Just venting about my V35's annual/engine replacement

On 25-Nov-2004, (JDupre5762) wrote:

How about two engine cases rejected? Lycoming has apparently adopted a
policy that if an engine case has been reworked by anyone other than an a
Lycoming approved facility they will reject the case as unairworthy.
Funny thing
is they never told the distributor or the customer until after the fact.
The
cases were reworked at a previous overhaul by an FAA approved shop and
process.


There may be something to this. Recently we swapped the IO-360 in our Arrow
for a Lyc. factory rebuilt ("zero time") engine purchased through their
distributor, AirPower. We are very satisfied with the new engine, but
Lycoming wanted to withhold $3000 from our $10,000 core deposit because, as
they claimed, the case was not reusable because of some ambiguously
described cracks. Lycoming supposedly documented the dye penetrant tests,
used to find the cracks, with pictures before they scrapped the case (or
maybe it was only half the case -- I am not sure). At any rate, our
mechanic was suspicious of the description we were provided, as in his
experience that particular problem is rare on an IO-360. Furthermore, he
had thoroughly gone over the old engine during the plane's annual just a
couple of months previously. We asked for copies of the pictures, but
somehow they were not available -- possibly "inadvertently" destroyed. To
make a long story short we settled with Lycoming and AirPower for a $1500
adjustment rather than the original $3000 they wanted. In retrospect we
perhaps should have held out for refund of the entire core deposit.

-Elliott Drucker

wrote:
In retrospect we
perhaps should have held out for refund of the entire core deposit.

I always insist on reutrn of unservicable cores. Partly because between
Margy's classroom and some other people, we have no problem getting rid of
aviation "junk" but further to help head off this sort of nonsense. If the
core disappears darned if I'm going to eat the core charge. If they don't
pay me for it, it's mine.

We have a particularly disreputable instrument shop in this area that tends
to gratuitously misplace unservicable cores. Of course, this is only the
tip of the disaster that they are.