Why buy a 997TT if you aren't looking for one / Build thread
#1
05-09-2016, 05:41 AM
Join Date: May 2010
Location: Orlando, FL
Posts: 91
Rep Power: 18 
Why buy a 997TT if you aren't looking for one / Build thread
If some of you guys read Jalopnik, you may be familiar with some of the articles written by "Tavarish" where he will find an add for say a used Z06 for $25k and title it something along the lines of "why would you buy a Honda accord, when you can get this Z06 for less". Well on that spirit I decided to write a little something.
WARNING: This is creative writing form the perspective of a car guy in good fun, don't take any of it offensively, I do love this car so far and while is one of more than half dozen sports car I've owned its quickly gaining a special place in my heart, also Its a long post
The question that needed answered for me was, why should I buy a 997TT when I am not on the market for ANY cars at this moment?
That was my dilemma a few days ago. Like most car guys who have spent every day of their life since they were old enough to remember, either playing with, researching, or reading about cars, I found myself at 11:30 at night browsing thru the internet while my 9month pregnant wife was sleeping next to me. To see what at the time I thought was a really vivid dream.
A 997 Turbo listed for less than 40% of what it originally sold for? more importantly the car in question is a 1 owner car, never wrecked with perfect service history from the same Porsche dealer, with higher than average but not insane mileage (74k). If you are aware of what the market is doing with cars right now, I don’t have to tell you more and you can skip this paragraph, for the rest of you, let me assure you, this is one of those “too good to be true, no way this is real moments”. Water cooled 911 Turbos (2001+ cars) have been steadily appreciating over the last 12 months, and everyone in the “car circles” knows that this trend will continue for many reasons, some of which are related to the fact that Porsche continues to rise the prices of new 911 Turbo cars into the stratosphere ($160k if you are lucky), the other is 996 and 997 turbo cars are now proven reliable and friendly to own/modify, they are the “tested” versions of their new siblings, most importantly, if you slap a set of wheels on my 911 Turbo and park it next to a new 911 Turbo, 9 out of 10 sober people will call you a liar if you said there is $100,000 price tag difference between the 2, and if you flashed the ECU and added an exhaust, the owner of that new 911 Turbo, would also have a hard time understanding why he paid $100k more. It is totally flabbergasting to me that anyone pays that much for a car that STILL resembles fancy VW Bug. But that's another topic all together.
This is why I bought a 997 Turbo, I read a book from Tony Robbins earlier this year called “Money: Master the game”. And the biggest lesson I took from it, was that the best investment out there is the one you can make yourself with confidence. Invest in what you know Tony called it, and I’m not sure if he meant it this way or not, but as a Realtor who worked in the auto-performance industry for many years there is 2 things I am comfortable with; houses and cars. That’s why I bought this thing. I’m not a Porsche guy, I wasn’t in the market for one, I already have a sports car, but the thing is, do I want to give my cash to a stock broker to manage for me? Hell no. Do I want to leave it in the bank in a savings account so that I can watch inflation beat the interest earned every year? NOP…that means the best way to use this amount of money in order to make it earn some dividends (or at least not lose any value) is this car. (worry not this is not what i'm counting on to fund my kids college education! lol)
Trust your gut, the one thing people losing money on their 401K or getting hosed with bitcoin or gopro stock have in common is they did not trust their instincts, instead they trusted someone who they thought was an expert into mentally making the decision for them. Because that is much easier than telling your 9month pregnant wife that you want to have a conversation about possibly driving 8 hours to buy a 911 Turbo, not because your 1000hp viper isn’t enough to amp your testosterone, but because it will be good for the family, in that the worst possible case scenario is having it get wrecked or stolen and insurance pays me $10k more than I paid for it.
