Top maintenance shops in Central Europe

Not a lot of offers on this one…

Maybe people know really great shops but don’t want them to get too busy

For a typical GA piston aircraft, I don’t think it makes sense to deal with big and well-reputed Part 145 companies: they may do the job very well and very quickly, but at unreasonably high prices. My ideal is a maintenance engineer who also flies an aircraft of his own and maintains it himself, especially if your aircraft is of the same type.
I had my aircraft maintained by a father-and-son shop in the UK, and I have personally participated in every maintenance action carried out on it, so all the briefing, debriefing and work inspection occurred on the fly.

Peter wrote:

Maybe people know really great shops but don’t want them to get too busy

+1

This is extremely complicated thing. There is no universal solution, you cannot say big=good, small=good, etc. All maintenance companies are going through various phases so there is no recipe for that. It is a continuous process and you as an owner and pilot are responsible for ensuring good maintenance of your ac. I do recommend to work together with the mechanic, which is something that can be done in small shops and with freelance mechanics. You need to have good knowledge and understanding of the systems of your aircraft. If you are unable to do it this way than it is perhaps better to buy a new airplane like Cirrus and make sure that the maintenance does not touch it too much :-). Than sell it when it is still quite new and replace by brand new again. This way you do not have to go through much of the invasive maintenance…

I guess people are worried that their favourite shop might get a report from somebody who had trouble there.

You certainly have to be personally involved – unless you are very fortunate and have a company which always does a good job. I have never heard of any such company.

Yes it is very strange. Something is certainly going on.

My experience is that there are very very few good maintenance shops and this could be the simple reason why so few are willing to post names.

At so many airfields you see 1 or 2 maintenance companies but most based aircraft fly away for maintenance! This in turn creates problems for those with an AOG situation: they have to use one of the based companies but since they are not a regular customer (and quite probably had a bust-up in the past) they are not likely to get a good service. In many cultures, regulars are treated very much better than irregulars.

It took me 3 years to find a shop I am satisfied with (so far). The engineer is booked to the kazoo. I have to wait in line every time I need something done. He is expensive. But the work is quite good, and I had my first non squawk long (multi thousand NM) cross country this summer and fall. The guy simply doesn’t need any more clients. The reality is that when you find a good mechanic, he’s fully booked. His clients don’t want to create more problems for themselves getting work done than they already have. I know it sounds utterly selfish, but if you were in possession of such information, would you voluntarily add a week or two to any maintenance you need done for someone you’ve never met and asks you over the internet? This is the kind of information you get only face to face.