2003 996 C4S Insurance claim HELP – Intrigue, drama, embarrassment and joy promised

I’m new to the forum. One of those guys who reads a lot but doesn’t contribute. Well, I’m here to say as humbly as I can I should have been a contributor. I think I was a little embarrassed because you all know so much and I don’t. That hesitation just cost me thousands of dollars and I’m here to confess my sins and beg for some guidance.

The Question: Should I accept an insurance offer to total my car or repair it. Offer is below the background

The Facts: Sent car to repair shop for overhaul, they stole the engine, insurance company will pay.

Background: This is where you get your real entertainment. You can laugh at me all you want as long as you contribute positive input on how to make my next move! (no… you’re going to laugh anyway).
Purchased the car of my dreams 2 years ago. 2003 C4S. It was intended to be my 3rd car. Something to play with not too expensive but a good value for money. The car was pristine. Purchased from a local Porsche dealer. Met the previous owner. Everything looking good. 120k miles but the car was spotless. Timing was everything and I got the car for $22,000. My expectation was I could drive the car for a year and would at some point overhaul the engine and have a near perfect condition car to put another 100k miles on. I didn’t purchase a low mileage 996 because of the IMS. I felt the high mileage car knowing I would overhaul it would be a good value.


All went well for a few beautiful months. Come winter it developed a “Ticking” noise. Nothing major but any noise is a bad noise. My local service center said it could be a number of things, but he’d have to tear it down to be sure. Maybe now was the time for the overhaul.

At this point I was a happy economy Porsche owner. Ready to invest 10k-18k in an overhaul. Porsche dealer wouldn’t overhaul it. They said it was company policy to replace with engine directly from Porsche (maybe because of IMS?). OK, but the estimate was $32,000. I thought they were kidding. That pushed me into the secondary market.


*** Insert point where I should have CONTRIBUTED to this forum ***


I’m not going into the bloody details today. I promise if you give me some direction I will post all the detail of my mess. Pictures and all. It’s a good one and might qualify for a Pay Per View event. I will even promise to entertain all your jabs, “I told you so’s” and “What were you thinking?” remarks. I deserve them, I earned them and I paid for them.


My car was delivered to Motor Meister. After 18 months I felt lucky to get out with my car and what was left of the engine in a basket. It’s important to note that MM said it had a cracked piston. I bought the whole story and opted for a “Big Bore Overhaul” $11,400. Also important is the parts I was able to retrieve. It was all in the clean room being assembled when I claimed it. Sleeved case (done by outside machine shop. 3.8) Crank assembled, Heads all done. Only that missing was new billet pistons. So I do have most of the parts I just don’t know the quality of the work. Clearly a new shop would have to validate the work before I would use these parts for re-assembly. The “Stole my engine” claim comes from Motor Meister sending someone else's block out for sleeving. I understand they are kings of swap and… well anything that would make money. Serial numbers didn’t match. But I did salvage a near complete engine.

I collected my car, my bruises and my pride and called my insurance company.

I have great insurance with (so far) Nationwide. I’ll go into detail on how they handled the claim later.

The car went to McKenna Porsche Norwalk. They’re writing an estimate on New OEM parts because I paid for the rider on my policy. They’re also writing an estimate on repairing with non-OEM parts. Not sure I understand that one because I’ve never heard of an authorized Porsche dealer using non-OEM parts. If I choose to force them to use OEM parts it will be more than $28000 and they’ll total the car.

Offer: 3 options
1. Total the car and give me a check for $28,000 minus the $11,400 Motor Meister estimate for overhaul. They say it was broke when I sent it so they won’t pay for the repair, just the stolen engine. My lawyer will challenge that, I expect a net of $20k or more if I go this way. I would take the money and run but I'm back buying a car with possible IMS issues or rebuild all over again.

2. Total the car and let me buy it back with a branded title. Don’t really want a car with a branded title but it’s my car and I intend to keep it for a long time if I get the engine straight.

3. Fix the car somehow with the parts I have. I don’t think the Dealer will want to mess with it so it may still be some kind of settlement and take it to another shop. I don’t know that shop so direction would be greatly appreciated if I go this way.

Insurance adjuster has been great so far. They seem to want to make me happy and are willing to work on something other than just totaling the car.

I need suggestions or experience dealing with similar issues would be greatly appricated.

Most humbly…
Mark

 

Total it and start over. Ditch the salvage titled, get a car sooner, send it to flat6 or someone for a 4K retrofit/solution, move on with life and enjoy the car.

 

total the car. get the check. buy the back from the ins for under 5k$ and build a track car. use the rest for another c4s. stay away from m/m!!

 

As mentioned, total the car, get another one and move on. If it were me though at this point I would get an attorney involved to try and go after shop.

 

Thanks for the quick response. I'll post again when I have exact numbers from the insurance company.

 

Not necessarily what I'd do, but just a thought: Take the insurance write off $$$$ and buy it all back (as cheaply as you can negotiate). And get rid of the lawyers - they'll probably cost you a third of whatever you might get on your own. Sell off all of the engine components as a package deal (I might even be interested in taking that on as a project engine rebuild), and look into an LS3 V8 swap from Renegade Hybrids. I strongly suspect that doing such a swap will cost considerably less (even with a GM crate motor) than completing that 3.8 rebuild (and better performance to boot!). And future parts replacement costs will be considerable less for a Chevy than a Porsche engine (not to mention the long term parts reliaility and durability).
Before buying my 2003 996 C4S recently, one of the options I was seriously considering if I spotted a killer deal on a nice 03/04 C4S with a missing engine would have been to go the V8 Swap route.
The other thing to factor in if you have virtually zero personal ability to do any of the required work (in whichever path you choose to follow) is the labor component.
Just suggesting a possibility you might want to consider.

