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Looking for any recomendations for someone to do a prebuy in the Scranton...Williamsport area.

Several people on this forum have recommended the "Owning, Buying or Flying the Cessna 150/152," By Mike Arman. Price: $26.95, available in the club store.

I have not purchased the book myself. I paid an independent mechanic to do a pre-purchase inspection on my plane a couple of years ago. He basically did what is normally done in annual inspection, minus some things like changing the oil (which had recently been done) etc.

My suggestion: skip the prebuy and buy my plane for 22k! It's a great 150 for the features & engine time!

Sorry about the shameless plug!

I'm in the process of buying one myself. A '76 150. I called the A&P that did the last annual and asked him to do a pre-buy inspection for me. Since I wouldn't know what I was looking at anyway I'm gonna rely on his inspection without going over there to look at it. I seen some pics of it and it looks in pretty good shape.

When I purchased Mr. Ed, I did it sight unseen. Though I got a good impartial report from The Grand PooBah himself. Even so, I planned on about 20% of the purchase price for necessary repairs. So far it has been a bit under that so a pretty good guesstimate!!

Uh, that sounds dangerous to me. Looks are an important aspect of your plane, but looks don't tell you much. I am guessing the AP who did the last annual knows the owner and, you never know how that plays into the equation.

If you wouldn't know what you are looking at anyway, that is genuine honesty, but find someone from this Club in your area who does know what to look at and have him/her go over for a good lookover. Also, have someone who knows spend hours with the logbooks and try and make sense of them.

I have been there before and I know what I am talking about. There are so many resourceful people who belong to this Club and you must use one to help you through this very important process. Otherwise, your checkbook will suffer. Caveat Emptor...my friend.

Good luck and may the force be with you.

I have had pre-purchase inspections done one four (4) planes and I have purchased five (5) planes with no pre-purchase inspection. None of the airplanes were perfect; all had items that needed to be fixed. I can?t honestly say, with one exception, that there was no major difference in the relative cost of ?fixing? up the planes what were inspected and the ones that weren?t. I had to spend from 10% to 20% of the purchase price to feel comfortable with any of them.

There was one case in which I backed out on a purchase because the owner just flat lied about a number of items, all picked up in the paper work. My refusal to purchase was about 95% of not wanting to do business with a dishonest person and about 5% uncertainty about the aircraft. The airplane sold and as far as I know there have been no major problems with it.

The only airplane that I ever had a major problem with was the one that had the most through and expensive per-purchase inspection. I ended up salvaging what I could from it and selling the rest of the plane for used parts.

On the other hand I know of an extremely knowledgeable pilot/owner/A&P/AI that did a repurchase inspection and found flaws that would have been deal killers for most of the folks on this forum. He bought the airplane and is happily flying it today.

I am not an expert on buying and selling airplanes but it is my opinion that the value of pre-purchase inspections are highly over rated, through scrutiny of the paper work isn?t.

I am almost coming to that conclusion myself. I have spent a lot of money on pre-buys by mechanics that had outstanding reputations. In both of those cases, obvious things were missed an wheelborrow loads of cash were infused into the subject aircraft.

The only one that I didn't shove money at was my original 150/150 that I bought without a prebuy or even having flown or hearing it run. How's that for bright as a 2 watt light bulb. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

I'll agree, Wayne. Unless you, the buyer and / or your own personal mechanic is doing the prebuy, then paying for such is pretty much a waste of cash.

But paperwork? The previous Owner of Mr. Ed mailed me copies of EVERYTHING related to the airplane. The possible red flag here was a big gap in the entries from 1989 to 2002. Where, beginning in 2002, documented extensive work had been done, including a complete major overhaul. This airplane sat for over ten years and then somebody chose to bring it back to life.

Yet, $22,000 for a Cessna 150/150 with a newly overhauled engine? I thought it worth the gamble. Thus Gary's well documented adventure began of delivering Mr. Ed to Oregon. I then flew it for a year, including 3000 miles to Clinton, round trip.

Things requiring repair during that year? Muffler system, (Slap my hands for not catching that one sooner! ). Motor mounts. Spinner, (Rubbing on cowl due to worn motor mounts). Fuel valve. Fuel lines. Gascolator. Voltage regulator. As you can see, things that you would expect to find wrong from an aircraft sitting for a long period of time without flying.

But, I now have what appears to be a mechanically sound 150/150, that I virtually purchased sight unseen, with a very very low time engine, for under $25,000. I have absolutely no right to gripe or complain! Mr. Ed's predecessor, N5872G, was also purchased sight unseen. Personally, I believe many folks come up with lots of excuses so NOT to buy an airplane. Oh yea, you hear a horror story now and then about a bad purchase. But, in reality, how often does anybody actually pick up a lemon? When purchasing an airplane you have one of two choices. One is to agonize over every little thing that potentially might go wrong. These are the people that only TALK about buying an airplane but in reality probably never will. We have seen this type here on the Forum many times.

Then number two is to take that leap of faith and jump in with both feet. Just look at the Forum here as an example. Which of these two choices provides the most happiness? Ownership hands down, Obviously!!

Yea! we owners are still agonizing over the costs. But at least we are flying while agonizing!!