Maintenance - Pre-purchase Inspections
Buying an airplane without a pre-purchase inspection makes about as much sense as taking off on a cross country flight without knowing how much gas you have in your tanks. Both have the potential for a really nasty outcome.
Time and again, we’ve seen owners who failed to do a pre-purchase inspection bring us airplanes that were completely un-airworthy and in some cases downright dangerous. Our advice when looking for an aircraft is to first take along a pilot experienced with the type. If they consider it a worthwhile purchase then call us to do a complete pre-purchase inspection.
It’s normal for an owner who has decided to sell an aircraft to begin deferring maintenance items months, sometimes even years, before the actual sale. As a result, we find many "for sale" airplanes with long snag lists. Once you're armed with a snag list from a well respected AMO, you can usually knock thousands off the asking price of your prospective airplane.
But, even more important than lowering the sale price, an experienced AME can spot hidden corrosion or incorrectly done repairs which could ultimately cost you tens of thousands to rectify. Over the years, we've saved aircraft buyers thousands of dollars by recommending they walk away from a deal they were about to sign. And over those same years we've also had to charge buyers of newly acquired aircraft thousands to replace corroded structural components or overhaul engines just hours after the airplane changed hands; all because they failed have a qualified AME do a pre-purchase inspection.
Pre-purchase Done as an Annual Inspection
It’s sometimes a viable option to combine the pre-purchase with an annual inspection. If you'd like to go that route, you’ll need to get the aircraft to our maintenance facility. Our annual inspections are very comprehensive and we generally have multiple crew members working on them so we prefer not to do them in the field.
If you do choose to do the pre-purchase inspection as an annual, please be aware that we are required by Transport Canada regulations to ground any airplane we find un-airworthy. That could make it very difficult for both you and the seller if you decide to back out of the deal. However, if it’s an airplane you’re really confident in or one that you know well, then combining the pre-purchase and annual can save you a fair bit of money.
How Long Does it Take?
We usually schedule a full day for a pre-purchase as it takes a lot of time to get into the really difficult areas where we’ve found airframe corrosion likes to hide. You can help speed the process by working with us to remove and replace inspection panels, but clear that with the seller first, as they may not want anyone other than a fully qualified and insured AME touching their airplane.
Journey and Technical Log Inspections
An important part of our pre-purchase inspection is an AD search and full examination of the aircraft's journey and technical logs. As a certified AMO, we have access to manufacturer's service bulletins, service letters and service information letters that most owners don't. We can evaluate the aircraft's service history against this large database of information to find just how well the aircraft has been cared for.
Sometimes, the documentation, or lack thereof, reveals more about an airplane than a physical inspection.
Closing the Deal
If we do find snags, and it’s a very rare inspection that we don’t, we’ll give you a complete estimate of the repair cost. It’s then up to you to negotiate with the seller to either lower the price or have them pay for the repairs. Walk away from any deal where the seller refuses to do either.
If we find the aircraft basically sound, and you like the final negotiated price, there’s one more step we recommend. Although you’ll have to pay for it, an oil change can reveal a great deal about an engine’s health. As part of the oil change process we’ll carefully inspect the oil filter media, washing and screening it multiple times to look for minute particles of metal. If we find any, we can determine what type of metal it is and this will help us determine which internal engine components are showing unusual wear.
And finally, if the filter passes inspection, we can go one step further and send an oil sample out for spectrographic analysis. It's possible there could be an impending problem lurking inside the engine that cannot be detected by visual inspection alone. Just make sure you write a "pending oil analysis" clause into any offer to purchase you sign so you don't lose your deposit if the analysis reveals anything unexpected.
We believe it’s far better to catch engine problems before you close the deal rather than after. Failure to detect a slowly desintigrating camshaft could result in a costly engine overhaul, which you'll be hard pressed to afford because you just bought an airplane. Failure to detect the imminent failure of a valve guide could result in an engine failure in flight…we’ll leave that cost one to your imagination.