Spares Costs
 

Recently we purchased carbon brushes for prop de-ice slip rings
at £48.50 each plus Vat.
Each brush weighs 4 grams.
4 grams of gold will cost you £32
4 gram of platinum will cost you £52
So each brush is worth more than its weight in gold.
We often are asked why is aircraft maintenence so expensive,
and this sort of pricing is my justification.

It sure does seem pricey, when you look at it that way. Was that the actual list price, or did you have to buy from a vendor? (Who bought from another vendor, etc)

When I was working for a spares broker we would often come up against a minimum order fee (Usually $50-100) so if we were just buying one bolt, or a handful of washers, we would increase the order quantity to take in the minimum fee, and we would then have a few spare ones for stock.

Another thing you could try, assuming that this is a US-built aircraft, is to call a few aftermarket suppliers (not the main distributors or manufacturers) in America, and see if anyone's got some surplus stock for sale - if they have, let's say, 25 of them that they want to shift, offer them 30% of new list price each for the whole lot - they might grumble and want to negotiate, but you could still go up to maybe 45-50%, then have the lot and use them on your customer's aircraft, and charge him list price less 15% - he'll be happy, and so will you!

In these troubled times, many suppliers are falling over each other to get a sale - if you've got the cash to spare, make the most of the low prices on surplus gear. Trade-a-plane magazine is a good place to start.

N,t
I did search the internet and could obtain them slightly cheaper,
but longer delivery.
All the parts for anything to do with Goodrich de-ice systems are always expensive but this seemed a bit over the top for a carbon brush 0.75 x 0.75 x 0.125 inches.
It wound me up a bit so I did the comparison as above.

Regards

You're spot on, there mate...especially when the local garage can charge £50 per hour with impunity - we get our 146's done for £32.17 ph, and that's considered to be top rate.