Buying a plane without a prepurchase

[Cris]

The circumstances you mention include a downside risk that the A/C is not as represented either intentionally or unintentionally. I think the reputation of the MSC makes the former unlikely & the latter is really the risk. That risk can be mitigated with a current annual including a review of the logs. You might consider having Bruce who is excellent review the logs for you to point out any possible issues he might have. Bruce runs the maintenance sessions for the Mooney Safety foundation & knows the A/C inside and out. That is in addition to his formidable pilot skills. The age of the A/C also plays into this. You did not say but if this is a previously damaged A/C or one that is high time or older there will be more to consider. I once bought an M20J from Weber A/C in Lancaster Pa. without a pre purchase elsewhere. It Had just 600 hrs on it and had been serviced exclusively by Weber. They did the annual as well as the following year's annual with no issues. With that said all the other A/C that I have purchased came from individuals and for me pre purchase inspections were mandatory. Lastly the money saved can be put toward unforseen squalks. ie bad battery, guage etc. that may occur shortly after purchase. In the end have the logs reviewed which is a modest cost and make your decision from there.

[Cruiser]

I agree with all the others, .....ask Bruce.

[Highflight]

[David Mazer]

I've had a number of pre-purchase inspections and each plane still ended up with issues I think should have been caught.  I doubt a pre-purchase inspection is any real value over an excellent annual.

[fantom]

Quote: Mazerbase

I've had a number of pre-purchase inspections and each plane still ended up with issues I think should have been caught.  I doubt a pre-purchase inspection is any real value over an excellent annual.

[PTK]

This is precisely the point. An MSC with the caliber and reputation of Wilmar and Bruce Jaeger would not care who is paying for the annual and where the buyer is! They have maintained the airplane for 20 years. They will do a proper annual.

I would have no hesitation whatsoever. You don't need a prepurchase from anyone. You have an annual from Wilmar, one of the very few top MSCs in the country! And their name is all over the logbooks! You can't do any better than that! Speak to Bruce Jaeger and go over the logs with him. You will get an education! He is a recognized authority on Mooney maintenance.

[WardHolbrook]

Quote: allsmiles

This is precisely the point. An MSC with the caliber and reputation of Wilmar and Bruce Jaeger would not care who is paying for the annual and where the buyer is! They have maintained the airplane for 20 years. They will do a proper annual.

I would have no hesitation whatsoever. You don't need a prepurchase from anyone. You have an annual from Wilmar, one of the very few top MSCs in the country! And their name is all over the logbooks! You can't do any better than that! Speak to Bruce Jaeger and go over the logs with him. You will get an education! He is a recognized authority on Mooney maintenance.

[gregwatts]

Just because an airplane is "in annual", does not mean that there may not be be skeletons that a buyer would want to know about. An annual inspection is the best prepurchase inspection you can have, in my opinion, but a current annual does not "tell the whole story". Maintenance "history" is important.....to me.....as well.

Having made 5 different purchases......I personally review the logs just to see if there is anything that stands out to me, before I enlist the help of a trained professional.

I also try to get a vibe of the currnet owner.......I have walked away from purchases because I didn't trust the info I was being given. As we all know....the FARs do not prohibit s&%theads from owning airplanes. S%$thead brokers aren't prohibited from representing aircraft either.

Just sayin'

[bdjohn4]

I would never buy a plane without a very thorough prebuy. It is worth $2000 (or more).  Heck, even with a prebuy by a former Mooney shop could be overly shallow/topical and lead to a TON of money spent in the first year of ownership undoing all the little sins of various A&Ps over the decades, especially for an older Mooney.  Happened to me.  I put another 60% of the value of the original purchase price in the old girl within 15months of purchase. Now we have a nice old but renovated bird who's insides I know better than my own, but I regret not getting a super thorough and very critical prebuy. 

[Cruiser]

The point is that a prebuy "should" identify issues and costs. What everyone here has said is that Wilmar will do that....... having Wilmar perform the annual is the same as or better than paying someone else to do a "prebuy"

They did my prebuy and I would trust them to know, find and tell the buyer if there are problems.

[WardHolbrook]

This is a bit beyond the scope of the OP, but some sellers may be hesitent to subject their aircraft to an inspection as part of a purchase negotiation regardless of the assumed maintenance status and condition of their aircraft. Remember, if any unairworthy items are found the airplane becomes grounded until repairs are made. If you run into this, you might try asking to do a a "Pre-purchase Maintenance Evaluation".  This will provide you with the same information that you need to make an informed decision regarding the airplane including possible price negotiating points.

Over the years, I've owned my share of aircraft, from gliders to classic tail-draggers, to pressurized piston twins. I've also been involved in the purchase negotiations for several others including a few business jets. Here's what I've learned...
1. Never, ever trust a seller's mechanic. It's not that they will lie to you, but that they might not tell "the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth" if you get my drift.
2. All maintenance ceases once the decision to sell has been made, if not earlier.
3. A good trustworthy mechanic is worth his weight in gold. Pay him whatever it takes to keep him.
4. Pay whatever it takes to get a good non-biased evaluation. If you're lucky, you pay good money to confirm what the seller was telling you. If you're really lucky, you'll find out that the airplane has problems and should be passed over. Ether way, it's money well spent.
5. You'll eventually pay for a factory remanufactured engine (or equivalent) whether you get one or not. Either up front, or over the course of time due to unscheduled maintenance, downtime, etc.

