Annual Maintenance Costs For RV-10.

[drewhottub]

Has any one kept a good log of what their annual "maintenance" costs are, for their flying RV-10?

I'm hoping to get some good data over time.

For example, looking in Microsoft Money, where I keep all my detailed maintenance costs on my car: From 1-Oct-2003 to 1-Oct-2010 I've spent $7,751.33 on everything from oil, new tires, water pump; to new door handles, shocks, starter, etc...

Therefore, I know that my annual maintenance costs on my now 17 year old, 302,000-mile-car, during that time period, were $1,107/yr.

The car has never left me stranded anywhere, and to this day I'd still take it on a long cross country trip.

So basically what I'm getting at, is I'd consider the $1,107/yr to be the real annual cost to own my car (excluding gas), while it's still in it's useful life.

So basically, what I'm asking is if anyone has this sort of data, that they've logged in their finacial software, that they'd be willing to share, relating to their RV-10?

Essentially I'd like a rough estimate of annual "useful life" maintenance costs for an RV-10.

Sure there are all sorts of variables like, type of Engine Selected, Avionics Chosen, Flying Style, etc... but what I'm hoping for, is that someone would be daring enough to just throw out a cost number on what they've experienced AFTER the date of build and first-flights have passed, as it relates to their RV-10, over time. (again: exclude AvGas costs, of course).



Let me know, would you?


Best Regards,

Andrew

 

[TroyBranch]

The biggest cost is insurance and gas. If you take those out of the equation, leek test every two years for the static system, three oil filters and about three cases of oil a year. Change tires and brakes every two to three years. All the maintenance is done by yourself so that costs nothing. I really have not spent money an anything other than upgrades. The plane is all new so there is very little maintenance. No I do not have all the numbers but you can do the addition of the items i listed. It is not a cheap hobby so I really don't want to know what I spend

 

[drewhottub]

Troy,

Thank you very much. This was very helpful, believe it or not!

It is also exciting to know that once the plane is built, there aren't lots of

hidden costs. Seems pretty straight forward, as you described.

Thanks again.

-Andrew

 

[vic syracuse]

The old adage that fuel is the cheapest part of owning an airplane is very true. Granted, RV's that are well-built with attention to detail tend to be very reliable and do typically not require a lot of unplanned maintenance. However, there are a lot of consumables and wear items over the course of a year that do tend to have an affect on the total cost, none of which are major, but they do add up.
We tend to think of the obvious: tires, brakes, oil, filters, insurance, hangar/tie-down rental, etc.
The not-so-obvious are the data base subscriptions, the weather subscriptions, cables that wear out, wheel bearing grease, lubricants, spark plug washers (you do change them when you clean and gap, right?), air filter oil, ELT batteries, windshield cleaners, polishes and waxes, belly cleaners, landing light bulbs, nav light bulbs, strobes, etc. And then, don't forget all of the "upgrades" we just have to have as new products come out.
You get the idea. It is not meant to be discouraging, just inclusive. Our RV-10 total costs end up being about $120 per hour per year based on about 100 hours. The RV grin and memories throughout the year: priceless!

As a matter of fact, I will share a priceless moment with you that happened this past week end. We were having our Spring Fly in, and a bunch of us flew a whole bunch of Young Eagles. After we finished the YE's we started taking parents and smalller children so they could get in on the fun, too. On one of my flights I had a mom and her 2 small children. About half way through the flight the 5-year old girl remarked "Mommy, this is the greatest day of my life!" I will treasure that comment for a very long time. I heard later she kept asking about my name so she could remember it forever and forever. Pretty cool, huh?

So fly more and the costs go down and the memories go up.

Vic

 

[pierre smith]

Don't forget to allow for overhaul.

I try to figure overhaul costs per hour as well. I'm not sure what a zero-timed IO-540 will be when mine's timed out, probably around $30,000 or more, exchanged. A 2,000 hour engine then amounts to $15/hour.

If you're a do-it-yourselfer, you could probably overhaul your core yourself, which I'm planning to do, for under $15,000 (I think), cutting the hourly cost in half.

Most private pilots seem to fly around 100 hours a year...that's two oil changes and filters.

I don't know if Barrett, Mahlon or Aerosport do zero-time exchanges, so maybe they'll chime in.

Best,