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New Mooney Service Bulletin M20-335A, "seems serious"


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It is surprising to me that with all the money the company has spent on updating the manufacturing process that Mooney would outsource the painting of the final product. I would never have guessed that the planes weren’t painted at the factory. If it was Piper with a problem on aircraft this new I believe they would step up to the plate 

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I believe for a period of time, Aerosmith Aviation in Longview, TX was painting all the new Mooneys. I'd also heard that something happened and they weren't doing them anymore. I hesitate to post this as I really don't have any first hand information. But we'll just keep it among ourselves ;-)

 

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10 minutes ago, bluehighwayflyer said:

Tejas Aero in San Marcos for many years was at the top of Aviation Consumer’s best paint shop in the country list. Very pricey, though, from what I have heard.  Just the kind of place I would hope new Mooneys would be painted, actually.  At least that has historically been their reputation.  

Jim

That was a long time ago.

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I'm glad the factory is self regulating themselves and getting in front of the issue, but yes, their mistake, newer airplanes, this cost should be covered by the factory.  Talk about paying it forward for all potential buyers to see.  

-Seth

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* New Information for my plane affected by this Service Bulletin:

I went out to the hangar this evening to inspect my tail and rudder surfaces.  While under the tail on a creeper, I noticed the horizontal stabilizer on the bottom surface has 47 thick white paint runs that are mostly at least 1 inch long.  All the rivets underneath that surface have 1 inch paint runs.  The entire bottom surface is VERY rough to the touch, and waxing doesn't help at all.  You can see primer coming through in areas near the rivets.  On the other hand, the left horizontal stabilizer underneath is finished perfectly and super smooth w/wax.   My only conclusion I can logically think of is that whoever painted my plane started the job, got distracted, and forgot to finish it.   To be honest, it looks terrible underneath that side.  I don't know how I missed it when I bought the plane.  

On another observation, everytime I do a belly wash on the plane, no matter how mild my wash solution is, my super delicate task wiper turns red from the paint.  The red paint has been coming off the belly for the past 2+ years ever since I owned the plane.  I've been using Aero Cosmetics Belly Wash and Belly Soap.  I even tried diluting it, and the paint still rubs off.  The delicate task wiper or cotton cloth turns red after every belly wash.  I've brought this up to my Mooney Service Center, and they told me something isn't right with the paint.  The red paint doesn't come off on any other area of the plane, only the belly.   I had a 1998 J model with a red belly, and the paint NEVER came off using the same products.  

 

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9 hours ago, aviatoreb said:

Why wouldn’t the factory have their own paint guys?

And no stripping needed?

I had heard 10 years ago ? that their paint shop didn’t meet EPA standards and their only option at the time was to send them out for paint. But with the huge investment that’s been made in the past few years I would think a paint shop would be a good idea.

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On 12/30/2018 at 1:55 AM, Mooney_Allegro said:

Mooney is not covering any labor or parts if the affected aircraft is outside of the Mooney International Corporation factory warranty program as stated in the Service Bulletin.  

Since this is an admitted manufacturing defect that clearly affects safety, I think Mooney International might want to consult with their lawyers and insurance carrier in deciding whether they want to pay for all the repairs or not.  The litigation costs of just one crash will eclipse the repair costs by many orders of magnitude.  Just sayin.  

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1 hour ago, LANCECASPER said:

I had heard 10 years ago ? that their paint shop didn’t meet EPA standards and their only option at the time was to send them out for paint. But with the huge investment that’s been made in the past few years I would think a paint shop would be a good idea.

It would make sense for Mooney to tool up and have their own paint shop once production numbers warrant the expertise, staffing, equipping, inventory, compliance etc. Currently, I believe they use a couple of shops, one in Hondo one in Longview as subs. To do so prematurely would only increase the COG and raise the price of the product. Of course the downside of not having their own paint shop now is a bit of a loss of control of the task, which they are paying for with this SB. Stay tuned, lets see how this plays out before we sentence Mooney to Mooneyspace hell.

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10 minutes ago, mike_elliott said:

It would make sense for Mooney to tool up and have their own paint shop once production numbers warrant the expertise, staffing, equipping, inventory, compliance etc. Currently, I believe they use a couple of shops, one in Hondo one in Longview as subs. To do so prematurely would only increase the COG and raise the price of the product. Of course the downside of not having their own paint shop now is a bit of a loss of control of the task, which they are paying for with this SB. Stay tuned, lets see how this plays out before we sentence Mooney to Mooneyspace hell.

