My preliminary research on used 996tt/997s suggest that the inventory around my area is low, and also the stealerships here seem to be hiking up the prices.

So now aside from the local stealerships and craigslist, I'm looking at Ebay, autotrader.com, and cars.com.

For example, if I put a winning bid on Ebay on a listing in New York, how in the world can I take it for a test drive and do a PPI? Does Ebay offer any guarantees on auto purchases? What if someone ends up with a die-cast model instead of the real thing?

Same thing goes for autotrader.com and cars.com. How does one preview and inspect the vehicle?

 

I have bought 4 cars on Ebay. Here's what I do. I call the seller and discuss the car. I have had several PPIs done on cars that I found issues with and did not buy. I did buy 2 Porsches where I did get PPIs done and offered to give the sellers a cash deposit to hold until I could come out and inspect the car in person. Both refused the deposit saying my word was enough. I flew to Houston to look one car over, loved it, paid for it and drove it 1600 miles home. Another car was in Vegas, drove 450 miles with my wife to look at it, bought it drove it home. Bought a new Lexus in Dallas off Ebay, flew in drove it home.

I will not buy a car sight unseen as many do. It is worth a plane ticket to touch the car, drive it and see if I love it. If I do I buy it. Another thing I do is have someone from a forum that lives near an advertised car do a walk around inspection and give me a report. I've had many done and if the car looks very good, I'll then pay for and arrange a PPI.

GL with your search.

 

I think the forums can also be a good place to find a well cared for car.

 

I bought a 68 Cadillac convertible off eBay a few years ago. Called the guy for a long walk around discussion, bid, won the auction at a good price. Had a friend fly me (Jackson MS from Atlanta) out to check it out, me paying his gas. Everything checked out just fine. Gave him a cashiers check for the balance and drove home. On the way, it stuck a rod through the side of that 472 at 85 mpy But I wouldn't have known that if it had been local.

I've also sold a car on eBay, a six-month-old Mazdaspeed Miata turbo. A dealer in Detroit bought it; the car's were hard to find at that time. I had copious photos and he called me and asked a few questions. Then he won the bid, sent a driver down with a trailer, and the driver didn't do anything but confirm there was indeed a car to pick up, before giving me a check.

 

u should buy my car.
its probably one of the most mechanically sound cars available, considering i had to replace so many things that failed.

 

I like to check it out. But my current first choice of color is black (not that silver is not a good color, as my current vehicle is silver).

 

I typically use Autotrader and Craigslist. I really like the car to be semi-local, so I can drive there over a weekend to check it out. It all depends how much patience you have. Socal also has a huge selection of used vehicles, so that helps.

 

I got very lucky and found mine on Craigslist about 10 miles away. Luckier still it already had a couple mods I wanted, it was one of my desired colors, and the owner was on here so I could research his posts about the car.

While I was searching I would check Craigslist, Autotrader, Cars.com, ebay, this forum and rennlist.

 

Depending on your purchase timeline, the Pacifc northwest PCA club may be a good place to check out. Also recommend talking with a few of the better German car shops and putting the word out.

As an FYI, I found my car on eBay. The seller took it by a local shop for a PPI (I paid for the PPI and gave the seller $75 for the hassle). Got lots of hugh quality photos. I ended up with a good car for a really good price. With that said, I would never do it again. Too much of a chance for getting a car that doesn't meet your expectations, IMHO.

 

I usually try to find something within 500 miles, which is the range where I feel it is not too much of a pain to check out a car in person. It's easy to misrepresent a car in an ad.

Think of Ebay more as an advertisement. Most deals will be struck on the phone or in person and actually entering the bid is a formality.