airnav99

Thanks for everyone's replies! I really appreciate your thoughts on this. Marauder: that's a great idea about contacting the Mooney Service Center in CT. I'll call them on Monday. And will be dropping you a PM as suggested. Thank you.

Hi everyone, I am looking for some pre-buy inspection advice on purchasing my first Mooney, which also happens to be my first airplane too. I've done a reasonable amount of searching (on my second year now), looking for an M20E or F model. I'm based in in Northern CA, but I've found an M20F in CT that I'm serious about. So the question is around getting a pre-buy inspection by an A&P or IA, or, fore-going that and just inspecting it myself. I've studied the Lasar pre-buy checklist (here: http://www.lasar.com/sales/checklist.asp) and it seems the only items I wouldn't be able to check as a private pilot would be engine compression, plugs and opening up of the oil filter - granted however, that those are very important items to check. The other thing to consider is that the aircraft will be getting a fresh annual (by the current owner) in the coming weeks. So, another option would be to give the pre-buy checklist to whomever is doing the annual and paying them for inspections on on the pre-buy checklist that aren't already on the annual checklist. Has anyone done such a thing? What have your experiences been? Thanks for your suggestions!