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Porsche 993 Pre Purchase Inspection PPI Kansas City

May 20 2012 porschedoc 911 Variants No Comments

Did a PPI for a friend’s uncle the other day on a local 993 Cab. When it pulled up it looked like a nice car. Put it on the lift and started going through it.

Some of the things we look for during a typical PPI:
Body/paint work
Functionality of all buttons/switches/lights etc on the car, interior, exterior
Potential future costs the buyer may incur in regards to maintenance/repairs
Health of the engine, transmission, running gear
Tires, brakes.

I have always prided myself on my PPI quality. I give the cars undivided attention, am very thorough with the car, and prepare an extensive report. For out of town buyers, I also include 40-60 pictures of all aspects of the vehicle, in particular any areas of concern. Since they usually are looking at a car based off 10-12 basic pictures, up close and personal gives a much better idea of the condition of the car.

When having a PPI done, it is very important to find someone who is competent about the short comings and typical maintenance of the model. Anyone can say they can do a PPI, but very few actually have the knowledge about the car to properly inform the buyer of the potential purchase. Here for example is a weak link on the 993 models. The door check welds break on the body. The repair requires removal of the front fender to weld/reinforce on the backside. A potentially expensive repair. Here someone covered the area with seam sealer. There should not be any of that here. Notice the sealer has cracked as the cracked metal behind it was flexing.

With convertibles, you want to have the top function looked at closely. This top will obviously need replacement due to fabric tears, but the operation of the top was flawless.

Another thing we want to look for is to make sure the tool kit, wheel lock, compressor, and jack are present. We find a lot of cars are missing the wheel lock keys, which can be an issue down the road (they are typically hidden in any one of about 12 locations in the vehicle, lol).

While the car looked pretty good at a distance, up close it was very clear that this car would be more of a daily driver type vehicle than a concours winner. The front of the car and the right side had been painted. Here the paint meter shows 28 mils of thickness on the rear quarter panel.

What a paint result test looks like. Readings on all areas of the car, especially the typical impact zones. Here we see high readings on the hood and right side, with a low reading on the passenger fender on that side, indicating fender replacement with a thin coat of paint.

One of the biggest areas of concern with a 993 are the valve guides in the engine. Worn guides will lead to significant power loss and oil consumption. This particular cylinder shows a leakdown of 4%, indicating a healthy cylinder. The procedure is repeated on all cylinders along with a compression test of each. This motor checked out great.