"Chuck" wrote in message
...
Hi everyone,

I thought I'd throw this out for discussion and see what comes from
some of the experienced people on the list.

I'm helping out some at a local school. The owner of the school is a
REAL penny pincher. He scrimps and saves anywhere he can. He'd reuse
oil if he could (he already fights with the A&Ps about reusing old
spark plugs). But in the process, he's let his fleet go to hell --
and I mean REALLY to hell.

He's got what used to be a nice '78 Arrow PA28R-201. The plane is set
up nicely with ADF, DNE, Garmin 430, second Nav/COM, Autopilot, and
power trim. But he's let the interior go a bit -- I'd say a 7/10.
And the outside is crap -- at most a 5/10. Some TLC might bring that
up to 6 or 7/10 - - but it needs paint touch up to get that rating.


We need to know total airframe hours. Also, your description of the
interior and paint does not match your numbers. I doubt the exterior is
even a 5. If there is more than a couple touch ups on a plane, I would
place it at a 5 at best. Your guy has not done the touch ups. The interior
is in a flight school, so I am betting 5 or 6 at best. These numbers mean
things, its not like rating women (where there is rarely anything between a
1 and a 5, with a 1 being a 5 with a bad personality).

But the worst part is the engine. 100 hour time came up on the past
TBO engine and the A&P found one clyinder completely dead -- no
compression. He pulled the jug and found the side of the piston eaten
away, the rings torn loose, and a ton of scrap metal pieces in the
capture screen. WOOPS -- time for a rebuild. Problem is, Mr Stingy
not only hasn't taken care of his planes -- he hasn't been putting
away a nest egg (I guess he just thought that engine would go on
forever). So, he doesn't have the money to rebuild.


Can you guys rebuild the engine? It sounds like you may be better off with
a reman. Blue book doesn't give full replacement cost for a new engine on
either end. IOW, you deduct about 10k for runout, and you get about 10k for
new/reman. This means that you only want to get into this if you are
keeping the plane for a while. Otherwise, deduct the cost of the whole
value for a reman install. At any rate, as a buyer, I would not value a
field overhaul very highly.


He's trying to sell the Arrow. But its kinda hard to sell a plane
with a dead engine. And there is a long list of little to medium
things that need to be fixed (like replacing a good deal of the front
gear which has a bunch of slop in it).


He is in a very, very, bad place. Anyone who runs a flight school like this
deserves to get taken down.


So, he obviously can't get what he'd like for the plane. The big
discussion in the shop area has been what the plane might be worth.
And whether it might be worth trying to pick up cheap and fix up.


If you want to buy it, fix it and sell it, you need to get it around 40k.
(subtract from what it will sell for when you are done, and you will see
that there is not much profit to be had in this venture. At least you have
knowledge that reduces the risks). Realize that no one off the field is
going to want to pay him even this much for it. He will be lucky to get
35k. I guess if you get it for 40, you can fix it up and be at least 5k
ahead.

Anybody out there like to hazard a guess on what it might be worth?
And would it be worth our time to pick it up, do the maint ourselves
(yes, we have A&Ps in the group), and keep or sell it??? I think
AOPA's VRef shows it worth about $60 or so, but we all feel that is
very high for this plane's condition.


If you want to keep it, it is a lot more worth it. Otherwise, you will
likely find that you make more money in your regular jobs for less work. If
you do not want to keep it, I would go with a plane white paint job to save
cash. That plane is in demand at flight schools.

PS Vref is usually high.