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I bought my 150 from a dealer. The salesman (an honest fellow) provided me plenty of nice pictures, but he warned "They always look better in photos than they do in person." He was right, of course.

Having said that, I admit I did buy mine sight unseen, except I did first pay for a professional pre-buy by a independent shop in the area, and said pre-buy did include many pictures, including of the interior structure of the wings, etc.

Boy thanks a lot for all the info here Jim! I started thinking well if I was in Tyler's shoes it would be nice to have some help and by golly it's benefiting me greatly in preparing to get a 150 someday. I know it's never a good idea to fall in love with something you are about to spend a lot of money on. It applies to cars as well. I'm 66 and have never owned a Buick until about 5 years ago. My son is a GM mechanic and loves Buicks and he found me this absolutely beautiful 2003 Buick Park Avenue....it had many hi res photos and I fell in love with it immediately...luckily my son really knows cars and was looking out for me and luckily also said this was a rare Park Ave...she was like brand new...My wife, my son and I went to look at it and he said you want to drive it ...I said no and my son Matt drove it....I was immediately sold and yes stupidly didnt try to bargain on the price but no problem as my son said it was a very reasonable offer. We bought it...I loved then and now even though she is 13 years old still love her! At 80mph it's like gliding on air...actually air shocks. We drove it for several years with no problems and a small problem here a medium problem there....like $550 prob on the engine that my son said was very unusual as engine on this model is rock solid....and then last year the bigge 85,000 miles and the transmission went out. My son said that was rare as well...luckily my son did the trans replacement....still cost almost $3000....but I don't care because I still love it. It's like one of the members of this club said one time..I think it was Kirk that 150s are like our kids, sometimes they cost a lot and you put a lot of money into them but you don't care because they are your kids. But I listened to every word that you said. I've learned so much from you folks. Yes I agree, don't get to close and have a good totally interested mechanic go over it thoroughly and do the required due diligence....I was looking at the 65E in Long Island and luckily one of the guys here warned me about corrosion problems on aircraft close to the ocean....well I found another 65E on Globalplanesearch. Danbury, Connecticut...about 24 miles from the ocean....is that far enuf away to get away from ocean corrosion problems? I'm not seriously looking at as although it's annual is from 2014.

Thanks again for the info!

Bill

Stacey and Fred thanks for the info!

By golly really appreciate all the help!

Bill

I recently bought a 68H, located 250 miles from home. I bought a commercial plane ticket and flew out, and paid for a rental car. So there was that expense. When I looked at the plane it was pretty much as described. I paid $500 for a independent mechanic to do a pre-buy and he came back with a very clean bill of health. I was totally satisfied and flew it home the next day. It flew straight, and ran great and I was very pleased.

Part 2 - I decided that I wanted my own mechanic to inspect it, and since the annual was due in June I figured I would advance it to March - that way I got a full inspection outside of prime flying season. When they took it into the shop I was expecting a quick couple of days and a big checkmark. Instead, it took 6 weeks and cost me $4500 My mechanic is very thorough and started finding little issues - some unusual - which necessitated a much more thorough going over. It went into the shop on Mar 30 and was finished Saturday (May 7).

I was completely unprepared based on the pre-buy inspection. However, I am now fully confident that I am flying a very safe airplane. The good news is the engine (430 SMOH) is solid and runs excellent. The other issues, while nothing major, involved a LOT of hours of labor (53.5 hours, not including the many hours I helped).

So lesson learned - even a pre-buy inspection is no guarantee that you are buying a clean airplane. If I could have arranged it I would have happily paid an airline ticket for my own mechanic to have come with me. That said, the majority of things were discovered in an inspection that was way beyond the scope of a typical pre-buy. But not all the issues.

In my opinion, a prebuy is not done at the same level of scrutiny/standards as an annual. I don't think a mechanic doing a prebuy will study the logbooks to make sure all ADs were complied with, measuring things to make sure they meet minimum requirements, etc. A prebuy mechanic will just give you his assessment of the plane. A mechanic doing an annual will have to put his mechanic certificate on the line when signing that the plane is airworthy, so he'll be much pickier.

Right - that's what I was getting at: "That said, the majority of things were discovered in an inspection that was way beyond the scope of a typical pre-buy"

And in fact the one thing the pre-buy guy did was pour through the log books and said they were all good. My AME concurred.

The one "saving grace" for me was that I negotiated the selling price down $4500!!

I agree. I paid for a pre-buy by an AI. Sent him the check, got the plane delivered and proceeded to find a squawk list as long as your arm, including a major oil line leak behind the glove box that soaked oil into the glove box contents ($200), dash-mounted GPS receiver that would not receive satellites ($800), door locks that do not work (still not fixed) and a whole host of little items. I'm happy with the airplane, just not with the pre-buy. I called him up and asked for my money back. He politely refused of course.

IMHO
A pre-buy inspection is just a cursory look at an airplane for the obvious things that may cost $$$ to make correct
along with the condition of the logbooks and paperwork to be sure that kind of thing is in order.
An A&P or AI can/should not be held as responsible for any thing found during a subsequent annual inspection.
If someone wants a plane to be as good as just out of annual (which may still have items missed) pay for an annual and not a pre-buy.

You probably wouldn't want to be in Tyler's shoes, since he's recently passed away. This is his wife posting under his name, in order to move the airplane from his estate.

I didn't know that.