Imagine these situations:
1. You are a young single guy and you meet this attractive girl at church. She is not only pleasant to look at but has a very pleasant and gentile personality; she is very caring and affectionate. She is intelligent and has a great sense of humor, she is neat, clean, cooks and sews and you really like her. But wait a minute you find out that at age 7 she broke her arm when she fell out of a swing. She has damage history.
2. You are in the market to buy a good used car. A friend tells you about a car that is exactly what you are looking for, low mileage, clean interior, good mechanical condition, impeccable cosmetics and a fair price. But you learn that in the first month on the street (two years ago) a finder was damaged and replaced. Even though the repair was well done and there is no apparent evidence the car has damage history!
3. You find a Cessna 150/152 that is just what you want, good paint, good interior, decent avionics, mid time engine and generally good condition. The asking price is reasonable. However, you find in reading the logbooks that a valve stuck and a cylinder was replaced. Damage history.
I won?t go any farther with the examples you get the point!
I seriously doubt that any of the examples would cause a reasonable person to ?walk?. Why would structural damage to the airframe that was repaired correctly, properly documented and has a long history of use make any difference at all in your decision of whether or not to purchase an airplane. The airplane is airworthy or it is not!
I strongly suspect that damage history is more often an excuse rather than a reason for not purchasing an airplane.
I have bought and sold airplanes with damage history. When buying I look at the total picture and if the plane is sound I make my buying decision based solely on the basis of a reasonable price for a reasonable value. I don?t beat the seller up because of ?damage history?, either the price is right for the total package or it isn?t. I don?t haggle.
When selling if the prospective buyer attempts to haggle for a lower price based on damage history I simply wish him good luck in finding what he is looking for and terminate the negotiation. In every case, save one, it turned out that the prospect didn?t really care about the history and bought the airplane.
Deceit is a completely different subject. If a seller ever attempts to deceive me about anything the deal is off, right now, end of discussion.
