Earlier I mentioned that I quoted a Continental IO-550-C with every engine shop in the country and the price varied from $23k to $60k for a ‘new limit’ overhaul. Well, 90% of shops were in the $29-32k range. My concern is the shops who say they can do it for under $25k because 75% of the engine overhaul cost is parts. The engine I’m talking about now will probably cost a shop around $24k in parts. So how can a shop offer a $23k new limit overhaul? Low overhead? Hmm…. I call BS!
The main way someone can cut costs on an overhaul is to use ‘service limit’ parts instead of ‘new limit’ parts (see ‘3 Levels of Overhaul’ to understand the difference). Worse yet, there’s actually been cases of ‘out of limit’ parts being used on overhauls.
Here’s a criminal case against a mechanic who used rusted, cracked, and wrong parts in his overhauls that resulted in two in flight failures.
Here’s another more recent criminal case of a mechanic who installed an out of limit crankcase that resulted in an in-flight failure.
There are more and more cases like this that continue to happen so buyer beware.