Of course there will be exceptions to the above five items. Like I said, I wouldn't have a problem in substituting a prepurchase for a verified and confirmed "quality" maintenance pedigree in conjunction with an annual performed by a shop like Wilmar immediatly prior to signing the sales contract. However, over the years, I've purchased exacly one airplane that way. In my mind the exception are few and far between. If you've been on the receiving end of one of the exceptions - good on ya. You're very lucky. The rest of us, don't count on it.

[WardHolbrook]

Duplicate Post

[WardHolbrook]

Duplicate Post

[WardHolbrook]

Duplicated post. I have no idea why this post duplicated itself so many times. Shesh. 

[WardHolbrook]

Duplicate Post

[WardHolbrook]

Yet another dulicated post.

[Seth]

When I purchased my Mooney Missile, I had Tim Lundquist the broker arrange the demo flight and prebuy for me.

My demo pilot was indeed Bruce Jager, and I agree there are few instructors and Mooney pilots out there with more knowlege than Bruce - a pure pleasure to fly with and have demo an airplane.

Jason Dorcher of Jed-Aire Aviation (his company) was arranged to conduct the prebuy and he was a former employee over at Wilmar (I think he ran the shop for Bruce at one point). Jason is a ture genuine person and his quality and workmanship are top notch. If I did not have an MSC nearby, or even if I did and Jason were local, he's be my A&P of choice. I'm very confident in him, and with his easygoing quiet confidence, he'll let you know the true story of what is going on inside your airplane. He is based a short flight away from Wilmar at Benson, KBBB (26 nm). He will give you an independent view if you are uncomfortable with the Wilmar association with Wilmar both maintaining and conducting the annual on the aircraft, however, I would trust Wilmar in a heartbeat. Jason, Tim, and Bruce were all impressed with the Missile, but Jason did find that the engine was making metal - that caused me to reduce my offer significantly and have the engine overhauled at purchase. And believe me, the engine was running extrememly smoothly with a lot of power and speed before the oil was drained, and Jason found the metal in the oil filter.

Jason's office number is 320-843-4461. Feel free to say that I suggested him as a outside opinion for you to contact regarding this aircraft.

If you need other suggestions, as menioned earlier in this post, I would trust Bruce Jager's advice on who else to speak with. Also, you can alwasy as Tim Lundquist, who operates Statgic Aircraft, www.strategicaircraft.com - 612-220-3963. He's probabaly reccomend Bruce and Jason.

Last but not least, I flew last July to and from Maryland to Minnesota over a weekend to test fly my current Missile in my former F model - the distance was 920 nm each way. Well worth the trip.  I also used some points to fly to Dallas for a prebuy on an aircraft I did not purchase about a month and a half earlier - also worth the trip and the prebuy to say "no deal."

Good luck with your purchase!

-Seth

[Nemesis]

Seth beat me to the punch.

I am in Colorado and Southern California. Those locations will give an idea about how far I think necessary travel is when dealing with pre-purchase and maintenance.

I also purchased from Tim, pre-buy from Jason, and transition training from Bruce. Jason was Bruce's shop manager at Willmar for something like 8 years before he decided to strike out on his own even before Bruce decided to sell the Willmar business. I am/was in southern California when time came for my annual this year and I did not hesitate (will never hesitate) to make a trip to Benson MN to see Jason at Jed-Aire for an annual or major maintenance.

I hate to be the lone dissenting voice but at the same time how can I sit by and not say anything with everything that people in MN have been telling me? I will not give specifics, lets just say that I highly recommend Jason Doscher but with equal passion do not recommend Willmar. I know that goes against their prior stellar reputation but I have my reasons for saying so... and no, it is not only because I prefer Jason, there is more to it than that.

Get the pre-buy from Jason, do some flight training with Bruce, and you will have a good early ownership experience.

Use my name as well if you like when you talk to Jason.

[FloridaMan]

For a follow up, I purchased the airplane. I wanted to wait until some time passed before posting a follow-up. 

Willmar was wonderful. I did my first 2.5 hours of dual instruction with Bruce Jaeger. Parker Woodruff flew up to ferry the plane down with me. On the trip back, we stopped for fuel in Smithville, Tennessee (0A3) and ended up with a dead left magneto. The local A&P answered his cell on a Saturday and got us into his shop's hangar and helped us get home to Florida. 

It ended up being a bad coil in the magneto. The A&P at 0A3 (Burton Mason -- highly recommend; while the accomodations in Smithville are sparse, my airplane ended up being in good hands with Burton) repaired the magneto and I could not be happier with the level of service and the price that he charged for the repair. He also mentioned that the coil tested as good, though it was clearly failing under load and had indication of burns on the outside of it. I do not believe it would have been possible to have predicted the failure in prepurchase or annual. 

So, in short; all parties involved in this purchase were absolutely wonderful and I would highly recommend any and all of them: Brian at Willmar Air Service, Bruce Jaeger, Parker Woodruff and Burton Mason. 

[MooneyMitch]

Super congratulations!  Enjoy your flying with your beautiful Mooney.

 

[rainman]

Congratulations....what model did you get

[FloridaMan]

M20F. Sorry about the rotated image. I don't feel like editing it on my computer and reuploading it. I had a bit of a tailwind that flight. It's 158kts true. Powerflow exhaust, HSI, GAMI injectors, SlickStart booster, 20 years of meticulous maintenance and the previous owner may have been the very best pilot I've ever flown with. The only things I'm considering adding to it are a GEM, possibly some weather awareness and I've purchased a new vacuum pump as the old one has 1300 hours and over 10 years on it. 

[DaV8or]

Oooo! LoPresti cowl. Nice! I'm jealous.

[rainman]

Very Cool, enjoy..