Deferred maintenance... Thank You Tom B.

[CTDan]

Against my (and a few of you on this forum) better judgement, I bought a 2006 CTSW in Oct. 

The ad claimed 335 hours (give or take), and not a lot of other info except that the rocket had been replaced & the chute would be due at the next annual. 
There were only a couple of (blurry) pictures of the plane. 
 

More red flags:

I asked for more pics, but no close ups were provided, but the seller claimed “like new”. 
I asked for a full copy of the logbooks & he claimed he was too old to figure out how to send them. 
I asked about a pre-purchase, & he said he wouldn’t allow the plane to leave the airport. 
I used a (very fairly written), contract that I used when I sold my last plane & he had several complaints about it. 
He changed the contract without redlining it, so finding the changes was a PITA!

For some dumb reason, I still hopped on a commercial & went to buy the plane. 

When I arrived,

The plane was dirty. 
There were paint imperfections in numerous places.... no real damage, but not “like new”. 
The battery was dead & the plane wouldn’t start. 
The logbooks were hand written & barely legible. 
The Hobbs meter showed 435 (ish) hours. 
The pictures appeared to have been taken to deliberately hide all of the ink stains on the seats and any other cosmetic issues with the plane. 
 

& THE BIGGEST RED FLAG...

The maintenance was claimed to be all up to date, but not by anyone that works on Flight Design Aircraft. 
 

Obviously I am not very smart... I bought the plane anyway. 
 

A big shout out to @Tom Baker for taking this basket case under his wing & fixing all of the neglected items. 
I think the only thing he didn’t do is rebuild the engine or repack the chute. Other than that, the plane was completely gone through.

Thank you Tom... Everything now works as it should & the plane flies MUCH better than when it arrived at your shop...

I spent more than I planned to, but the value of your knowledge is priceless. Had the previous owner used a knowledgeable shop like yours,  this plane would have been in much better condition & it would have probably been a lower dollar amount spent over the course of years.

Deferred maintenance is the most expensive maintenance there is. 

Best of all, I have confidence that the plane I’m flying is safe. 

Dan

 

[Warmi]

All  is well that ends well...

On the other hand I will tell you .. I try to take care of my plane as best I can but after 500 hours or so, there will be minor paint imperfections, especially in places exposed to minor runway debris etc ... in other words simply due to normal usage.