February 2006 - American Bonanza Society

KNOW BEFORE YOU SAY "GO"On a winter Friday evening about a year ago, a TexasbasedABS member loaded three fanuly members intohIs Baron and flew to Kansas City for the weekend.One of the aircraft's vacu um pumps failed over Oklahoma.Upon landingat MKC, the owner asked the FBO if they couldreplace the faIled pump in time for his planned departure lateSunday afternoon. They said yes, and the owner gave them ago-ahead.When the owner and his family returned to MKC onSunday afternoon, he was pleased that the pump had beenreplaced as advertised. But when he gave the FBO his creditcard to pay the bill, he was told that the invoice wouldn't beready until Monday when the bookkeeper returned to work.The FBO insisted that the owner sign a blank credit cardslip to cover the work. The owner was initially unwilling, butultimately capitulated when it became obvious that was theonly way to get the FBO to release his airplane.When the FBO's charge finally showed up on the owner'scredit card. it turned out to be over $1.900. The pump wasinvoiced at $1 ,400-well above the list price of $1,090 andalmost twice the usual "street price" of $800. The labor chargewas about $500 for a job that shouldn 't have taken more thanan hour.The owner was upset, of course. He fired off a nastygramto the owner of the FBO and vowed never to patronize themagain. But in the final analysis, the owner was stuck paying abill he appropriately considered outrageous.This sort of thing is hardly uncommon. [know one ownerwho was charged nearly $1,000 to have his Cessna 210 deicedin Memphis; another was charged $350 for one hour in aheated hangar to melt the snow off his light twin near Boston ;and yet another was charged $180 at Washington Dulles tohave two tires aired up on his Skylane.Most of these incidents occurred at large FBOs that catermostly to the bizjet se!. But such FBOs certainly aren't theonly offenders.Recently, a mechanic removed a leaking fuel selectorvalve from a Bonanza and sent it to a well-known FAAapprovedrepair station for overhaul. After inspecting thevalve, the repair station quoted $2,000 to overhaul i!.At this point, the aircraft owner wisely intervened, directedthe repair station to return the leaky valve, and sent it to aCalifornia repair station where it was overhauled for $375.While these may be extreme cases, I sincerely doubt thereare many aircraft owners who haven't fe lt blindsided by whatwe considered to be an unreasonable maintenance invoice.(Been there, done that, got the T-shirt to prove i!.)The First Commandment[n almost every such case, these unpleasant surprisesoccur because the aircraft owner authorized the work withoutfirst asking the cos!. In doing that, the owner broke the firstcommandment of aircraft maintenance:Never permit a shop or mechanic to perform maintenanceon your aircraft until you haye received and approl'ed a statementof work and cost estimate (preferably in writing). If andwhen you approve them. instruct the shop or mechanic not toexceed the cost estimate without fltSt obtaining your explicitapproval.I find it amazing how often this commonsense commandmentis broken. In almost every other sort of commerce, itwould be absolutely unthinkable for someone to purchasegoods or services without knowing what they will cos!. Mostof us would never buy a headset, a pair of sunglasses or agallon of IOOLL without checking the price. Nor would weconsider hiring a plumber to install a new water heater aroofer to fix a leak, or a garage to replace a muffler with~utfirst obtaining a quotation or estimate.Yet more often than not, aircraft owners put their plane ina shop and authorize work to be done without obtaining evena verbal estimate, much less a written quote. Frequently, thefirst time they learn whal the work will cost is when it isfinished and they are presented with the invoice. At that point,it is too late to influence the outcome; they can only complainand lick their wounds.Why do we do this? [ can think of three reasons:I. We're uncomfortable asking the shop or mechanic for acost estimate.2. The aircraft has a known problem, but we don 't yetunderstand what's wrong sufficiently for the shop or mechanicto estimate how much work needs to be done or what partsneed to be replaced.3. The aircraft is in the shop for an inspection, so we don'tyet know what problems are going to be found , much lesswhat parts and labor will be needed.Let's consider these three cases in turn.Case 1 : Uncomfortable askingI suspect the Baron owner was uncomfortable about askingthe Kansas City FBO for an estimate to replace his failedvacuum pump. Perhaps he felt the FBO was doing him a favorto do the work over the weekend. (They weren't-their laborrate was top dollar, and they charged time and a half for theweekend labor.) Or perhaps it was because this big-city FBOwas one that catered largely to the bizjet crowd-you know,the "if you have to ask, you can't afford it" guys.