when I bought my current plane, I went after a low time factory reman. engine.
Any engine with over 600 hours on it (I have a 1800 hr TBO on my engine) I would
not even look at, but I was seeing planes with engine at or close to TBO where
the owners wanted the same price as one with a new engine.
when I did the prebuy, I also had an oil analysys done to make sure the engine
was still in good shape.

David Megginson wrote:

The Weiss Family wrote:

Ouch!
I definitely couldn't afford that right away on top of all the other
expenses.
This limits the field of potential aircraft to low-time (or mid-time)
engines.

Not necessarily -- if the market is working correctly, the difference
between the cost of a plane with a new engine and a plane with a run-out
engine should be about equal to the cost of an overhaul.

From what I've seen on these lists and heard talking to other pilots,
low-time engines can be a bad idea, especially if the previous owner did a
quick, cheapie overhaul to help sell the plane. Doing your own overhaul on
a run-out engine is probably better, but you're assuming the risks of all
the early problems that show up afterwards. I chose mid-time, and I've been
very happy with that.

All the best,

David