After owning various 10-15 year old econoboxes (celica, saturn, civic) the past 15 years, and looking into a "fun" daily driver the past year, I finally pulled the trigger.
Picked this beauty up:
Has 83K on the clock and I'm the third owner. The second owner (male, early 60s) had her for 12 years, kept her garaged and has copious maintenance records for her including IMS/clutch/flywheel less than 2K ago. This became the owner's garage queen, with less than 700mi put on her in the past 2 years. I've already put about 300 in a week.
I did NOT get a PPI. I bought it from out of town, and the only german shop in that town is where all the maintenance was done at. I had the chance to speak with the owner of the shop briefly on the phone, and he kind of just confirmed what I saw on the maintenance records and stated for PPI they'd likely just hook it up to the computer and do a visual, then go from there.
I have an porsche/mb indy shop near me that gets really good reviews. I plan on doing whatever maintenance I can myself, despite living in an apartment complex. I know I want the motor oil and brake fluid changed, and am debating whether to just do it myself next weekend or take it in to the indy and have them inspect the vehicle while its in.
I'm in Sacramento, CA, in case there are any others out this way!