Originally Posted by
NutLoose
An odd one here is in piston engines, the likes of Lycoming are the only ones that can zero time a Lycoming engine, so an overhauled engine from another company will come back with zero hours since overhaul but with the hours the engine has run to date, so you can have an engine with 4000 hours but zero run, took a bit of explaining that one once.
Agree. Luckily on this side there are specific regulatory terms for the difference: overhaul and rebuilt. But that doesn't stop from some people intermixing them. The kicker is an OEM rebuilt TSN:0 engine will have still used parts in it. However, recip engines aren't the only thing I've seen "rebuilt." Several aircraft models can have their airframe zero-timed as well like a SA315B Lama helicopter. The OEM would strip it down and reset the aircraft totoal time to zero. However they would add a slash and ID number to the existing aircraft serial number to differentiate from non-rebuilt ones.