Twin Comanche PreBuy

[Mitchell Berger]

I'm looking for recommendations for a mechanic to perform a prebuy on a Twin Comanche in the the Lexington, KY area.
Also if anyone has a copy of a 100/annual inspection checklist they could provide that would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Mitch Berger

[Kristin Winter]

Mitch,

You need to find someone who knows Comanches and who knows how to do a pre-buy inspection. There is no standard for a pre-buy inspection. Most mechanics only know how to do annual/100 hour inspections. The pre-buy is different. It should involve a flight test, a check of the avionics, and a predictive look forward as to what maintenance issues may arise in the first few years of ownership. The place to start is the logbook review. That can be done with photos of the log pages, which can save money, unless you can find someone to do the pre-buy that is very close to the subject aircraft. On the ones I have done, I would say that somewhere between 40-60% of the aircraft don't pass the logbook review. You should expect to pay around $250 for that portion. If the aircraft looks good at that point, then you can proceed with the rest of the pre-buy. When I do them, it usually takes between 5-8 hours with the aircraft and you get a list of current discrepancies and items which are likely to need attention in the next couple of years. Based on that information, the the buyer usually negotiates the final price, though occasionally I am asked to handle the negotiations as well. With some buyers, I stay and provide the check out in the aircraft or we ferry the aircraft together, back to the buyer's home field.

You are in luck in that Paul New is in Jackson, TN and I believe that he has experience with pre-purchase inspections and the Twin Comanche. His business is Tennessee Aircraft Service. You can google that. Other than that, Heritage Aero in Rockford, IL is another option. If you do need training and ferrying service as well, then I can help as I am the only one I know of who can do all phases of the acquisition. If you want to chat a bit about how the process should work, you can find my phone number in the Pathfinder or email me at kristin_winter at comcast dot net.

Attached is Piper's checklist for the aircrft.

Best of luck!

[N3322G]

Mitchell,

Welcome to almost Comanche ownership.

Let me ditto everything Kristin said and put an exclamation point behind it. Twin Comanches are great flying airplanes but like anything 40plus years old, if it is well-maintained, great. If it is not well-maintained then like an old house it will be a money pit.

[Mitchell Berger]

Thank you both very much for your insight. Being an aircraft owner already (Mooney) for many years I echo your sentiments. Kristin, I particularly thank you for the checklist and also for the advice re: logbook review as a first step. If I find an aircraft that I think might be attractive I will acquire all the logs and have you review them first.

Thanks......

[Mitchell Berger]

Also Kristin....let me know when a good time to call you would be.

[Kristin Winter]

Mitchell,

You can call anytime today, up to about 11pm PDT. Monday is pretty good between 8am PDT and 10pm PDT.

[Timothy Poole]

The only thing I would add to Kristin's solid advice is to make sure you do a title search early in the process as well. You don't want to find out later you inherited any number of liens once you've taken ownership. There are several companies that offer this service online for a small fee and many will send you the results same day via email. The upside here (besides verifying no leins) is you will also get all documentation on record with the FAA so all 337s, etc. to help with your pre-purchase review.

Tim

[Matt Bogard]

It's a two-hour flight up to Rockford, IL to Heritage Aero and they know Comanche inside-and-out.

The other thing you might consider is a Savvy Maintenance pre-buy (https://www.savvymx.com/index.php/about ... -buy-exams), which is $1,000 for piston twin. I'm not sure it's worth that expense, if it were $500 I would be all over it, having the extra set of eyes involved in the process.

[Kristin Winter]

While it seems likely that Mitchell has found someone to do the pre-buy, or he has moved on, I thought I should comment on the Savvy thing.

I know a guy who bought a Dakota a couple of months ago, and went the Savvy route. It was a triangular relationship between Savvy, the buyer, and the local mechanic that Savvy selected to do the physical inspection. Savvy, for the amount paid, reviewed the logs and set up the physical inspection. The cost of the actual inspection was addition, IIUC. Communications between all three points on the compass seemed to breakdown. The seller thought that Savvy was trying to cover themselves by ridiculous nitpicking and questionable findings regarding possible engine corrosion. The deal started to unravel at that point. The buyer tried to get a dialogue going with the Savvy folks, and they were shutting him down, just saying: "Don't buy the plane". I put the buyer in touch with a shop that has a lot more experience with pre-buy inspections and the buyer and the owner, with the help of a very experienced, but realistic eye, was able to do the deal finally. All are happy now, except the buyer who is a bit unhappy with blowing over $1,000 with Savvy and their chosen mechanic, and then having to do the thing over again with someone who knows better how to do a pre-buy inspection.

I think that Savvy is trying to offer a helpful service as first time buyers really don't know much about how to purchase an aircraft. They are the first to try something like that and there are bound to be teething pains. I think that they need to be prepared to do more pre-purchase consulting in the form of walking a new buyer through the process of buying an aircraft. They also need to make sure that the local mechanics doing the physical inspection know who to deal with the seller. If you are seeing problems, you have to convince the seller of that as well, if the buyer is going to get a price adjustment. I think that Savvy is too quick to tell the buyer to walk away. I realize that covers them best, but every deal blown increases the costs of buying the plane as you have to start over again. I also have my doubts as to whether it works well for aircraft where there is a limited pool of people that really are competent to do a pre-purchase inspection. This includes the Comanche line. I don't know who Savvy would hire to do the look see on a Comanche. I think that the money that goes into Savvy's pocket, when it comes to a Comanche, would be better spent flying a Comanche expert in to look at the aircraft were it sits or some other convenient place.

