To recap a bit. Our twin 100 hourly's cost generally &5k - $8k with the price of a 100 hourly with no remedial work being around the $5k mark. The LAME we use is the cheapest / best of 4 I have direct experience with. He's at a regional airport where his hangar rent is relatively low.
When I speak with other twin owners they seem to support that $5 k is pretty much as good as it gets.
I became curious and started looking at US costs. This is where I got the figures of 32 hours / $2800 + parts ( or about $3,000 total). I also searched some forums ( notably Beechtalk) where I found some good, authoritative and recent posts where twin owners were reporting actual billed costs in line the prices I found advertised - so they seem real.
So, there seems to be about a $2k ( exchange rate adjusted) gap between US prices and Australian prices.
Why?
One reason is the typical hourly shop rare in the uS is $85 vs the Australian $100. This is I suspect mainly about higher hangar rental, insurance, electricity, etc.
But 32 hours x $100 = $3200 + $300 for oil & filters & music consumables and there is still a fair gap to typical US prices.
Why does it seem to take more labour hours to do the same job in Australia? Bearing in mind we are working on Americam built aircraft with American specified maintenance schedules. In fact we use the CASA schedule 5 which is reputed to be easier / less thorough / cheaper than the manufacturer schedules.
The argument that it takes longer to service these old aircraft because of calendar airframe age us patent nonsense. Except for the commercially used twins ( eg Chieftan) most twins are below 5,000 hours total time and are more commonly hangar end than singles. Our aircraft is a low time, over maintained, babied thing compared with any car, boat, or other similar mechanical device.
If there are CASA imposed work practices that slow down productivity, then we should be trying to push back against it. There is a strong argument that high maintenance costs are detrimental to safety. The higher the cost of a basic inspection, the more likely an owner is likely to not do additional preventative maintenance.