I have had pre-purchase inspections done one four (4) planes and I have purchased five (5) planes with no pre-purchase inspection. None of the airplanes were perfect; all had items that needed to be fixed. I can?t honestly say, with one exception, that there was no major difference in the relative cost of ?fixing? up the planes what were inspected and the ones that weren?t. I had to spend from 10% to 20% of the purchase price to feel comfortable with any of them.
There was one case in which I backed out on a purchase because the owner just flat lied about a number of items, all picked up in the paper work. My refusal to purchase was about 95% of not wanting to do business with a dishonest person and about 5% uncertainty about the aircraft. The airplane sold and as far as I know there have been no major problems with it.
The only airplane that I ever had a major problem with was the one that had the most through and expensive per-purchase inspection. I ended up salvaging what I could from it and selling the rest of the plane for used parts.
On the other hand I know of an extremely knowledgeable pilot/owner/A&P/AI that did a repurchase inspection and found flaws that would have been deal killers for most of the folks on this forum. He bought the airplane and is happily flying it today.
I am not an expert on buying and selling airplanes but it is my opinion that the value of pre-purchase inspections are highly over rated, through scrutiny of the paper work isn?t.
