[speeder]

PPIs actually get more involved on really nice/expensive cars, because you have to dig a lot deeper to find anything wrong. For most average used cars with some miles on them, you put them up in the air and a good mechanic can assess the brakes, front end, leaks, and see if there is any significant collision damage/repair history. This takes a matter of minutes.

Between that and driving the car, listening to it and seeing if everything works properly, (plus the presence or absence of records), it's not to hard to tell if a car is a turd or not.

People spend considerably more time and $$ getting cars like 911s PPI'ed. Some of it is really unnecessary, IMO. There are key things to look at on those cars and a good shop can size one up pretty quickly with the other "sniff test" things accounted for, like records and just the general condition of the car. A good friend of mine, (not a car guy), spent an ungodly fortune on a PPI for a G-50 Carrera about a year ago here in L.A. Not from the shop that I associate with on this board, I might add.