Why I hate annuals!

[Colin]

I've never seen that sort of dent.

In general I have been happy with how my plane has been treated by my mechanics. I don't have fancy cars and I am there for anything that happens in the house.

The extremely high net worth individuals I know have staff. Fewer toys, more people, I guess. Those staff insulate them from this sort of incompetence. It is not cheap, but it does appear to be effective. You start with an estate manager who makes $110k a year. That doesn't work for me, because I balk at the idea of paying someone $20 a month to check and forward my mail.

[Roxi5m9]

Juan:

Mine doesn't have any dents like that. That is a pretty robust part of the fuselage, plus the folks at the factory are pretty good about surface finish. I feel your pain, and I am fortunate that all maintenance/inspections on my airplane have been done in my hangar by myself and my A&P/IA for the past 19 years. Which isn't to say that I haven't created a ding or scratch here and there. The first time I removed the rear seat in my airplane, I put a pretty bad scratch in the rear window. I learned how to fix plexiglas scratches from that episode. I just uncowled my airplane for the Annual we are starting tomorrow, and despite taping off the adjoining areas, created a small scratch. But, I polished it out. Why, because, like you, I care for my things more than others do...

Steve

Not to hijack this thread, but, Steve, can you elaborate on your methods to remove deep scratches in the plexiglass? I have two good scratches in my rear window. One from mechanics and one from avionics techs when my adsb was installed.

[Chris]

I've never seen that sort of dent.

I have not either. If the shop tells you that "there are many DA 40s with this same dent in the same location" then either they are blowing smoke or they are doing something to damage every DA40 that comes into their shop. While it's probably not too difficult to repair, I would be furious if it happened to me and the shop tried to blow it off.

[A Dopo]

I've never seen that sort of dent.

In general I have been happy with how my plane has been treated by my mechanics. I don't have fancy cars and I am there for anything that happens in the house.

The extremely high net worth individuals I know have staff. Fewer toys, more people, I guess. Those staff insulate them from this sort of incompetence. It is not cheap, but it does appear to be effective. You start with an estate manager who makes $110k a year. That doesn't work for me, because I balk at the idea of paying someone $20 a month to check and forward my mail.

Yes all of that is right. We are hard working middle class folks maybe that is why we care. If we were in that category we also would have at a minimum a G5 to take us to our yacht! Now that would be nice....

[A Dopo]

I've never seen that sort of dent.

I have not either. If the shop tells you that "there are many DA 40s with this same dent in the same location" then either they are blowing smoke or they are doing something to damage every DA40 that comes into their shop. While it's probably not too difficult to repair, I would be furious if it happened to me and the shop tried to blow it off.

Yep we shall see what happens next. I think they are stand up although the tech did try to suggest all of them have this, that is until I sent him the picture. I take pictures of everything before it goes to any shop as well as video. I suggested they do the same, as well as use a sheet like the car haulers and car rental companies. That way nothing is to be disputed. I am shocked they don't do this.

[Steve]

Not to hijack this thread, but, Steve, can you elaborate on your methods to remove deep scratches in the plexiglass? I have two good scratches in my rear window. One from mechanics and one from avionics techs when my adsb was installed.

I use the Novus products. There is a cleaner, a polishing compound for fine scratches, and one for deeper scratches. Start with the coarser compound on a soft cotton rag and rub with a circular motion until the scratch is gone, then repeat with the fine compound, then the cleaner. Works well for me.

Aircraft Spruce sells it.

Steve

[A Dopo]

Every single scratch or cosmetic damage on my plane is from careless mechanics. I never quite understood the thought process of these mechanics. Visit the shop and see how they treat peoples panels and cowlings. Are they just laying on the floor? I am at the point where I don't want anyone touching my airplane. Can you imagine if a shop scratches someone's $450,000 car? Do Ferraris come out of the factory pre-damaged?

Really...and good points. We have been to the factory in Maranello, that was one if our tours we did when the house caught fire. Interestingly I have heard of cars being damaged during shipping to the US. But any damage to me is unacceptable as you only have to be careful. That's all they have to do. That being said, I did see where Steve had scratched his own plane. Some things are unavoidable, but a dent like that?

[Davestation]

I've never seen a dent like that, but I do know there's no such thing as a ten minute repair, in fact I wouldn't let anyone that said they could fix it in ten minutes near the thing. If you hit it hard enough, the foam core crushes - you can't just uncrush it. Is it structurally sound? Probably.

That said, it seems odd that the vinyl is in perfect shape. You'd have to hit it fairly hard with something very soft I suppose. Or the dent is in fact preexisting.

[perossichi]

Steve

Was the Diamond maintenance course at the factory? Do they still do it? Sounds very interesting.

P

[perossichi]

I did the same thing as Steve — put a scratch in rear window removing the seat. I used MicroMesh repair kit and Novus products to repair.

I’ve scratched my chrome spinner removing cowling and found Filtz polish works wonders on metal.

I restored my very worn leather seats using products including vinyl filler and dyes from Leatherworld Technologies. I get many compliments on my seats. “Good as new”

My problems with mechanics are more about Old Wives Tales like “running lean of peak will burn your valves”

I did have to clean some oily footmarks off the carpet around the pilots side rudder pedals after an annual. I thought then about how many car repair places put in paper inserts to protect floor carpet.

GA maintenance hangs by a thread so I can’t really do anything about this except to do more and more of my own maintenance.

A good part of life is about trying to keep your toys in perfect shape and your tools organized and fighting the tendency of growing disorder or entropy.