Ron Wanttaja wrote:

The amount of difference this makes depends on one's individual circumstances.
Some owners have good friends who are A&Ps. To them, there's little difference
between Experimental and Certified, other than the need to use approved parts.

Ron Wanttaja

And if the A&P is a really good friend, the need for approved parts goes
away, too. There's a certain C-150 in central North Carolina for sale
that has an annual suffering from pencil whiplash. The lawnmower
battery is from Sears. All those extra rivets in the empenage probably
are, too.

A friend bought the plane, but wasn't present for the pre-buy annual
done by Bud "somthin-or-'nother", who runs a shop just over the Virginia
line. He had it inspected again by a local A&P when all the brake fluid
automatically drained the first time he flew it. Tom not only declared
it woefully unairworthy, but a complete basket case.