Originally Posted by Mark Hubley

Last December I purchased my 2000 Carrera, which is fairly similar to the one you show on Craigslist. Black over black. 82K miles. PSM. Etc. I'm even in Maryland. The seller had the IMS bearing and clutch replaced by At Speed Motorsports for ballpark $2,500. I paid $18,000 even for the car. To me that's a heck of a lot of car for the money, but the price certainly seems market correct. Other than the IMS and clutch I did not know much about previous service history. A few months ago I replaced the spark plugs and tubes, polyrib belt, water pump, thermostat, fuel and air filters. The parts cost around $500 total, and it took about 10 hours of my time in my garage. I have not done the AOS, but otherwise I've got 2000 Carrera with the service pretty much up-to-date for $18,500 and some quality time in the garage. I also swapped out the suspension for the ROW M030 kit, which I purchased for $1,300 and installed myself.

Originally Posted by pfbz

I'm definitely in the minority, but I'll choose a car that has an exterior/interior in fantastic condition, everything functioning as inspected by me, all original, no accident history, without signs of any quick & dirty cosmetic rework WITHOUT a PPI in a second over a cosmetically so-so car with a clean PPI.

So much focus on PPI's... I've seen many PPI's done on cars by top shops, read dozens of PPI reports, and am almost always unimpressed. They check over everything I typically check myself and rarely go into model-specific known issues. I don't need a shop to tell me tire wear, brake wear, tiny RMS leak. I saw those already... Unlike air-cooled engines, a well running 996 rarely has issues that will show up on a compression test. PPI's I've seen from top shops have NEVER pulled an oil pan or cut open a filter. They might spot a panel that's been repainted that you didn't notice, but on 996's if the damage is light enough that it never showed on carfax and the repair is good enough that I can't spot it, I don't really care. Not a collector car. They might check for overrev's, something I can't do without additional diag tools, but again, that really isn't what's going to get you on a 'bad' 996...

Now I know a bunch of you will say 'you need a better shop to do a PPI', but picking the shop that will do a great PPI is no trivial task either.

If you don't already know a fair amount about 996's, or are not a semi-decent backyard mechanic, or simply don't want to spend the time as well as get down on the ground with a flashlight, a PPI definitely makes sense...

But again, give me the great looking, great driving, great configuration decade old Porsche with an original IMS bearing and no PPI in a second over a crappy looking, worn interior, bad color combo 996 with a fresh IMS bearing and a clean PPI...

Originally Posted by Cuda911

In my opinion, a PPI for these cars is mainly to find out if there are any gross, obvious issues. Of course, no one is going to tear down the heads, borescope inspect, take out the tranny to access the IMSB, etc. But, they can look for signs of abuse, unusual wear, make sure all components function properly, etc. That's about all I'd expect for a few hundred dollars.