Good shop in the DC area?

I need a shop to send my dad to that is good. I mean good as in they actually know about the car, rather than the typical dealer parts-replacer. In the DC area, as in he lives pretty much in DC (you can walk to the border with MD), so the closer the better, but the primary focus is on the shop. For now, it would just be to see if there is something wrong with the clutch or not. It is heavy. Don't know any other 996s to test to compare, but the thing is shove with all your weight heavy

Every shop will have its stories of good & bad. Bottom line, I've yet to find or hear about one that's perfect. If looking for an Indy shop, I'm very happy with the Intersport Performance in Tysons Corner [phone removed]). The shop supports a lot of DE and race cars, and the owner is often at track events providing assistance to his customers. Another well respected Indy is Stuttgart Performance in Gaithersburg. Smallish shop where appointment is required, but the owner is highly regarded by many folks. If looking for a Porsche dealership, I've heard good things about HBL in Tysons, and Porsche of Arlington.

Yeah...not looking for a dealership. HBL has ONE tech who actually knows about the cars. The rest are parts replacers. I diagnosed my friends Turbo as missing because he needed to change out the heat range on his spark plugs after chipping the car after about 5 minutes on the phone. Why he didn't listen to me, I don't know, but it took HBL several months and several visits to figure it out. They didn't even know if what it was doing was missing or not I'll check out the two indy shops. I don't know why in the DC area it's so hard to find a shop that is consistently good at any brand. Every other place I've lived, it's been easy. I guess maybe because the other places I've lived have smaller populations so the shops have fewer techs and thus tighter standards on what kind of tech they hire.

+1 on Intersport. I trust my car with Art and Charlie's capable hands.

Not much to check out,it needs a clutch kit.The spring in pressure plate is bad.It kind of creeps up on you,as it get a little harder everyday.When you get in and out of them everyday you can feel the cars with clutchs that starting to go bad.

I was just at Interport today and Omar seems like a great guy. I'm going to have them fix my oil pressure sending unit somtime next week.

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Clutch was replaced by Authothority not all that long ago.

We have several excellent indy shops here in the NoVA area. I have been going to ASG in Merrifield/Fairfax for the past 15 years. They have done all of the service on my 996 since 2001.

BTW, on the clutch, I had posted about it here earlier and the suggestion was made of the booster spring. My dad never looked into it, but I thought a few things are interesting - the clutch was fine until the cruise control was repaired - my dad said he called 5 shops, and Intersport was the only one that mentioned the possibility of the booster spring (he bought the car used, so it's possible the previous owner took it out). Everybody else just said there is nothing that could cause this it must be normal.

I didn't know that it had been replaced.

I've been dealing with Intersport for several years and found them to be very good too.

Taylor Chapman at German Auto on Backlick Road in Springfield has a devoted following (just Google him); I'm a fan of his too. He will be doing a clutch for me soon and while he's in there, the IMS upgrade and RMS renewal (no problems with them, but as long as he's in there anyway . . . ).

digging this thread back up... looking to purchased a used porsche around tyson's corner from a non-porsche dealership... wanted to know if anyone would know how much interport charges for pre-purchase inspections? also, is asking the dealer to take the car for a ppi an unusual request? thanks y'all