RivetBangers.com

Last year's annual on my cherokee was a nightmare... I took it to the WRONG mechanic, and he soaked me pretty good. It ended up costing me $8000....


This year, I have a new mechanic, and he just called me to tell me he's nearly done, and I should be able to pick it up tomorrow around noon. He's charging me $600 plus his cost on oil and filter, and not fixing anything. He told me that so far, the only airworthiness items he's found were a crack in a baffle and the baffle seals are SHOT and need replacing. I knew the seals needed replacing, it's been on my short list for a little while now... so much so that I've had baffle seal material and pop rivets in the back of the airplane since before my accident, and just haven't gotten around to doing it.

He told me that it's one of the best running cherokees he's seen, and that I win the award for best compressions this month, with the best being 78 and the worst 73.


I feel so much better now

EIGHT LARGE ONES!?!

WRONG MECHANIC!?!

I'll say so! Holy cow! What did he write up to justify that cost?

I would have had some serious issues with that price. I would make him do $10,000 worth of paperwork for that kinda pay!

CJ

yeah, I got raped by my last mechanic. Come to find out he screws people over and over and over again, some people WAY worse than me. He's known for doing shady crap like ordering new parts for insurance repairs and putting the new parts in other peoples' airplanes, and taking newish parts off of one customer's plane to put on another customer's plane so he doesn't have to buy new parts. Then he gets the bonus that customer A is going to have to replace that shitty old starter that they unknowingly acquired.

The $8000 annual got me a pair of mag rebuilds and new oil cooler hoses. That's about the extent of it.

I finally realized I was being raped, and hard, when I called him up to see about replacing my battery, and he quoted me $270 for a G35. I looked it up as I was on the phone with him, and spruce wanted $135. That clued me in a little bit. Not to mention that he quoted me an hour and a half labor to replace the battery. I replaced the battery myself, and I had to do the safety wire three times, and it still took me less than half an hour

Yea, I am learning a lot being a new pilot, there are some things you really have to look out for. I have heard several horror stories about mechanics "grounding" planes by outrageous fees when the owner refuses to pay.

I just had an annual done on the Mustang II, $600 bones, and it included Mag timing. If anyone in California needs a mechanic I know a good one, but he expects you to do a lot of the work, and he will travel some.

THIS...

Is the reason I am building my own plane!

CJ

Congrats. A good wrench is worth his weight in gold.

$600 is way cheap! I charged $1500 on the last condition (RV6) I did. Thats about $35 per hour for about 40 hours of work (first time I saw the airplane).

He ended up invoicing me $550, $500 for the inspection, $35 for oil, and $15 for oil filter. He didn't have an induction filter on hand, so he signed it off pending induction filter change, plus repair of a broken baffle, replacing worn out baffle seals, and replacing a leaky tank drain. He also noted the cracking fwd dorsal fin and suggested we replace it when we can.

We spent yesterday doing the induction filter, tank drain, baffle repair, and baffle seals. We also attacked the baffles with a tube of silicone and sealed up a lot of bad gaps. My engine should be happier now