Pre-purchase inspection vs. 15k minor maintenance
 

Hi,

I'm looking at buying a 2003 C2 with 13,000 miles on it. I put a deposit on the car so I could take it home and arrange for an pre-purchase inspection early next week - and also so I could look through the maintenance manual, owners manual, etc. I was looking at the Required Maintenance section and the "Minor Maintenance" that occurs at 15k, 45k, 75k, etc. and realized it was mostly visual inspection and sounded very similar to what the dealers said they did for a pre-purchase inspection.

Can anyone tell me what, if any, is different? Would it make sense to go ahead and have the 15k maintenance done and have that serve as my inspection?

Sorry if this is a silly question, but this is my first Porsche. Thanks!

RE: Pre-purchase inspection vs. 15k minor maintenance
 

First, If you look further in the maintenance manual you will see that it calls for certain things to be done along with those every-15K mile inspections. The manual is strangely laid out: to see everything you have to do at a particular mileage you have to check all the sections, i.e., it calls for visual inspection every 15k, filter changes every 30K, plug changes at 60K or 40K, other things at other intervals.
This makes it hard to figure out what you have to do at any one mileage. (I may have the mileages wrong here, I read it four months ago when I got my car so maybe I'm fuzzy on that), plug changes every 60K, etc. but I remember thinking -"How weird to lay it out like this, why not just tell me eveyrhting I have to do at each mileage).

Anyway, I would still take it to a mechanic and have various things checked, not just the usual visual inspection but maybe "one layer deeper." Here, the mechanic is looking for things he or she knows might be wrong on an abused or neglected or abused car. I would also suggest having the car aligned as soon as you bought it. Mine came from the dealer, new, but a demonstrator, with seriously aligned rear tires that wore out in less than 3000 miles.

RE: Pre-purchase inspection vs. 15k minor maintenance
 

Thanks for the info. I probably didn't explain well, but I was trying to figure out if it was worth paying for a full maintenance visit instead of just the inspection. I called the dealership and they said that based on the mileage (13.4k), it made sense to do the maintenance now instead of inspection now and maintenance in 30-60 days. Basically 15k maintenance = inspection plus more items (as you said).