Page 14 - June 2015 Volume 9, Number 6
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only send rejected cores back to the customer at the customer’s request. Nevertheless, the core arrived the next day, with a bright red BER tag attached.
I called again and was told that Harry was “in a meeting,” “out of town” or otherwise unavailable. Messages and emails to Harry were unreturned, and someone else called back. We forwarded that person the vast string of emails between Harry and me. They promised to get to the bottom of the situation, but of course, nothing happened. It’s now almost two years later. I never paid their invoice ... and I never ordered another part from them.
Probing into Fuel Probes
I cannot remember getting a billback on a fuel probe core before 2008. It just didn’t happen. But after the economy went south, billbacks on fuel probe cores were suddenly commonplace. Today, if a customer mentions a fuel quantity issue, I tell them right away to expect a core charge billback if it turns out to be a bad probe.
We get fuel probes from wherever we can. I have my favorite suppliers and I check with them first, but if they don’t have it, I have to look elsewhere. We have noticed that no matter which vendor provided the exchange probe, if the core was overhauled by Shop XYZ, then there would be a billback on the core. We also noticed that the rejected part which was “over and above the cost of a normal overhaul” was, in each and every case, the flange. We started querying vendors when purchasing fuel probes to see if we could avoid Shop XYZ.
Once I checked with a favorite vendor and they had the exact probe I needed. “Did it come from Shop XYZ?” I asked. They replied that they didn’t use Shop XYZ, and preferred Shop ABC. How interesting. We ordered the probe, installed it and sent back the core. Guess what? No core billback. No rejected flange. That sure strikes me as odd.
Exchange Price versus Core Value
I learned a long time ago that the cheapest exchange often comes with a higher core value. If the overhaul shop is charging a low price to make a core serviceable again, then chances are they will find plenty of problems with the core that are above the cost of a normal overhaul and a core billback will be the result.
This does not mean that I automatically go for the most expensive exchange! I shop around like crazy on behalf of my customers, and I’m very picky with my vendors. Unlike the aforementioned Harry, there are some really good vendors out there, who care about retaining their customers. They, too, are concerned about the adverse effects of core charge billbacks.
The Good Vendor
Remember my GCU core with the $1,000 billback for a relay? As it happens, the vendor in that case was superb. At my request, they obtained a list of GCU parts
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included in a normal overhaul. Unfortunately, that $1000 relay was not on the list. They then searched around and unearthed a serviceable GCU for $600. They substituted it for my bad core, thus reducing my billback to $600 and saving my customer $400. It’s not a huge amount of money, but every little bit helps. Most importantly, it softened the blow of a core charge billback, and they provided fantastic service to me and my customer. This wonderful vendor is the same one that prefers Shop ABC over Shop XYZ when it comes to fuel probes.
Some savvy vendors have observed that certain cores come back with the same extra charge for the same extra part, time after time. In response, they have raised their exchange price to account for that extra part. Now, they don’t have to invoice me and collect from me on a billback; and I don’t have to invoice and collect from my customer. It’s a smart thing to do when the circumstances warrant it.
Overhaul or Exchange it?
You might remember my article on starter generators which must be overhauled every 1,000 hours. I suggested to operators of newer King Airs to have their starter generators overhauled instead exchanging them. The very first overhaul on a starter generator should be pretty routine. But if at 1,000-hour total time, you exchange your “young” core units for a pair from the rotable pool, you have no idea how old those exchanges really are. They might have 5,000 to 6,000 hours on them. And when it’s time for those exchanges to be overhauled again, there could be some ugly core charge billbacks.
If you have a newer airplane, consider overhauling your components. If you are using exchange parts, consider pushing back against core charge billbacks to get some proof of their validity.
Get Reports, Pictures and the Part
In the event of a core charge billback, find out if the vendor used by your maintenance shop got the teardown report from the overhaul shop. I find the best vendors always include such reports when they are billing me for a bad core, and I put those findings into my invoice to my customer. There must always be an explanation for a full or partial core rejection.
These days, I press a lot harder for proof of a bad core. Many times I ask for pictures. I now ask for a list of parts included in the normal overhaul, and/or a detailed description of the standard overhaul. I want a clear picture of what is included in the exchange price my customer already paid.
Sometimes I request the rejected parts be returned to me. It’s a lot of extra time on my end, and it’s nothing I can bill for, but I refuse to just roll over every time a core charge billback comes down the pike.
Clearly you can see that I am not convinced all core charge billbacks are justified. I owe it to my customers
JUNE 2015