[jrwilson]

I found my car in New York and I'm in Toronto so I tried to find a local person to do a PPI. I got a recommendation for a Porsche place nearby and for $900 the guy barely looked at the car, took the worst photos I've ever seen, and proceeded to say it was complete junk but that if I wasn't interested after his inspection, he might be. He knew it was a solid car for a good price and wanted to snake it out from under me.

So, basically you can't trust anyone to be honest. That mechanic sounds like a lot of Porsche mechanics I've talked to - they don't care about saving you money or being creative on the fixes, they just replace everything, only using Porsche parts instead of reproduction or servicable used parts. I wasted $3,000 on one of those types for $500 worth of parts and labour before I realized I could do the majority of this work myself.

You can, however, trust the people in your local aircooled clubs - enthusiasts. And people here.