[Matt Bogard]

Kristin,

I don't want to hijack this thread, but I think the opinions below are interesting. I have no ties to Savvy other than being a client and haven't needed their services in great detail yet. I sent your story about the guy with the Dakota to my maintenance director and both he and Mike Busch replied. Mike's reply goes into a lot more detail. I'm posting this because I think it's a scenario many people can fall into - as the fleet ages and many planes are seeing less use, engine corrosion and overall engine condition are becoming a bigger concern. With used airplane prices decreasing, and cost of engine overhauls increasing, buying a bird with a bad engine could end up costing the seller nearly as much for overhaul as he paid for the airplane. My Comanche flew only about 40 hours in the 4 years prior to my purchasing it (3.5 years and 350 hours ago) and the fear of corrosion has been a huge concern for me.


Jeff Iserka, maintenance director: I recall this. A case of " I want this plane no matter what". Obviously he seeked for the answer he wanted to hear. I can only hope our findings were wrong and he has no problems in the future.

Mike Busch: Indeed, the prospective buyer paid for our advice and then didn't want to take it. The seller wanted the pre-buy done by his own mechanic at his home field. We said that was a dealbreaker because any such pre-buy would be fundamentally corrupt. The seller finally consented to put the plane in a shop that we selected, where it was examined by a top-notch IA. He quickly borescoped the cylinders and found them to be heavily rust-pitted, strongly suggesting that this engine had experienced a significant period of disuse. We feared that the cam and lifters might be in the same condition, but since this was a Lycoming-powered aircraft, it was not feasible to pull lifters and inspect the cam.

We therefore suggested to client (the prospective buyer) that he either walk away from this airplane or, in the alternative, persuade the seller to put $10,000 of the purchase price in escrow for 12 months to be released to the buyer if the engine started making metal during that time and to the seller if you didn't. At this point, the seller removed his aircraft from the pre-buy shop without consulting with us or our client, effectively terminating the pre-buy.

As Jeff said, the buyer had his heart set on this and would have bought it regardless of the pre-buy outcome. The airplane had very nice avionics and very nice cosmetics, but the engine was highly questionable and we never got the chance to inspect the airframe for corrosion.

In retrospect, I think we gave this buyer excellent advice but he didn't want to take it and we couldn't force it upon him. In his mind, we were simply an obstacle between him and buying the airplane that he had his heart set upon.

Needless to say, he was a first time buyer and basically clueless. I thought he was smart to hire Savvy to assist him, but not so smart to ignore our advice. Our job was to protect him from expensive surprises after purchase, and I suspect he will have one. --Mike

[Kristin Winter]

Matt,

There were a number of problems, the central was the engine. From what I gathered, with some reading between the lines, the on site mechanic wasn't particularly skilled at dealing with the buyer and seller, which is a part of a pre-purchase inspection. The IA ticked off the owner who flounced out of the deal. The photos taken by the IA's videoscope were way too grainy to know what was up. After the seller claimed down, he was willing to submit to a second opinion on the corrosion. I suggested to the seller that he had Tim Talley of Clifton Aero look at it because the aircraft was nearby to Tim and I know Tim has extensive experience doing pre-purchase inspections. Tim didn't find the corrosion to be all that big a deal, though I believe that the seller made further some price concessions and the deal went through. They may have pulled a cylinder, I don't recall.

I appreciate Savvy's position and I commend them for tackling a problem in the industry, which is poor quality pre-purchase inspections. One of the problems in doing it as a large, high profile organization is that the interest of the organization is to be conservative about saying that an aircraft is OK to buy. If you are wrong, then the buyer could come after you. However, the buyer has an interest in the deal going forward, has he/she has money invested in getting to the point where someone is actually looking over the object of their desire. The potential buyer loses money by walking away.

When I do a pre-buy, I don't generally tell the owner whether they should buy the plane or not. I explain the risks based on what I saw. The pre-buy, as Mike points out in a well-written piece in the latest Sport Aviation magazine, is an economic assessment, not an inspection per se. The buyer ultimately has to decide whether to buy or not. If asked if I would buy the aircraft based on condition and price, I explain my assumptions before answering. I may suggest ways to reduce the risk, if such are available.

I wasn't on scene, though I did have a couple of lengthy phone calls with the buyer. New buyers can be touchy, as can the sellers. As related to me, Savvy told the buyer to walk away and the IA on site seemed to piss off the seller, somehow. Clearly communications was an issue. Mike is correct that the buyer was infatuated with the aircraft. Mike seemed at the time and from what you posted, still is, miffed that the buyer didn't take their advice and walk away. Personally, I don't think that Savvy should be telling the buyer whether to buy or not. I think that they should be pointing out the risks. This buyer paid way more for a Dakota than I would ever have paid. I would never have chased that airplane. However, it wasn't my money. The buyer so far is very happy with his new plane and is busy taking IFR training. Lets hope it works out for him.

Thanks for the follow up on this.