Hello all.

I'm up in Canada, and will have to find a decent 996tt specimen south of the border. My intentions are to find something in the lower states, so that it will not have any previous exposure to snow and salt.

Because of the importing process, fees and taxes that I will be forced to pay, I plan on budgeting $40k for the purchase. I would like to get your opinions on whether or not this is a feasible budget.

Being realistic, I think I will be limited to the earlier production years since my budget is sort of low. What sort of advice can you guys/gals give me? What should I look for, and what are some of the common issues I should keep my eyes open for.

Are there certain options or features that are specific to certain production years? Any guidance would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

 

Just make sure you have a thourough PPI on completed and try to get maint. records and owner information.

Early 01 vehicles will have front bumperettes (nasty) and all 01 models do not have a glovebox or hollow-spoke wheels. Common problem areas are the clutch, (wears faster if modded) rear spolier hydraulics, fuel pump, radiators, fuel tank filling. Another annoying thing, at least to me, is the vertical smear on the side windows when rolled down/up. It's an easy fix by removing the small round "pads" on the regulators. Best of luck on your search!

 

I would recommend running a Carfax and/or Autocheck report on the car you are interested in as well. Just because the car is currently located in one of the lower states now does not mean it didn't spend a number of years in a snow prone state with the previous owner(s). With these reports, you can find out the state the car was purchased in and the state(s) it was registered in from the point of sale until now.

While you can certainly find a 996 Turbo below $40k, I would recommend raising the budget to roughly $45k. I spent 4 months zealously shopping for the right Turbo and during that time, I can only remember seeing one sub $40k Turbo that I consider clean. The rest either had very high mileage (to me), no records, funky exterior and/or interior color/trim, etc. Most importantly, with couple thousand more, you will most likely be able to find a Turbo that fits your criteria in terms of color, mileage, options, modifications, etc., whereas for $40k, you will probably have to settle with whatever is available.

Adding to the list of common problem areas: lookout for symptoms of 2nd gear pop out during test drive. The clutch accumulator and the coolant tank does not seem to enjoy longevity.

Good luck on your search!

 

I am in the exact same shoes as you - (waiting until next summer) but the wife and I are planning to fly to the states to purchase a car and then drive it back home, make a vacation out of it. We are budgeting 40-45K (good call RudyTT) and plan on being a little picky when it comes to mileage and how well the car has been kept because I plan on holding the car for a long time. I am crossing my fingers I can find one on 6speed to make it easy to correspond with the seller.

Good luck on the search! 6speed is a great place to do some reading about the car

 

I spent 6 months looking for the right car. Get an 02 with low mileage. Saving a couple of bucks will end up costing more in the end. With the dollar on par you are getting more bang for the buck.

Picking my TT up on Wednesday in AZ and driving back to Vancouver

 

I agree with RudyTT with $45,000. You would have decent amount to select and much cleaner car than sub $40K.

 

Nice, enjoy the drive!

 

Great input guys. I didn't think so many Canadians were in the same boat that I'm in.

Raising the budget may be an option, but to be realistic, I don't believe that I will be seriously considering any such purchase this year. I want to educate myself on the car first, so I would say that next year will probably be the time when I will actually be in the market for it. By then, I'm guessing that $40k will be sufficient to find something decent.

Due to the fact that I'm very mechanically inclined, and that none of my vehicles ever get serviced by anyone other then myself, I'm not really worried about what most people would consider higher milage. A 60k+ mile car would generate lots of interest from me if its condition is mint otherwise.

I'd love to hear about the fees/importing experience and costs from some of the other guys who are either going through this same transaction, or who have recently done so.

Now onto the car. Are there any mechanical differences between the different production years of the 996TT? Any options that are not desirable?

 

The only thing that I find not desirable is the parking assist. I can't look at the ugly "dots" in the bumper.

 

I would suggest heading over to Renntech and download the 996 Turbo order guide. From there, you can get a feel of the options that were available and then come up with a list of options that you must have, can live without, absolutely do not desire, etc.

You will get varied opinions on the desirability of options. What I consider a necessity, another might write off as being worthless and vice versa. So it will be more useful for you to decide what is desirable and what isn't to you.

I advocate sticking to your guns on the options you must have as in most instances, it is cheaper to get a car that already has them then to try and retrofit those options later on.

 

Just be careful when purchasing and going in too skinny with the $'s. These cars are very expensive to fix even if you do the work yourself. They are great cars and for most a great hobby but when modded which is really the fun part the $'s add up quickly and so does the risk of costly repairs. Good luck in your hunt.

 

I personally would stay away from the 50,000+ mile cars.
If you import the car and drive it for a couple years you will have around 120-130KMS on your 996.

Very hard to sell a TT in Canada with that kind of mileage. I have seen 996TT's in Vancouver not sell for $50k with 90,000 kms on them. Everyone wants a low mileage TT and a virgin supermodel. One is infinitely less expensive in the long run!

Good luck with your search.

 

I will probably hang on to the car that I get for many, many years, so re-sell value shouldn't be too much of a factor. The problem with raising the budget is the fact that my importing fees and taxes are also proportional to the purchase price.

On a side note, are all 996TTs AWD? Are the GT2s the only ones that are RWD? Once in a while I run across an add for a 996TT which claims that it's RWD, but it's very possible that the seller simply doesn't know what they are talking about.

 

No one knows if the TTs also come in a RWD version?

 

The TT's are AWD. With that said, they can be modded to RWD only without too much effort.