Alex, you need a full annual from a specialist who knows TB20s and who is not the person who has done the maintenance to date. If the owner doesn’t want to pay to correct problems then walk away. Otherwise you will pay.
Anyway, good luck. I can’t advise you more. If you buy it as you seem to want to do then I hope it works out.
You let the seller’s shop do the prebuy? In 3 hours?
Alex,
AlexTB20 wrote:
I am very eager to buy a TB20, hence my nickname (with no previous experience on any Socata) and I wouldn’t want to make an impulse buy.
You are doing exactly that, you are set to buy a plane that a lot of VERY experienced people here tell you not to buy with good reason. You keep asking questions here, you get real clear answers and yet you ask the same thing again. This looks like someone who has totally lost his distance to an object of desire and acts purely on emotion and no longer on rational behaviour. That is a very dangerous thing to do, particularly for a pilot!
A pre-buy inspection is a full annual which will take anywhere between 2 days and a week. In this case, where you have a quite long list of defects, you would have to then negotiate with the owner to either have the estimate for correcting these defects deducted from the asking price or them to be rectified before you buy it.
Several of the defects you list, particularly the condition of the flight controls, are threatening the airworthiness of this airplane!
There will be a reason for the 10kts speed loss and it won’t be pretty. I have a very ugly suspicion here, combined with the fact that one door does not close properly. This airplane MUST be inspected by a Socata EXPERT before it is ever flown again, much less bought.
We can’t say more than this, as none of us has seen the airplane. But what we can say is that what you tell us here would be enough reason for any of us to not walk, but run away from this particular plane. Or at the very least get it into a reputable shop of YOUR choice and get a proper pre-buy done with a list of all defects and an estimate of the cost to rectify them. Then you can still decide if it is worth it for you or not.
today the aircraft was inspected at their local maintenance facility
[my emphasis]
VERY BIG mistake to do that. That company will never “discover” any significant defect, because to do so would be an admission that they have been doing dubious releases to service in the past.
I even know of cases where a company bodged something really big and did a deal with the owner to always sign off his Annual, to mutually cover it up 
The horizontal stabilizer and aileron play which seem too big for me, are NORMAL for the maintenance guy!
That speaks for itself
The owner says the new MT 3 blade propeller causes the speed loss (and max ceiling to be lower) and if I revert to an original one it should be fine. He is not willing to invest in any repairs or improvements, and says this plane has already cost him too much. So, more or less take it or leave it.
Offer him 30k less.
maybe the landing gear door not being fully closed can induce such a drag and therefore the speed loss?
The whole gear hanging out loses about 20kt so to lose 10kt you would need more than a landing gear door not closed. However a prebuy check should include jacking it up and checking the gear works OK.
AND passenger door touching the frame in its way down
That is a worry on the G1 version because it has one long hinge, not the two adjustable ones which the GT has (and which my A&P and I spent a long time tweaking on the last Annual, to get it just right). That door may have been caught by wind, or opened during flight.
There is also a play of about 2cm for the left landing gear wheel door
That is UTTERLY NEGLIGENT maintenance. The normal play is 5-10mm. 20mm shows the mechanism to be really shagged and possibly the gear door is about to fall off.
If I saw that plane, I would have told you to walk away in a few minutes, because the first things to check are
Just one walkaround shows up this stuff.
As I said earlier, discount by some 30k or walk away.
Little things like no GS capture could be simple e.g.
or it could be anything up to the autopilot computer which could cost 5 figures to investigate and fix, especially given the dire shortage of avionics shops that can do that in Europe. You do need to make sure the avionics work – or discount the selling price by the repair/replacement cost.
If this plane all worked it would be good value.
I am updating the above record, but
do you know why the plane was moved to N-reg from D-reg? Happened around 2009 I think.
is what I am not clear about – as I see it, it went D to N in 2009.
I don’t know what the (2) means in that serials database.
The serial number is 334. It was previously registered as D-EERS and put under an American trust as 2 of the co-owners (they are 4 in total) have FAA IR licenses at least that’s what they told me.
They pay about 1,200 USD per year for that. And probably maintenance is easier under FAA compared to EASA. However they don’t seem to agree who is the actual owner (the trust or the German co-owners), they cannot prove that VAT was paid (they say a copy of the former German registration certificate is enough) and have no idea how the sale contract should me made. I think the Trust (Llc corporation) is the owner and I, as an European private person, may be put to pay VAT and import taxes since I buy the plane from an American company, regardless former registrations. What do you think?
Bottom line, thank you all guys for the advice. There is no point in asking for it and just ignore it, so I think I will go back home and let things chill for at least a week or so before making the next step.
@Peter is right about buyer’s attitude, and I agree with @quatrelle and others that said my brain needs to be inspected first, it’s not how I should react, impulsiveness and emotions that can overcome logic is nothing a real pilot would be proud of.
I have an extended collection of pictures, from the so called pre-sale inspection, and also plane documentation (last annual, etc.) that I may post later for anyone interested in getting at the bottom of this possible scam.
I also spoke with Mr. Schmeck from Gomolzig Siegerland, a former Socata mechanic that
@placido recommended in a different post and he agreed to do an independent pre-sale inspection. Hopefully the owners would also agree.
However I couldn’t find a list of checks to be made in such an inspection. Should I request an annual inspection? Would this count as an annual, even if it’s not due yet?
Thank you!
First a disclaimer: I have never bought an aircraft. But according to Mike Busch, a prebuy inspection is very different from an annual. Some of the tasks overlap, but many don’t. For Cirrus planes (which is where I have been reading a lot of stuff about), people have put together very extensive checklists of how to do a prebuy. Maybe a similar thing exists within the Soccata owners’ group? Even better is to go to a trusted mechanic that has done it many times before. So by all means, go for that mechanic that was recommended to you and don’t sign anything until all issues are resolved to your liking (either by a reduction in price or by the seller paying for repairs)!
AlexTB20 wrote:
he agreed to do an independent pre-sale inspection. Hopefully the owners would also agree.
That is the wrong attitude and approach. An honest seller would never refuse any inspections that a serious and motivated buyer demands. If you get that impression, you should run even faster. You are the one who is offering them the money, you get to call the shots.
Import duties are due when a good (in this case a plane) is permanently brought into the customs area of the EU. This has nothing to do with a change of ownership. Since your plane was built in the EU, that should be all that is needed; but I don’t know what papers you can get to prove that fact.
