the shop might have bought it for $95.00 marked it up to $130.00 and then added on the shipping charge.  I know my shop doesn't get free shipping from Spruce or any of my other suppliers, so as a natural part of business it gets added to the price.

I don't know if there is tax on maintenance where you live, but here it's 13%in many cases the government makes more on a job than I do.  It's a tough business to make a decent living in.

Clarence

 

Clarence, I never called the shop a bunch of crooks or idiots, nor did I complain about the maintenance they did. They did a very thorough job and for that I'm appreciative. What I didn't like was the lack of communication to know, in advance, what things were going to cost me. This made it difficult for me to better manage my maintenance costs.  Had I known some of these costs in advance, like the tire for example, I would have declined some of them and taken care of them on my own or cheaper. I probably could have saved $1,000 had I known these in advance. They can mark up the tire to $500 for all I care but at least tell me how much first so I can decide if I want to pay their shop prices before I authorize the work.

My other complaint was their billing practice of itemizing tasks and being billed a minimum of 15 minutes no matter how short the task was such as the cotter pins. Most of the other charges and billing seemed reasonable to me. I would rather see a group of tasks under one reasonable cost.

And personally when it come to my plane I'll bitch about being over charged whether it's related to maintenance or avionics work. I don't discriminate.  Lastly, being in a profession that has a lot of misconceptions from the public I understand your frustration. I have a lot of respect for your profession. I think good maintenance technicians are a dying breed and it's getting harder and harder to find guys with that tribal knowledge that keeps us flying. 

Personally I don't think a shop charges more due to a slow month or more toys bought. I think that's just what their billing practices are and they get away with it. I think the nickel and diming just pads a little extra profit on the top. But I don't doubt it's a tough business. Sounds like the business to be in is the government taking 13% of pure profit right off the top. Reminds me of the movie Casino.

[kortopates]

Managing the annual and its cost is exactly why SavvyMx.com is in business. 

With SavvyMx, each cost is authorized before the work is done. First the base price inspection is authorized which is just the inspection and AD search but sometimes it may include some routine maintenance like an oil change, re-packing bearing, performing the landing gear rigging checks, etc. But every shop prices them a little differently. But at the completion of the inspection the shops we work with are required to provide a list of discrepancy's with the estimated parts and labor to correct them. An account rep then reviews the list. Often he may first go back to the shop to get clarification or ask for additional test's before making a recommendation. An example might be to ask for a borescope exam of a cylinder that had a low compression.  But when satisfied with the discrepancy list, the account rep will then make his recommendation on what is required as airworthy items and which items are discretionary that the pilot may defer. The account rep will give opinions on these as well. Only after the list has been reviewed and approved is the work done and then billed. 

Clients like the service because they aren't surprised by the final bill, shops like us because they know customers are more likely to return when they feel they were treated fairly and frankly we do a lot of business with some shops. 

But there is nothing magical about what we do other than represent our clients interest fairly by insisting on the same business models required by automobile service providers. And no question many GA maintenance providers do this on their own. But without the account rep brokering the process both the shops and the clients get busy and some parts of the job slip through the cracks and then surprises happen; especially when the surprises aren't minor items. But then there are some shops that refuse to do business this way and obviously we can't work them nor do they want to work with us. But more and more are coming around. 

Anyway, the point is that you don't need to hire Savvy to follow the same process model of inspect, review, authorize the work while communicating all along the way. 

[Marauder]