I've managed to always make money when I buy/sell this type of car, but maybe this time I screwed up, maybe every hipster with money in America decides that Porsche’s aren’t cool anymore and the values tank, after all there is always a level of speculation associated with predicting the future value of anything, but with the prices of BMW 428s are in the mid 50s and an infiniti Q60 which is basically a recycled G37 coupe is in the upper 40s, I have a hard time imagining a day where there won’t be at least one soul in this country that wants to go 0-60 in the 3s for the same amount of money. And if you are one of the ones that thinks this was a poor investment, that my case isn’t compelling enough, let me take you on a 30min drive, quickly you’ll realize everyone who takes a picture, every kid that stares, everyone who asks a question about it…they are all potential future buyers once they have the money, and they will, only when they do people will be paying a lot more money than they are now to drive the most beautiful 911 Turbo ever built.
Let the mods begin!
WARNING: This is creative writing form the perspective of a car guy in good fun, don't take any of it offensively, I do love this car so far and while is one of more than half dozen sports car I've owned its quickly gaining a special place in my heart, also Its a long post
The question that needed answered for me was, why should I buy a 997TT when I am not on the market for ANY cars at this moment?
That was my dilemma a few days ago. Like most car guys who have spent every day of their life since they were old enough to remember, either playing with, researching, or reading about cars, I found myself at 11:30 at night browsing thru the internet while my 9month pregnant wife was sleeping next to me. To see what at the time I thought was a really vivid dream.
A 997 Turbo listed for less than 40% of what it originally sold for? more importantly the car in question is a 1 owner car, never wrecked with perfect service history from the same Porsche dealer, with higher than average but not insane mileage (74k). If you are aware of what the market is doing with cars right now, I don’t have to tell you more and you can skip this paragraph, for the rest of you, let me assure you, this is one of those “too good to be true, no way this is real moments”. Water cooled 911 Turbos (2001+ cars) have been steadily appreciating over the last 12 months, and everyone in the “car circles” knows that this trend will continue for many reasons, some of which are related to the fact that Porsche continues to rise the prices of new 911 Turbo cars into the stratosphere ($160k if you are lucky), the other is 996 and 997 turbo cars are now proven reliable and friendly to own/modify, they are the “tested” versions of their new siblings, most importantly, if you slap a set of wheels on my 911 Turbo and park it next to a new 911 Turbo, 9 out of 10 sober people will call you a liar if you said there is $100,000 price tag difference between the 2, and if you flashed the ECU and added an exhaust, the owner of that new 911 Turbo, would also have a hard time understanding why he paid $100k more. It is totally flabbergasting to me that anyone pays that much for a car that STILL resembles fancy VW Bug. But that's another topic all together.
This is why I bought a 997 Turbo, I read a book from Tony Robbins earlier this year called “Money: Master the game”. And the biggest lesson I took from it, was that the best investment out there is the one you can make yourself with confidence. Invest in what you know Tony called it, and I’m not sure if he meant it this way or not, but as a Realtor who worked in the auto-performance industry for many years there is 2 things I am comfortable with; houses and cars. That’s why I bought this thing. I’m not a Porsche guy, I wasn’t in the market for one, I already have a sports car, but the thing is, do I want to give my cash to a stock broker to manage for me? Hell no. Do I want to leave it in the bank in a savings account so that I can watch inflation beat the interest earned every year? NOP…that means the best way to use this amount of money in order to make it earn some dividends (or at least not lose any value) is this car. (worry not this is not what i'm counting on to fund my kids college education! lol)
Trust your gut, the one thing people losing money on their 401K or getting hosed with bitcoin or gopro stock have in common is they did not trust their instincts, instead they trusted someone who they thought was an expert into mentally making the decision for them. Because that is much easier than telling your 9month pregnant wife that you want to have a conversation about possibly driving 8 hours to buy a 911 Turbo, not because your 1000hp viper isn’t enough to amp your testosterone, but because it will be good for the family, in that the worst possible case scenario is having it get wrecked or stolen and insurance pays me $10k more than I paid for it.
