I'm looking at couple of 996 NA 3.4L in my area, seems like that's the only porsche I can afford in $20k area. I know these have 2-3k mark up on them vs private market or KBB prices, but I don't mind paying up for clean car that would serve for a long time. Why are 996's the most affordable porsche? Is there any possibility these would go up in value down the road like other 911s? None of these have ISM repair records, so I'd probably have to drop another $2-3k for for that.

Admittedly, I don't know much about these cars, but I can't afford 40-80k, so these are my best bet. When I go to test drive, I bet it will be exhilarating machine regardless whether its not S or Turbo model. Or am I wrong? I don't want to make mistake of buying 328i instead of M3 just because of price, but I'm assuming all Porsches are amazing sports machines. I'd like it to be my weekend / local track car.

What is your advice?

#1 https://www.kbb.com/cars-for-sale/46...eryview=photos


#2 https://www.kbb.com/cars-for-sale/47...eryview=photos

 

My advice would be if you want a weekend car one of these two cars could be the car for you. If you want a track car I think you should seek out something else. While many owners track a 996 there are issues that can arise from this usage. There are modifications which can address to some level the issues but not eliminate them entirely.

I note both cars have obvious modifications front and back. Be aware that often modications are done during the course of an accident repair. The owner uses this opportunity to add custom front/rear bumper covers, do a bigger wing, etc.

The general rule of used car buying is to buy the best example you can find and afford.

Another general rule is used cars have a rather optimistic markup. 10% or more is the norm.

What my used car buying technique is to try to determine what the car's wholesale/trade in value is and start from there. www.nada.com or www.kbb.com are two sites one can use to try to get a feel for the wholesale/trade in value of cars.

Regardless of the car's wholesale/trade in value you want to be sure the car is worth owning at any price.

For this you need to do a thorough used car check out.

Here's a cut/paste of something I've posted before on this subject:

Visit the car cold and be sure the CEL comes on when you turn the key on and goes off when you start the engine. Let the cold engine idle -- turn off the A/C for now -- while you walk around the car. Look at body panel fits and finish.

I would add if an accident may be in the car's history check for paint tape lines under the rubber weather stripping. Check the bolt heads that hold the front fenders to the chassis. Check the area around the fasteners of the front struts. You are looking for any sign these have been disturbed.

Check the age of the tires. Porsche considers tires to be past their replace by date after 6 years. If the tires are not N-rated and matching you probably want to budget for new tires. If the tread wear is uneven budget for an alignment after having new tires mounted.

Check brake rotor condition. A 1mm lip around the edge of the rotor is a sign the rotor is worn out and new rotors and pads and other hardware will be needed.

Brake fluid (and if a manual clutch fluid) flush/bleed should be done at this time. This is due every 2 years.

Check the radiator ducts. If trash present and it wiil be budget for a front bumper cover removal to get that trash out.

If the radiators are full of trash odds are the body water drains are too. Bring along a Torx tool bit set (get the security bit set) and use the tool to remove the screw that holds the panel on either side of the battery -- under the front trunk lid -- so you can view the front body water drains. If the trash is there get this cleaned out first thing if you buy the car. If the trash is wet, or worse, water is standing in the basin you probably want to walk away. Water can overflow into the cabin and the security module is located on the cabin floor under the passenger seat and this gets wet.

All the while you do whatever you do keep an ear tuned to the engine. It should not make any knocks, ticks, or other sounds other than those of a healthy engine. The idle should be smooth and shortly after you start the engine the idle speed should drop to near its normal hot idle level. The idle speed should be pretty stable.

After some stationary checks then have the seller take you on a test ride. The route wants to be 15 miles long (at least) and selected to give the driver a chance to demo the car as you intend to drive it.

Stop and go driving. Boulevard cruising. Once the engine is fully warmed up then a hard acceleration run up through 2 gears then some highway miles. You want a real mix.

Back at the starting point change seats and drive the car over teh same route the same way.

The clutch will have a rather high engagement point -- normal for these cars -- but the engagment should be very smooth. The clutch pedal effort should not be high but you need exposure to other examples to know what's normal.

At some point put the transmission in 4th or 5th gear at around 2K and floor the gas pedal and hold for a while. You want to check if the clutch slips.

If the car equipped with a Tip have the seller do a K-turn early with the transmission cold. Then later when the transmission is hot. You want to verify the transmission can handle changes in direction in rapid succession. 'course, the transmission want to manifest no signs of any issues at any other times too.

Back at the starting point if you still like the car give every system a check out. From the headlights to tail lights, brake lights. The spoiler. Let the engine idle and be sure the radiator fans come on and both blow hot air and the same amount. The engine compartment fan will probably come on and be sure it runs and blows a good amount of air out the bottom of the engine compartment.

Use your nose. You should not smell raw fuel or anti-freeze. If you do there's a fuel or coolant leak.

Might add the engine should still be free of any "scary" noises at this point as well as at any other time during the check out.

After all the above then ideally you want a PPI which among other things gets the car in the air so a thorough check for any leak sign can be made. Every gasket, seal, o-ring, CV boot, hydraulic line, line fitting, hose, hose connection, oil/water heat exchangers, radiator, steering rack lines and so on need to be checked for oil or water or other fluid leak sign.

A leaking water pump or radiator is not the end of the world but you have to factor the cost of addressing these or any other issues into your offer price.