I agree. They may well plan to make good, and anyway I like to think they are doing the right thing by addressing the problem asap for safety reasons, rather than wait to work out the business details which may well come shortly.

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It would make sense for Mooney to tool up and have their own paint shop once production numbers warrant the expertise, staffing, equipping, inventory, compliance etc. Currently, I believe they use a couple of shops, one in Hondo one in Longview as subs. To do so prematurely would only increase the COG and raise the price of the product. Of course the downside of not having their own paint shop now is a bit of a loss of control of the task, which they are paying for with this SB. Stay tuned, lets see how this plays out before we sentence Mooney to Mooneyspace hell.
It seems like inspection by a Mooney employee before release from the paint shop and/ or payment authorization to the paint shop would have been prudent.

Sent from my XT1585 using Tapatalk

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Since this is an admitted manufacturing defect that clearly affects safety, I think Mooney International might want to consult with their lawyers and insurance carrier in deciding whether they want to pay for all the repairs or not.  The litigation costs of just one crash will eclipse the repair costs by many orders of magnitude.  Just sayin.  

 

Hope that never happens. What’s more likely is that these owners will sue and attempt to show that Mooney was legally negligent and that not only are they responsible for the entire cost of the repair, but they also should be liable for new paint and lost use. There are more than a dozen affected, so owners might also have a class action case if someone wanted to put in the effort.

 

Either way, this is an unfortunate event. I can’t imagine how this escalated to this. Mooney knew the paint sucked, some smart engineer must have called it out only recently after seeing the aberrations and calculated a potential flutter condition - hence the exact max speed to ferry clause. I think this was calculated rather than shown in a test flight.

 

Mooney should be forced to release the facts here for safety sake. Period.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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3 hours ago, Ftlausa said:

Since this is an admitted manufacturing defect that clearly affects safety, I think Mooney International might want to consult with their lawyers and insurance carrier in deciding whether they want to pay for all the repairs or not.  The litigation costs of just one crash will eclipse the repair costs by many orders of magnitude.  Just sayin.  

Mooney could, should cover the costs and then charge the paint shops insurance for the costs to make the Owners hole again. It is the plane shops mistake. Whose A&P signed the log book entry for the paint job? 

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2 hours ago, Mooney_Allegro said:

Bob,

I checked the airframe logbook entries and there's no entry listed for painting.  

Would there be?  Its still part of the new airplane build I would think.  I bet there are at least some of the many other items and parts that were part of the new airplane build that are also not called out in a new airplane log book.  That sounds normal to me.

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At the better part of a million bucks apiece with planes that new the company should just say bring it on in to  Kerrville or your nearest service center and we’ll get her squared away for you. If they don’t they don’t deserve to be in business.

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One of Mooney’s raisins d‘etre is that it’s a hand built quality machine. This flies in the face of that dictum. They need badly to get out in front of this quickly. The money lost in a crash pales in front of the money lost cue to loss of reputation. 

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3 hours ago, steingar said:

One of Mooney’s raisins d‘etre is that it’s a hand built quality machine. This flies in the face of that dictum. They need badly to get out in front of this quickly. The money lost in a crash pales in front of the money lost cue to loss of reputation. 

Agree 100%.  As serious as this is, Mooney should be telling owners they will take care of the problem at no cost to the owner, and scheduling the fix.  Period.

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On 12/30/2018 at 8:18 AM, Txbyker said:

Looks like these could be planes since factory restart.  I believe they came with a 5 year, 1000 hour warranty?

Russ

Correct, at least for the TN.  Mine is s/n 125 (whew!) and was one of the last ones completed before the shutdown. There were eight or so airframes partially completed sitting around during the shutdown, but I think paint is done after the plane is fully assembled. 

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3 hours ago, exM20K said:

Correct, at least for the TN.  Mine is s/n 125 (whew!) and was one of the last ones completed before the shutdown. There were eight or so airframes partially completed sitting around during the shutdown, but I think paint is done after the plane is fully assembled. 

Not all of the affected TN's have a 5-year warranty.  Mine is SN 31-0130, a 2015.   It came with a standard 3-year warranty only.  It's been out of warranty since April 2018.  

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