I had purchased a airplane with them doing a prebuy/Annual inspection and I was told this outfit was a upstanding honest shop. After the purchase and within 2 weeks after getting the aircraft home we found out the Annual was never done even though they signed it off. What started my nightmare was pulling the airplane out one day I noticed grinding of the nose wheel this prompted me to pull the nose wheel off and the following is a list of items I eventually found wrong with my own mechanic:
1. All wheel bearings dry and dirty grease never looked at for years
2. Brake pad rivets installed backwards
3. Bottom spark plugs full of lead have not been cleaned in years looks like they only pulled top plugs for compression check
4. Flap controls sticking have not been lubed in some time
5. Leads to bottom plugs fell apart when taking out the bottom plugs
6. Leaking primer led to cylinder #1
7. Trim actuator in tail full of dirt and grim had not been cleaned or lubed
8. Missing ELT (yes it was missing)
9. Leaking brake actuator they said they replaced and hose to the actuator leaking.
10. Holes in the battery box.
I did contact the owner and all they did was send me an ELT that did not function 100% of the time and $100 dollars for new batteries. I sent the ELT he sent back.
We are still finding some things that would not have been found on a Annual inspection but it was obvious that this inspection was "pencil wipped" and the Annual inspection was never done. I love the airplane I purchased but if I knew about these things I would have never purchased this aircraft and I truly feel it was never maintained properly by Skywest Aviation. I would never let them work on my aircraft. I figure this has cost me at least $5000 fixing and repairing things that should have been caught on a Annual inspection not to mention the safety factor and that upsets me more than the $$. read more