Interesting thread
In 1999 I was in exactly the same position as you are Capt Noodle. However, I wanted a 172 and nothing else would do. I found one. My approach was to view the aircraft and make sure I was potentially going to buy something that was structurally and mechanically sound but needed cosmetic work. I didn't want to be paying for someone elses chintz and I wanted a blank canvas. My view was that once I had found this I would send in the engineer. Luckily th A/C was half way through a C of A so the engineer could get a really good look through it.
It received the thumbs up and I parted with £27,000 cash.
I spent the money on it where I wanted over the three years that followed. I flew it like there was about to be a ban on flying. I went from 15 hours per year to 200 in a matter of weeks. It was the best plane money could buy in my eyes!
After a while I got bored so I stupidly sold it.
I bought a PA28 and never really learned to love it like I did the 172. I sold it and have never regretted that. It wasn't good at anything like the 172 is. The only thing the PA28 does well is make pilots feel like they are flying something that looks sexier than a 172. Believe me, the 172 is a far superior aircraft.
The Burberry handbag is to the Timberland rucksack what the PA28 is to the 172.
Where the 172 strides off the runway the PA28 stumbles like a fat bird with her knickers around her knees.
I bought another 172 without the amount of pre-purchase effort I had expended on the first. It was ok. Literally, it was ok. I realised that the 6 cylinder Continental it had up front was destined to empty the earths crust of fossil fuel within weeks. Also, the reduced power from the powerplant made it positively feel as though its knicker elastic was about to fail....
After a while I sold it.
My advice is go and buy a Lycoming powered 172 and spend time and money getting it exactly how you want it. Then, after a few years when you are wondering whether you should move to a PA28 go and look closely at a 1984 Ford Escort (entering through the passenger door) and ask yourself, "is this really what I want"?