I've managed to always make money when I buy/sell this type of car, but maybe this time I screwed up, maybe every hipster with money in America decides that Porsche’s aren’t cool anymore and the values tank, after all there is always a level of speculation associated with predicting the future value of anything, but with the prices of BMW 428s are in the mid 50s and an infiniti Q60 which is basically a recycled G37 coupe is in the upper 40s, I have a hard time imagining a day where there won’t be at least one soul in this country that wants to go 0-60 in the 3s for the same amount of money. And if you are one of the ones that thinks this was a poor investment, that my case isn’t compelling enough, let me take you on a 30min drive, quickly you’ll realize everyone who takes a picture, every kid that stares, everyone who asks a question about it…they are all potential future buyers once they have the money, and they will, only when they do people will be paying a lot more money than they are now to drive the most beautiful 911 Turbo ever built.
Let the mods begin!
#3
05-09-2016, 06:39 AM
Congrats on the car. Beautiful color. They are generally reliable until you yank a coolant pipe out or spin an intake cam. Either failure will vaporize between 5 and 10k of cash 
#7
05-09-2016, 05:27 PM
Congrats on the purchase - as others have said - it's a beautiful color! Enjoy your investment
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#11
05-10-2016, 09:02 AM
Join Date: May 2010
Location: Orlando, FL
Posts: 91
Rep Power: 18
Thanks for all the kind comments guy I will continue to update this thread with my mods, issues and impressions.
So far here is some of the positives:
-This car is very friendly to drive - compared to other sports cars I've owned this is by far the friendliest to drive and park, I think partially because of the color, it is semi invisible so it does not get much attention. This is a very good thing in my book, especially compared to the viper where the attention i receive sometimes makes me feel like the car is on fire.
-Good manners, this car is like that niece/or nephew we all have who behaves really well, you know what you can expect if you take them to a public place, and makes you feel like you are the best uncle in the world...only you are not, you are just lucky to have a really awesome kid with you.
Negatives:
-The damn radio, seriously?? It is a mistery to me how people can live with this things, it is the least user friendly, most poorly design radio of any factory car i've ever owned. Thankfully this will be an easy fix.
Mods so far:
-Full LED Interior lighting
-Yellow fog lights
-Clear front side markers with stealth/silver coated bulbs
-Turbo emblem delete
Problems:
-I topped off the coolant level, and later that night after a drive I noticed a good size puddle of coolant under the driver side rear of the car, upon further inspection it looks like a bad reservoir cap, ordered a new one hopefully that does the trick.
-TPC light came on, I guess the 2 driver side sensors are not sending a signal, I haven't researched the best method to address this yet, but I'm not worried.
So far here is some of the positives:
-This car is very friendly to drive - compared to other sports cars I've owned this is by far the friendliest to drive and park, I think partially because of the color, it is semi invisible so it does not get much attention. This is a very good thing in my book, especially compared to the viper where the attention i receive sometimes makes me feel like the car is on fire.
-Good manners, this car is like that niece/or nephew we all have who behaves really well, you know what you can expect if you take them to a public place, and makes you feel like you are the best uncle in the world...only you are not, you are just lucky to have a really awesome kid with you.
Negatives:
-The damn radio, seriously?? It is a mistery to me how people can live with this things, it is the least user friendly, most poorly design radio of any factory car i've ever owned. Thankfully this will be an easy fix.
Mods so far:
-Full LED Interior lighting
-Yellow fog lights
-Clear front side markers with stealth/silver coated bulbs
-Turbo emblem delete
Problems:
-I topped off the coolant level, and later that night after a drive I noticed a good size puddle of coolant under the driver side rear of the car, upon further inspection it looks like a bad reservoir cap, ordered a new one hopefully that does the trick.
-TPC light came on, I guess the 2 driver side sensors are not sending a signal, I haven't researched the best method to address this yet, but I'm not worried.
#12
05-10-2016, 10:14 AM
Coolant puddling can be the first sign of the coolant fitting failure I talked about above. Hopefully it is the cap, but keep a very close eye on it. If they are failing, you are so close to the purchase date that maybe you can get the seller to help out with the cost of repair.
#13
05-10-2016, 03:38 PM
Join Date: May 2010
Location: Orlando, FL
Posts: 91
Rep Power: 18 Coolant puddling can be the first sign of the coolant fitting failure I talked about above. Hopefully it is the cap, but keep a very close eye on it. If they are failing, you are so close to the purchase date that maybe you can get the seller to help out with the cost of repair.
