Don't worry, I'm 38 and have had 15+ cars and 12 since I met my wife

 

I bought an 08 M3 sedan last year, great car!!! It's also a great auto x car

 

Are you sure you're not me? LOL. It took a while to convince my wife that I would actually be keeping this one... she still doesn't believe me. It's only been 8 months, but still ...

 

I already wrote here - I found locally from private party 2006 CPO 997 C2 in excellent condition but with 42K miles for $40K. $39995 to be exact. CPO itself varies in $2K-$3K area so you can see the price. It is in Boston, so in CA it should be cheaper. Take your time and search.

In my car case most milage was put on a highway as previous owner liked to drive around, as well as he was not a racer type, car was in immaculate condition - first approved by PPI in dealership and then by my mechanic.
So, just be patient and search. If you are inpatient - you can buy CPO C2 from a dealer for around of $48K and C2S for around of $54K I think, based on what I saw during my search. I decided to save that price diff and put it into mods what I am doing right now with pleasure - new rims, mObridge, navigation DVD, Valentine one, etc.

It`s just same story as always - deals can be found. But it takes time and right seller to find.

 

I do not think you should look at 2005 as you have a possibility to buy 2006 with CPO and it will be much wiser investment as in this case CPO will extend to 2012.

And buying used Porsche you DO want it to be on warranty.

 

thanks. i read your thread as you were in a similar dilemna to what i am now. i do like the idea of a cpo warranty out until 2012, but realistically, most '06s that i see were punched in 2005... so warranty generally will go to late 2011. that's about 2 years worth of warranty... you really think that it's worth the extra money for those 2 years?

 

check this car out... this guy has been advertising his car for months now. started at $44K, then to $42K, then to $38 and now $33,999. If I can get this car for around $30K do you think it's worth it? I know it has 55K on the clock... but with all the money I am saving, I can budget to repairs in the future...

$30K for a 997? even when I followed used 996's, cars with about 50K miles were in the high 30's....

thoughts?

http://www.autotrader.com/fyc/vdp.js...standard=false

 

I would be seriously tempted. Makes you wonder why it hasn't sold though. That car would be gone already if it were around here, it would more likely than not be in my driveway.

 

Well, it may be a good car or may be not so good. With no warranty on it with high miles no wonder he still sells it. As you could see on this forum folks jump on cars with less than 10K miles on it. Car with 50K miles goes into final depreciation territory. You can probably offer him $30K or a bit less and do PPI on car and DME scan, if everything will be clean and you do not sense anything wrong, who knows. But you probably should be ready to invest later into clutch replacement and other things to do on older car.

So it is a dilemma for you to decide on. My approach was simple - warranty is a must as I had to part with my Supra after I burned down its engine. So i did not want to be responsible to any transmission/engine issues on $40K P car. PPI is cheap - I think you can do it on this car and decide later.

I did not have too many options from private parties here in MA, in your location you have many more. So you really have to be extremely pragmatic when making a final decision and not let emotions force you on the first car you see.

 

stuff what seems too good to be true - usually is. who knows.

 

my car was made 06/06 so I should have warranty until 2012.

it is also important thing - you may want car that was made after 06/06 - it has newer electronics, PCM 2.1 and some other things internally i do not remember now.

 

I bought my 996C4S used with 49k miles and no warranty, private sale. I bought from the original owner with all service records. I now have 63k miles and have had zero problems, no RMS, nothing.

I would say service records are more important that warranty. A fully serviced car will be completely reliable.

If you do buy from a dealer, than I would agree, you need a warranty, the dealer could have gotten the car at auction or its someone's trade in.

 

so... i passed on the high mileage car... just seemed a bit too scary for me... it'd be different if it was a lexus or something... it's not that maintenance scares me, i'll be doing most of my own work with this car... the 997 is just coming of age, so we havent seen true long term reliability reports of the car... i think the best is to search out a lower mileage 2006 w/ warranty... i think i might have to reconsider the budget.... back to the drawing board...

 

made an offer on a car @ livermore audi in norcal... they rejected the offer and stated the advertised price is the minimum...

 

it is typical. I think after reading this forum most commonly repeated mantra about P car shopping is 'take your time'. I bet you`ll find one you`ll like.