 

Buy it back if you can get a good deal. Put the rest towards a used GT3 Mezger motor for $15k and since this is your third car, you'll be able to afford some down time for the conversion.

In the end, you'll be one of the few that has a gt3 motor in a wide body so if you ever decide to sell it, you should be able to command a premium and have people look past any titling issues.

My $.02

You've been given lemons so now it's your call...

 

Take the money and shop for a new one, there are many great cars out there available and you can be driving it immediately. Salvaged title means no resale value and time to get it back on the road. Take your 20k plus your planned rebuild money and you can really find an amazing car out there that has already had the IMS done as most P Car owners love their cars... Just my 0.2 ....

 

Everyone had their opinion and of course I will give you mine. Trying to find another car that you know has o issues except the motor is sometimes difficult. Little repairs add up fast in these cars, so if everything else is pristine I would consider finding someone to put it back together. If you plan on keeping it, a rebuilt title is a not a bad thing if you know the history, but plans always seem to change.


Not that I am not an expert but I would call a pro and get prices. I am in the process of an engine replacement. My real advice would be to call Jason at UFOmotorsports (I think he changed to 9xxmotorsports) and talk with him about a rebuild or call Jake Raby at Flat6. It can't hurt to get more opinions.


Keep the updates coming.

 

You might first want to find out your insurance company's policy in regards to buying a car back after it being "stolen" or salvaged due to some type of theft. Often times the insurance company will not sell you back the car if this is the case. Buying a car back that was in an accident and resulted in a total loss is a completely different thing. This happened to me previously on a Toyota where they paid me out for my stolen car after they could not find it after 30 days. After 6 weeks the car turned up. Went to the car in storage and had some parts stolen out of it which caused the repairs to make it whole again exceed the value of the car hence being totaled. I asked about buying the car back and they said I could not due to the loss being a result of it being stolen and buying it back would raise red flags. I could give them back the payout and they would get it fixed at their shop for less to keep it from being totaled.

 

Bad karma with existing car. Take the money and put it all behind you. You don't want a car with salvage title.

Stop believing (and perpetuating) the myths about low mileage = greater potential for IMS problems, and look for a low mileage used 996 that has had regular oil changes and recent oil analysis report which indicates no metal particles in the oil.

 

If it were me, I'd probably have insurance complete the estimate of repair with non-OEM parts, if that won't total the car. Then use that money and the parts that you have to have a different independent shop build your motor. You get your car, clean title, and a motor built to your specs. There's no need to permanently brand this otherwise perfect car with a salvage title.

 

Still waiting for estimate from Dealer. I approved an estimate without OEM parts to try and stay under and NOT total the car. I'm thinking the best bet is to let them total the car. It's killing me to say that.
I did contact Steve at Renegade in Vegas. He hasn't done a conversion with an automatic. Price of $28,000 is a little steep. That was a great suggestion but I'm not ready for that. Want to stay with the flat 6.
All the input is great. I'll get into more detail as soon as I get the formal offer from the insurance company.

 

Mark, I am sorry to read your story. Don't kick yourself too hard...you are the victim of theft by fraud. You did nothing to deserve getting screwed by what you thought was a reputable business.
I have rebuilt 7 salvage titled cars in CA (2 Porsches, 2 BMWs, a Mercedes, and a Range Rover). I documented the rebuilds of the Porsches on Rennlist in the 996 section. I have never had a problem selling the salvaged titled cars. If you take lots of pictures of the rebuild and don't cut corners, it is not a big deal come resale time. The 996 that I rebuilt and the BMW both sold quickly for about 20% less than a non salvage titled car. The only issue in CA with a salvage titled car is you can not finance it with a traditional car loan. Insurance and registration are not problems in CA.
My current 996 was totaled due a dashboard fire (probably a bad stereo install). The owner was a friend, so I bought it before it went to auction. The insurance totaled it out for about $40,000 (a few years ago). I bought it for about $12,000. I did all of the work myself and spent an additional $2,000 in parts to rebuild it. It took me about 3 months from start to finish. I love that car and plan on keeping it forever.
I recommend you buy the car back from the insurance company if the numbers work. You will have fun rebuilding it and you will end up with a car that has whatever engine you decide to put in it (Renegade V8, GT3/TT, crate X51, or Raby rebuild). Any of those engine choices will have more power than stock.
Here are before and after pics of my two 996 rebuilds. Good luck!

 

UPDATE: Insurance adjuster called me last night. Estimate for repair using non-OEM parts, ready for it... $21,000.

The car is very good condition so I'm trying to exhaust every angle before I just take the offer to total the car. Adjuster says she will may be able to squeak by repairing the car if she can get the dealership to work with her a little. Should know more Monday.

Again thanks for all the outstanding suggestions.

Anyone know a reputable shop in So. Cal that would be willing to tackle the project. Obviously the dealership is going to be the highest price and maybe not the best suited to tackle it.

Insurance company says they will stand by parts and workmanship for as long as I own the car because I allowed non OEM parts. Sounds really good but not really sure exact details on the warranty.

More to come!