I recently bought a plane without getting a pre-buy inspection. I trust and like my local maintenance shop so I had them change the oil and look over the books for me before closing. For the past few months they have made several small repairs for me as I "get the plane ready" to start using it. Through the owners' club I found a guy that annuals approximately 25 of this type per month (My shop sees one or two a year). It's a few hours away from me, but I thought it was a good idea to have an "expert" in the type give it a good solid annual so I could feel confident that everything is ship-shape. Well the chief mechanic at my shop did not take it well. He accused me of disloyalty and said if I didn't trust him once, I didn't trust him at all. He's refusing to look at my plane ever again. I had no idea he'd react this way, and I didn't do it in secret or on the sly. I looked at this as an intelligent decision by a new airplane owner, and wasn't trying to make any statement about how good my local shop is. I think they're an excellent shop, I frequently recommend them and speak highly of them at all times.

I'm way too old to be playing these games. I'm not sure what my next move here is. Sure I can take it off-field to another shop (as long as I'm not broken on-site), but I'm friends with the shop owner and that might make it weird with him when he asks me about it. If I talk to the owner and force the A&P to fix it, he's still got control because if he wanted to he could find something "unairworthy" and park the plane so I can't use it. Or even fix it and find a bunch of "mystery gripes" to run up my bill. Or even just over-estimate the time he spent on it. My feeling is that he will cave if I grovel and plead and apologize and generally kiss his rear to get him to do it. I'm not sure that would go well with my personal dignity and self-respect. If I thought I did something wrong that's one thing. But I don't believe I did anything wrong. I'm a flight instructor and if someone came to me for mountain training I'd defer to someone with more experience in that area. I don't understand others who can't do the same.

Prior to this incident I really liked and trusted this guy. No matter how this goes it won't be the same again between me and him. But I could use some suggestions on how to proceed.