Chris wrote:

I am planning to buy into an existing partnership. Should I be less
vigilant during prebuy than when buing a plane by myself? - maybe no,
but I would like to listen to some arguments.

I did that. The plane was being maintained by a shop that I had an existing
relationship with, so I just talked to them about the plane. They already knew
me, and they knew the plane.

Otherwise, I would have gone for a prebuy inspection just as if I were buying
the whole plane. A prebuy is not that expensive and could save you some grief
down the road.

Make sure you check out the partners as well as the plane. I bought into what
sounded like a great partnership. It's worked out OK, sort-of, but if I had been
a little more diligent with my research I might not have bought into this one.
What I heard was that the plane was available a lot because my prospecitve
partners rarely fly. The part I missed was that, since they rarely fly, they're
not particularly interested in speedy fixing of squawks. My advice: find
partners whose goals and interests are similar to your own.

Dave