I know there might be a better deal out there, but this plane being 10 min away is hard to resist. Being able to go out there and actually see it makes it really tempting. Ideally I would like to find a partner who is also wanting to learn and go in with me. I would not have 15000 to do an overhaul when the engine goes over 1800. He told me I can still fly it though without doing that. One thing was that its not ifr so would still have to rent for that if I continue. Another thing there is another place close buy where I can rent for 70 per hour wet. I guess I like the idea of owning though.
dhood---- how much is your plane and where is it?
I've been thinking both logically and emotionally about your situation as former 1966 vintage C150 owner and tempering it with the knowledge you aren't yet a private pilot. I welcome being wrong or ignored (and I sold mine 10 years ago so I'm probably off on prices), but I'd be remiss if I didn't share some of the things I learned along the way with my own experience.
Purchase price is only the beginning. You can find rural tie downs to park for 30 bucks a month, or you can pay 100K for a basic hangar or anything in between. I rented a simple hangar at a slower towered airport for 200 a month in a not exclusive area. Oil changes are about 150 a pop (not to mention they do eat oil at about .25 quarts an hour generally. Av oil is about 10 bucks a quart), I had the brakes replaced for 600 and the transponder worked on for 400. Annual inspections run at minimum 500 bucks. I was both fortunate and unfortunate on my first annual. The guy I bought it from had some shady annuals done, but I had an agreement with an A&P friend (do the work, parts at cost, fly it whenever just leave the tanks close to as full as when you took off). I was told my first annual would have cost 2,000, but it still cost 900. Not to mention you'll still burn about 5 gallons per hour at 4 to 6 a gallon.
Overhaul is something that generally can exceed TBO, but could happen before with bad compression. Obviously this isn't a used car you're driving until it stops working. When the gremlins start, it stays ground bound.
The other thing to consider is you aren't a pilot yet. This means two things. First, the whole convenience and fly whenever you want doesn't apply. The second often overlooked factor is you don't know what you need. Do you want to eventually carry more than one other person? If so look elsewhere. Are you or the potential person approaching 200 pounds? If so look elsewhere. You won't find a partner to go in with mostly because anyone looking at a partnership is looking to sacrifice scheduling for performance/budget and outside of a J3 cub, it doesn't get worse than a C150.
Also, you'd need to put enough hours on the plane PER YEAR to come out ahead on a year of cheap renting that you'd end up at TBO anyway to break even. Nobody is giving a seller 14 ish K on a plane that is due for a 10-15K overhaul when they could have a fresh 152 for less than the total cost and headache.
Another way of saying don't do it is this. Say you fly the pants off of this year one and save 1K over renting. You get lucky and it doesn't need an overhaul year two and you save 2K. You're three grand up. Does the engine rebuild happen year three? Probably. that's 12K. You're down 9K. If I'm a prospective partner I see the loss and I see it happening very soon. I don't want to be strapped to a C150 for 20 years to break even.
