An invasive PPI is all well and good except that very, very few 986/996 owners would allow their car to be torn apart by a prospective buyer and his shop for a PPI. You want to open it up? Buy it and you can do whatever you want. Most owners won't even let you pay for an oil change to see the oil filter.

Even more so, why would a shop blindly quote a $1,600 PPI to someone without explaining all of this to the customer?

I was thinking the same thing that Jake was in regards to the depth of a PPI. A guy on Rennlist paid for a PPI at a Porsche dealer and his engine was a boat anchor five weeks later.

If someone takes your money and doesn't check cam deviations, do a leak down, gut the filter and possibly even drop the pan then you don't know the expensive part. Yet.

To their credit, they didn't blindly quote $1600. They explained why it would cost as much as it did and take 2 days. It's just that, to me, $1600 seems like an undoable amount of money. If I was buying a $45~$50k 993 from the early 90s, then this level of inspection would probably be called for. But, for a $16k Boxster....I don't know.

Tony

That would have been good info to include in the original post.

I stand corrected. Again. :)

When I bought my 01 S used from an out of state seller, he gave me 3 days of ownership to change my mind, and put it in writing. I could do any level of "PPI" that I wanted during this period, and he would take it back for a full refund with no questions asked if I wanted. But if I damaged anything by wreck, destructive inspection, whatever, it would be on me. This seemed fair.
The 2 day drive home, after a PPI at the local dealer, was a good shakedown. I found evidence of a prior wreck mentioned in the presale discussion, and replaced a MAF; neither was sufficient to make me want to back out after just a little seat time.:)

Tony is a good guy with a ton of experience, a member of my club, and runs a very thorough shop. He has worked on my car in the past and the quality was always first rate.

That said, it is doubtful I would have them run a $1600 PPI on a car for me. If it were a $400k 997 GT3 Cup car maybe but a Boxster/Cayman... not likely. I want a cursory look by another set of experienced eyes besides my own, not a fully invasive 2 day operation. Ultimately it is his business and he gets to decide what services he offers and what he charges for his work. Use him or don't based on your own needs and aversion to risk. YMMV

It is high for a PPI relative to the price of the car. But if I could negotiate the price down to cover the cost, or most of it, I wouldn't think that a worse way to spend the money over putting in my pocket. There are so many ways these cost-cut engines can fail and so many Porsches are sold without any real documented history. There's value in knowing what exactly is up with your car. And whether it's worth doing a $3K IMS/clutch, $6K suspension overhaul, $2K in waterpump and rotors/pads, $2k in bodywork, etc. These are all common repairs for a 10+ year old Boxster. The best decisions are made with the best available data. How many 986/996 owners would have gladly parted with $1600 to have kept that $15-25K roller out of their garage.