Jack.
Without wanting to turn this into a Tit for Tat debate, for any
One example you give me of being charged for an error to be
Rectified, ill give you several to the contrary.
To read you say that Lame's do not have a lot of integrity and are part of the
"Problem" in GA is disappointing to say the least.
So all panel beaters are honest, professional and fix faults of their own making?
I have quite a few customers wanting to drop in whilst their aircraft is in for
Routine maintenance, i don't mind, because in every case, without fail, they leave with a better appreciation of what goes on and are thankful for the opportunity.
One of my customers and a life long family friend even suggested, an owner of an aircraft should be involved with at least one periodic from start to finish!
Fookker, every aircraft has a basic man hour Periodic/Annual baseline, and when asked your maintainer should be able to quote to you what that would be for your particular aircraft type, most should be able to give a good idea as to what a particular rectification will take before initiation.
When looking back 15 to 20 years at the hourly rate as apposed to today,
In my opinion the hourly rate in general today is without question too low,
And should be at least 95-100 P/H.
Think that's too high?
Had your car serviced lately?
Used a Tiler lately?
Too many times I chop hours off the invoice.
Lately, I have heard of some horror stories in regards to bills for maintenance, but I never comment as you never know if you are getting the whole story and is generally unprofessional. But there does seem to be a decreasing number of maintainers around the place, avionics in particular.
Don't make it a Lame bashing session, most I know personally are certainly not in it for the money, but, as in every industry without fail, there are those that stand out for the wrong reasons.