As others have mentioned, you are buying more than a plane. You will
want to review the funds, how much do they have in the engine prop
fund and any other funds. How do they fund the plane? Is there an
hourly/monthly/assesment situation. Is it well balanced or does it
favor the guy who flys the most/least? Having bought several planes
and done pre-buys on a lot more I have mixed feeling on the pre-buy.
Certainly you want to do something basic, but many places want to do a
full annual. The problem with a full pre-buy is that it doesn't take
long to spend more money doing pre-buys on planes than you would have
spent on the plane, but end up with no plane. The cost to bring the
first plane up to your standards ends up being less than all the other
planes you spent pre-buy money on afterwards. You really need to do a
real risk assesment. Today, I determine how much of a pre-buy to do
based on the reputation of the owner. You can't be in aviation and not
have a reputation, the community is just too small. For every pilot,
there are at least several pilots and mechanics on the field that have
an opinion of you and how you maintain your plane. I've spend over
$10,000 having factory service centers do full pre-buys only to find
out afterwords that they missed $25,000 in repairs. I've done the kick
the tires and write the check and ended up with great planes. You
really have to make your own decision on how much pre-buy to do. Don't
be afraid to ask for only a couple hours in some cases.
The other problem with pre-buy is how to leverage price. If you
negotiate a price before hand and find a few thousand in repairs you
consider necessary (but the A&P will pass) do you go back ot the
seller? Now, he's going to interact with you as though he believes you
went back on the original deal. If you do the pre-buy before the price
negotiations you could pre-buy a plane and find you can't come
together on the price.
Of course the problem becomes much more difficult if you are working
from different sides of the country.
Lots of people can say, "I did it this way and it worked" but there is
no good clean way to do it everytime. In the end you need to
understand that it is not possible to buy a plane and not be exposed
to substantial possibility of large repairs. A brand new plane with
new engine can swollow a valve sometimes. The trick is to review the
risk and compare the price you are willing to spend to avoid the risk.
Basic Business 101. Don't just blindly spend tons of money on pre-buys
because people on the list say nothing short of a full annual will do.


-Robert, CFI

Chris wrote in message ...
Gang,

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.

Thanks
Chris