I just Googled my way across this thread while doing logbook research on a Saratoga that we were interested in buying. It seems this thread devolved into some heated discussions so I'm REALLY hesitant to say anything because I'm, um, a first time poster. That's obviously a sign of someone chiming in on a hot topic who may or may not be who they claim to be. I don't usually frequent this forum. Actually unless something comes up on Google as a direct link, I don't ever come here. I hope that doesn't make me a troll. I wanted to just say two things.
One, thank you for the information on this repair shop. The plane we were researching to purchase looked good overall, but the engine overhaul was a stopping point for us. I hadn't heard of this shop so I was doing research on them. When I found out it was the former Devine Air, I was able to toss all my notes in the trash so thank you for sharing this information. It helped me tremendously in my research and likely saved me quite a bit of heartache later on.
Two, we purchased an aircraft from Devine Air, a Cessna 340A back in 1993 when I was a wee pup. I was tasked to go and help bring it back, along with a couple of grey beards who actually knew what they were doing. It was shiny, new paint, new interior. Log books were clean. We flew it back with very little trouble, except for a gear issue caused by a paint chip in the squat switch, which was exciting but not rally a big deal.
Then we went into the first annual. It was a WHOPPER! Then the second annual was just as bad. I don't remember the amounts as I was still the kid and wasn't signing checks. But I was tasked with dealing with the shop and it was made very clear to me that a lot of items had been band aided to get through a pre-purchase but were unairworthy. Fuel bladders, engine accessories, etc. It took about 3 years before we finally uncovered all the things wrong with the airplane. After that it flew fine. The interior work was shoddy. Things like kick panels being just course threaded into the carpet with no backing. Good enough to look good for a few weeks or even a few months, bad enough to need to pull the carpet to install them correctly.
We flew the airplane maybe 300 hours or so, then sold it and upgraded to a King Air 200. The new owner reported to me that the airplane needed both engines worked less than a year after we sold it. He basically thought we'd sold him a bum steer but it was running fine when we sold it and we'd definitely not scrimped on maintenance, fixing any and everything that the shop said needed work. That plane is currently for sale today. It has no annual and appears to have been sitting quite a bit. N340EZ. Look it up. It actually looks EXACTLY like it did when we sold it. Nothing has changed at all so I guess you could say it had held up, but I think it's sat in a hanger and not been flown based on the times.
I'm sorry if someone thinks I'm a troll. I really just wanted to say thanks for sharing the information but there seemed to be a real drive to provide proof of your claims here so I felt the second point was needed. Plus since there was some debate on the overall opinion on this shop I felt the information from an actual customer was warranted.