I agree.
Are you saying that you can take a 20 year old plane to a shop, ask them to “do an Annual”, and they are automatically constrained by law to perform only the standard Annual schedule in the MM, with no replacements of e.g. worn airframe parts like control linkages?
If that’s true in CH and DE, I would say that is then country-dependent because that is for sure not what has happened, and the shop(s) won the dispute(s).
Another angle – although not right on this topic – is the old “if you don’t know, you are ok” principle: you take a plane to a shop, the Annual (the ARC in Europe) expires (because, hey, you naturally took it to the shop with the Annual about to expire 
), they open it up, find all kinds of non-airworthy stuff, and refuse to perform the Annual to completion unless you pay for rectification of everything found. So you can’t fly it out. You would have to cart it out. Again, this is a totally real scenario which is quite common. In the good old days when a €100k plane today was worth about €40k, a bill for say €20k might well make you walk away from the whole thing. Happens a lot with cars, and that business has a well polished process for dealing with that 
The solution is to stipulate that an inspection is performed before the Annual runs out, but the shop is then breaking the law if they find something and let you fly it back out.
do not by any measure represent the N-Reg community
N-reg is totally unrelated to dodgy maintenance. Actually you have more options for keeping a plane legal and airworthy under N, within a given budget. And everybody has a finite budget.
The “N-registered community” includes most of the world’s general aviation fleet, apparently about 204,000 aircraft, so its a little odd to consider normal N-register maintenance as somehow an exception. It is broadly speaking the rule, not the exception. And it works fine
I am glad not to be involved with any of what is described in this thread, and would advise anybody else to avoid it too. My certified plane like many or most others is in reality maintained as an ongoing project by its owner with the help of people having specific skills, meaning A&P mechanics with background useful to whatever specific job is at hand, networked with a diverse array of part suppliers. This is no different than an individually owned house, car, motorcycle or whatever. The rest is just a bunch of nonsense, a low value charade that should be avoided.
Are you saying that you can take a 20 year old plane to a shop, ask them to “do an Annual”, and they are automatically constrained by law to perform only the standard Annual schedule in the MM, with no replacements of e.g. worn airframe parts like control linkages?
In practice, this will be rare. Normally, there is quite a paper/email trail preceding any annual/airworthiness review these days, which (together with the details of the maintenance programme, in case of EASA-regs) defines how the shop is supposed to act in terms of parts replacements/expenditures. That‘s rather because the shops want this, as they are tired of disputes and lawsuits. Maybe not in every old school one-man-band shop, but in the case of bigger, professional shops. Maybe you have been away from mainteance organisations for too long to realize how burocratic things hage become.
Also, with a good shop, it is a two step process, i.e. when any major issues are found, the client is first informed about it before the shop
proceeds with the rectification work.
Peter wrote:
If that’s true in CH and DE, I would say that is then country-dependent because that is for sure not what has happened, and the shop(s) won the dispute(s).
It must be country-dependent somehow, because the different countries in Europe have different contract laws.
I’m not a lawyer, but from my understanding of German contract laws a maintenance shop would have to prove they have a valid order for a work done if the customer disputed the bill. Which is probably why car garages / repair shops always phone you whenever they find something that they think needs fixing during inspections. So unless you signed a contract that explicitly says they should “fix” any issue they come across, they are legally on a slippery slope as boscomantico said.
I got friendly with a young guy working in a GA Part 145 near me. I asked him straight up to show me his pay slip. After-tax he was getting €9.83 per hour into his hand. So I live in the real world, and I know what it costs to exist as a human in the year 2023.
How motivated would you be, or how could you face your work diligently if your time was so poorly rewarded?
Unless I have a relationship with the principal of the business and he’s going to be flying in the aircraft with me, or unless I can personally lay money into the hand of the person working on the aircraft, then I am never really fully comfortable with the situation. There is always room for an owner who can hold a torch, buy coffee and put panels back on.
I was working for Part 145 shops in Germany for 3 years. I could also observe some other Part145’s around and how they act with customers.
Common approach here is that first of all nice looking frontman is doing everything (and promise) everything to get aircraft to the hangar.
Then, mechanics are removing some plates/parts just to ground it.
Next, manager is starting wallet-vacuum cleaner. They behave like customer is slave complettly depended of magical “inspectors” (a lot of people, mechanics love to call themself as inspectors). They gonna find everything what they can on aircraft, just to suck more working hours and parts from guy.
Usually noone is taking in account that owner of poor cessna 172 or even something more expensive has limited money possibilities. I talk mainly about private-use-only aircrafts, for sport/fun/hobby. This makes that promised offer is growing in cost and ground-time.
Also popular approach is just to send exploded invoice to customer, not even talking to him.
This problem touches either line maintenance and for example avionics modifications.
Of course more or less is last time of owner at this shop but on other hand, where to go?
Now after years of my frustration due to this I run my own Part-66 freelance business. I apply my own rules. If there is something what is not impairing safety, can be legally kept as it is and owner opt to make it later – we put it on hold. Just to keep it clear, it have to be legal and safe.
We have to remember also that responsible for airworthiness of private, non-camo used aircraft is owner or operator, not mechanic. Mechanic is allowed to do the job and certify that this work was done i.a.w. standard, STC etc… Mechanic is not judge who say – he can fly or not.
I would say even more, if I get work-order to change tire in aircraft, I do this, put CRS into book but if during this I find something not-airworthy but out of my work-order of course I will tell it to operator but I’m not allowed to “ground” the aircraft do to this.
Returning to business, my approach is that I treat customers equal, doesn’t matter if he is milionaire or just c150 owner. Prices are based on work done, not social status of owner. We also always talk and looking together for way how to keep all safe and economical. This way I have 99% happy customers returning to me for more.
I can say that I’m exceptional in area, why? I don’t know but everyday I can hear how next company ripped of someone new, especially on bigger avionics modifications (what I usually do – I mean avionics, not ripping off :) ).
Part.66 B1,C,Avionics, FAA A&P
In practice, this will be rare
It happens in cases where it isn’t rare i.e. where you bring a plane (perhaps one you have just bought, and we all know why many people sell a plane) to the shop for the first time. Actually all the disaster cases I know (or heard of) of were exactly that. That’s quite notable, I’d say.
Maybe you have been away from mainteance organisations for too long to realize how burocratic things hage become.
Never long before a personal swipe… that’s country-dependent, too, though a rare issue
I do speak to other owners, you know. Not many… normally I avoid any contact with pilots; they are funny people, you know
I’m not a lawyer, but from my understanding of German contract laws a maintenance shop would have to prove they have a valid order for a work done if the customer disputed the bill.
For sure the UK and US differ from that, so probably quite a few non-Germanic-law countries do also.
For the US:
US AOPA mag, July 2022, p98.
In the UK, it is probably similar.
Peter wrote:
the Annual (the ARC in Europe)
The Annual and the ARC are quite distinct things in Europe. In effect, the Annual is a 100 hr service that you have to do at least once a year. So if the aircraft flies more than 100 hrs/year there is no Annual.
The ARC is an administrative thing. A new ARC is issued every year (every third year if the aircraft is under CAO/CAMO). The person issuing the ARC verifies that all paperwork is in order – in particular that the maintenance programme has been complied with (including e.g. that an Annual has been done if required). There is also a quite cursory inspection of the aircraft to check that e.g. all placards are in place and there are no obvious airworthiness defects.
