This is an interesting article. I don’t think everybody knows that you are entitled to have your parts back after any work on the plane.
This is an old issue with car service shops, who often don’t return the old stuff.
Sometimes this is done to prevent the customer discovering the old part had nothing wrong with it.
One reason you might not get parts back is that many car parts come with an exchange surcharge, refundable upon return of the old unit. Getting the surcharge refund can, in some cases, significantly reduce the cost of the part.
Does this apply to aviation parts?
S57 wrote:
Does this apply to aviation parts?
Yes, it does also apply for aviation parts.
The fuel pump of my Cessna needed to be replaced after twelve years in service. This is what the maintenance shop told me. The solely purpose of the fuel pump in my plane is priming the engine before start. After twelve years the pump had worked less than five hours, because one turns on the pump only for 3-4 seconds. But the pump is designed for a service life of five thousend hours! I would have been able to offer the good old pump on ebay as almost new. After replacing the good old pump with a “new” one I did not get my pump back. I was told that my old pump would be overhauled and sold as a new pump 
That means throw 1000 Euro in the locus in EASA land.
The former owner in the US couldn`t believe this.
It applies when the replacement price includes an exchange “core”. But that’s only on overhauled replacements for the reason stated above.
It should not apply to new product. If the maintenance shop sold you a new pump, you should have insisted on getting the old one back because as mentioned in Peter’s reference article “it belongs to you, not the mechanic”. If they claim that the new pump price includes a “trade-in”, then you should have either a) insisted on a no-trade-in price for the new pump or b) sourced the new pump yourself and provided it to him for installation, and in both cases requested the old one back when done. If you source from a reliable parts handler, you should receive the paperwork to prove that it is really new.
chflyer wrote:
If the maintenance shop sold you a new pump, you should have insisted on getting the old one back
They didn`t told me the “new” pump is really new and getting the “old” one back would cost a lot more. I suppose the “new” pump is not younger than the “old” pump.
This was in 2012 and meanwhile I did experiance some more nasty stuff with this company which was the reason to change the maintenance company in 2014. In sum I do trust the new shop and save fifty percent of the cost for maintenance per year.
I made the experience, that all of my maintance companies I‘ve had in the past showed me the defect parts after the installation of the new things. The explain me always where the failure was. This happend also when the exhange was done with an exchange refund. First they showed me the defective part and then they have send it back.
There are all kinds of “exchange” deals e.g. overhaul exchange, new exchange… but you should be told what the deal is before the job is commenced, otherwise you must be given all the original parts back.
We have a policy of keeping all the removed parts so the customer can if they wish inspect them, if the part is service exchanged or overhauled we also make this clear to the customer.
This openness results in most people not bothering to check what has been removed from the Aircraft, it is enough for most people and the people who are not happy with this are porobaly the type of customers you can do without.