Clarence, I never called the shop a bunch of crooks or idiots, nor did I complain about the maintenance they did. They did a very thorough job and for that I'm appreciative. What I didn't like was the lack of communication to know, in advance, what things were going to cost me. This made it difficult for me to better manage my maintenance costs.  Had I known some of these costs in advance, like the tire for example, I would have declined some of them and taken care of them on my own or cheaper. I probably could have saved $1,000 had I known these in advance. They can mark up the tire to $500 for all I care but at least tell me how much first so I can decide if I want to pay their shop prices before I authorize the work.
My other complaint was their billing practice of itemizing tasks and being billed a minimum of 15 minutes no matter how short the task was such as the cotter pins. Most of the other charges and billing seemed reasonable to me. I would rather see a group of tasks under one reasonable cost.
And personally when it come to my plane I'll bitch about being over charged whether it's related to maintenance or avionics work. I don't discriminate.  Lastly, being in a profession that has a lot of misconceptions from the public I understand your frustration. I have a lot of respect for your profession. I think good maintenance technicians are a dying breed and it's getting harder and harder to find guys with that tribal knowledge that keeps us flying. 
Personally I don't think a shop charges more due to a slow month or more toys bought. I think that's just what their billing practices are and they get away with it. I think the nickel and diming just pads a little extra profit on the top. But I don't doubt it's a tough business. Sounds like the business to be in is the government taking 13% of pure profit right off the top. Reminds me of the movie Casino.

I ran into something similar on my last annual. I went to a new shop after going to the same shop for 18 years.

I got a call that my ELT was dead and I needed to replace it. The markup wasn't bad, about 20% over what I could buy it for. The problem was the cost of installation. I told them not to bother with the GPS hookup of the 406 ELT since I was planning on going to the avionics shop for other work and they could run the wire.

I saw the itemized bill for 6.5 hours of labor to remove my 121.5 unit, mount the new unit, attach the two wires to the panel switch, replace my old ELT antenna with the new one (directly above the avionics bay) and hook up the power. It wouldn't have bother me other than the fact I replaced the 121 unit myself during an owner assisted annual back in the 90s. I know it didn't take me 6.5 hours including running the wire and making a hole in the panel. To the shop's credit, they did back it down to 2 hours.

I think Steve's main concern was the lack of communication during the work on what things would cost.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[Guest]

The lack of communication goes both ways.  Perhaps no estimate was provided because non was asked for.

Clarence

 

[OR75]

It was a long process .... But this thread reminds why I got my A&P a week ago. Literally a week ago. 

[MB65E]

2 minutes ago, OR75 said:

It was a long process .... But this thread reminds why I got my A&P a week ago. Literally a week ago. 

That's Awsome!! Congrats. The A&P takes longer than all of my other ratings combined! Glad I did it early when I had time!! I'd encourage others to do it.

-Matt

[NotarPilot]

5 hours ago, M20Doc said:

The lack of communication goes both ways.  Perhaps no estimate was provided because non was asked for.

Clarence

 

You're right Clarence, and I admitted that in an earlier post. I did ask what certain discrepancies were going to cost and was told I would be either called "tomorrow" or emailed them later with those answers. Now, not to be a stickler here but since its come up I will mention that the piston maintenance manager didn't always call me when he said he would. Not a big deal, I know they're a big shop and have a lot going on and I didn't want to be one of those PIA customers that I'm sure you probably get the pleasure of dealing with, demanding estimates for every single discrepancy. My personality it pretty laid back so I just had faith, based on comments from fellow MSers, that the costs would be similar to what I've paid in the past for similar work. No, I didn't ask what the tires costs as I haven't dealt with a shop that stocks their own parts so I didn't have an idea their mark ups would be so high. I happened to be wrong and hopefully other can learn from it. I know I did. 

I should also mention, I took my own anticipated parts with me when I dropped off the plane. I was told that wasn't necessary because they stock their own parts. I was told they would have to charge me a handling charge "in case they drop [and break]" one of my supplied parts. I took brake pads, an ELT battery, oil, camguard, screws, etc. Nothing major. I didn't really balk at this but was mildly annoyed by this notion. Again, hopefully a learning lesson for someone else.

[Tommy]

I think this post can be summed up in one statement: "No one - including yourself -  was there to watch how the annual was done." So we are all just speculating using our own experience, knowledges, and biases. 

Case and point. I was told that it will only take an hour to replace all the shock mounts on my J's panel and it ended up 4 hours of sweat and swear between me and my dad to get it done. Next time around - after 15 years I hope - if I get charged three hours to replace them I wouldn't kick up a fuss now I know how difficult it is. 

The only way you can be certain is do an owner assist annual.