Peter wrote:
There is a huge amount of expertise here on EuroGA and with ~250k posts a lot of good stuff has been written. I would recommend reading through the prebuy search link I posted, to get the basic ideas.
Tons of good advice has been posted on this thread on my (similar) situation:
https://www.euroga.org/forums/aircraft/11314-considering-aircraft-purchase-finally
Btw I’m still in the process. ;-)
https://www.piper.com/dealers/arlt-aircraft-service/
These guys are good in Worms.
Peter wrote:
Don’t use someone who contacts you via a forum (any forum including EuroGA). If you get such a contact, ask for references.
Despite this warning, I will shamelessly offer to do that. Don’t have much in the way of references, as my license is pretty fresh, but at least I hope I am sufficiently known here on the forum (including participation in the Zoom session on ownership), I have owned and maintained my own aircraft for 9 years, and I am willing to negotiate the terms. There will be two of us, and we’ll drive to your location. My colleague is a B1 guy with experience in Pipers and will check the airframe, and I am a B1/B2 and will handle the avionics, the logbooks and some of the airframe in the remaining time.
“Before even going into a formal prebuy make sure yourself or with a competent friend everything works. Try all the avionics, lights, heating, aircondition and whatever features the plane has got. Especially all electric systems.”
Agree. And go over the logbooks. If unfamiliar with logbooks, get someone to explain one.
If there are discrepancies,and the seller explains them rather than confessing, walk away.
Three of us went to look at a number of aircraft being sold-off as a school was closing. Two of us looked at the aircraft and logbooks. The other guy just chatted to people. We didn’t offer for any of them, and our local engineer agreed with our assessment.
PS we looked at another aircraft, he traveled from Inverness to Cornwall to inspect, and we bought it.
Peculiarproductions wrote:
Is there a good piper Cherokee prebuy checklist somewhere? How can I verify the shop is checking everything they should?
You can’t. That is why as a novice you need a good company to do the pre-buy for you.
All great points, thanks. I was originally tempted to buy something complex and fast, but the more I thought about it the more I think I’m better off spending the same amount of money on something simpler and slower, but in better shape. I’d rather be slow but without any big expenses or headaches!
It would have been useful for you to have come in on the Zoom video meet-up we did a little while ago on aircraft ownership.
It’s hard to summarise this stuff without typing a lot of stuff but I was in your situation in 2002. My process was this.
One of the main takeaways is that the less you know about planes, the better condition plane you should buy. If you are an expert, then you can buy a piece of total crap and you will know it will cost €x to fix but then you got the seller to knock x off the price. If you are new to ownership, you need to buy something with less potential for being a can of worms.
There is a huge amount of expertise here on EuroGA and with ~250k posts a lot of good stuff has been written. I would recommend reading through the prebuy search link I posted, to get the basic ideas.
With avionics, all you can do is find somebody who knows them and can check they all work. Some of it is quite subtle especially autopilots and their various modes; if you fail to spot something wrong it could cost you a few k to fix that. You cannot tell if something is about to break.
If you find a plane you like, post the details here and we can give you a view on it.
Is there a good piper Cherokee prebuy checklist somewhere? How can I verify the shop is checking everything they should? I’m not an expert with all of this stuff. And I know with avionics “it works on this test flight” doesn’t mean “it’s all good and doesn’t need any work or isn’t about to break or need to be overhauled”
Having witnessed a few pre buy inspections I was not very pleased with most. The problem was that many mechanics are great mechanics but they lack a good knowledge about component prices. So they did focus too much time on cheap stuff (which might be important for airworthiness on an annual) and they do miss out on crazy expensive parts. The more complex the plane the bigger this problem gets.
Before even going into a formal prebuy make sure yourself or with a competent friend everything works. Try all the avionics, lights, heating, aircondition and whatever features the plane has got. Especially all electric systems. Most mechanics will not find all the malfunctions in those system when working in their hangar also because many things might be hard to check on the ground.
ACG Allendorf and Rieger mentioned above are definitely German shops with a good reputation but there are also others.
Pretty done by the shop which will do the next 100h/ARC is the only “insurance” against negative surprises at this 100h.
