Pre-Purchase Inspections

[Bob Steward writes] There are as many different ideas on the proper scope and depth of a pre-purchase inspection as there are buyers. What makes that interesting is the expectations of those buyers, and how those expectations change after owning a plane for 11 months and having gone through the dreaded "first annual".

When is it a better time to discover the true condition of the plane, during the purchase process or after the money has changed hands and the plane has flown away?

This is the reason I always suggest that a purchaser do a thorough pre-buy and do all that is reasonable to identify things that will later bite him in the wallet.

What that means is a full annual inspection by the check list in the factory maintenance manual. 13 pages for the AA-5x, a few less for the AA-1x.

"But it just had a fresh annual last month and has flown nearly no hours since then."

Perhaps, but who did the inspection, and did you get a copy of the signed, dated list of discrepancies?

Most planes sell because the owner is moving on. Sometimes its to larger or smaller aircraft, but often its away from aviation. So what did they tell the mechanic that performed the last annual? Probably something along the lines of: "I've got it listed in T-A-P, so don't spend any money on it that you don't have to."

That is a pretty sobering thought when you know that you are going to take your family and friends up in your new plane just as soon as you can get it home.

Another factor that enters the discussion is that an "Annual Inspection" is just that, INSPECTION. As in LOOK at it. No repairs or service work are part of the inspection. True the basic oil, filter, fluid levels and mag timing is regularly performed inconjunction with the inspection, but that is just a convenience for the owner, since the plane is in the shop, they have it opened up, and most planes haven't had any service work since LAST year.

So if its just been inspected, and no actual work was done to repair or improve the plane, just what did you get?

The bare minimum that the FAA requires for the plane to be legally operated. Certainly nothing that says there won't be any catastrophic failures or even minor items wearing or breaking on the very next flight. The plane was just "looked at". Maybe sort of a super pre-flight.

So many tales on the GG of woe and expense after purchasing a plane, and yet it seems that new buyers never learn, and the same mistakes are repeated again and again.

Lets go over some items that really ought to be checked during the pre-buy inspection on your intended purchase.

<To be continued>