Couple of things to close with. Price is not fact only an opinion.

And if you find something "wrong" with the car walk away. There is always another car.

 

thanks Macster, I did find your thoughtful writeups to other potential buyers. Thank you for noting the body modifications.. i know dealers buy these wrecks at auctions and put lipstick on them, so i guess my only bet is to hawk over craigslist and wait for some grandpa to put up a private sale? and avoid brokers? also, you didn't think this car is good fit for weekend track - are these as finicky as bimmers? is my best bet to use these $20k and buy miata 5 or golf r? i already had bad experiences with E36 so not going there. what should I do?

 

I have had several 996s (currently have a 2001 in my collection), I drive my cars very hard and the 996 seems to be able to take a beating better then other makes that I have owned (corvettes, BMWs, etc). Now is a 996 worth $20K+??? I see 996s under $15K all the time, usually thats because of milage, but miles on a Porsche has never bothered me.

 

Macster provides excellent advice, i have little to add other than to answer your follow up questions:

No need to focus your search purely on private listings (albeit I prefer it), just be sure to pull a carfax on any car your serious about to ensure the car is accident free (not to mention how many owners it's had and potentially scope out the maintenance history if included).

Oil starvation on track speed turns is one of the big issues with tracking these cars. Not to say a 996 can't be made a track weapon, but plan on spending big bucks to properly track prep the M96 -- it's not just an upgraded sump as you might read elsewhere.

Finicky as Bimmers? Lol, and then some. I've owned lots of BMW cars and motorcycles over the past 20 years and never found them to be particularly finicky. Heck one of the most loyal members of my heard is my e46 which now has 265k miles and still on it's original clutch. With proper maintenance they pretty darn reliable. Pcars are too, particularly the 996, but they too require looking after. And unless you purchase a car directly from an individual that's obsessive about maintenance, plan to drop some coin (or wrench a lot) to get any aging 996 back up to snuff. Case and point, i just acquired an '03 C4S from an ex-military jet aircraft mechanic who lovingly looked after the car and a PPI revealed about $8k worth of needed maintenance. Of course, that's paying a 3rd party to do the work, I plan to do it all myself for half that. Bottom line these are reliable cars, they just have a lot of parts, some expensive and all 15 years old and needing attention -- and worth every penny (and then some). Good luck in your search.

 

I paid $22k for my 2001 convertible. Although it was a little more than I wanted to spend, it did have a new clutch, IMS and RMS plus new OZ wheels and new tires from Jan. 2017, Oil change and new cabin filter done before I picked it up. 84k miles. I guess it all depends on what you are comfortable with as far as price and miles. Good luck with whatever you choose!!

 

Thank you everyone. I'm also In talks with this private seller https://miami.craigslist.org/mdc/cto/d/porsche-911-carrera-996/6370249218.html for $20k. No accidents nice wheels and ISM/RSM addressed 10k miles ago (now at 80k).

but I really want my 3rd car to be a weekend track warrior not just fun ride while I don't have place or time to fix it myself. So maybe I should use 20k as downpayment for M2 I was kinda under impression that porsches were built for life like tanks to pay $20k for garage queen would be disaster

 

Just because some cosmetic changes were made doesn't necessarily disqualify the car unless you find the changes simply not to your liking.

It means you need to be on your toes regarding the possibility the cars have been in an accident and have had body/paint work.

But really even with a car with no cosmetic changes it could have still be in an accident.

(Just weeks after I bought my low miles (10K) 2003 Turbo I hit a mule deer with it. Over $25K of damage and 2 months later I had the car back with the only signs of any body/paint work is the paint has *less* orange peel than the factory paint. After putting around 150K miles on the car since then there have been no issues arising from the accident or accident repair. Might add I made no cosmetic changes to the car. It was repaired using factory new parts the same part numbers it came with from the factory.)

What you want to do is determine if the car has been in an accident. If you then want to drop the car off your list that's up to you.

Dealers can end up with some pigs and plaster lip stick on them. But dealers can also end up with cherry cars, or as cherry a car as a car can be given it is 17 to 18 years old and has upwards of maybe 80K miles on it. The cars could still be quite acceptable, worth owning, at the right price. You just have to as best you can make that determination.

The 996 cars are not finicky per se but they are not out and out track cars. Senior techs I know and trust tell me -- this back when the 996 was a relatively new model and still for sale new -- the days of buying a stock off the floor Porsche and then driving it M-F for work and errands then on Sunday driving it to the track and being competitive and then driving it home at the end of the day and resume using it M-F for work and errands are long past.

These cars, the engines mainly, are ok on the street even if the street consists of a nice curvy road driven with enthusiasm, if you know what I mean and I think you do, but you venture onto thin ice when you venture onto the track.

Sure a number of examples are tracked and some of these appear to be bullet proof.

But if you hang out here and other forums long enough you will read some pretty sad tales of woe regarding 996's (and other models) on the track. Cars/engines (mainly engines) that proved to not be so bullet proof.

If you are willing to risk the car/engine -- the car so you should be sure you have suitable *track* insurance to cover the car in case of an "off" -- or an engine that can go boom at any time -- and can live with the consequences of facing a big maybe a huge bill to get an engine back in the car or even the possibility if the cost to source a suitable replacement engine beyond your means then disposing of the car as a roller for maybe 20% to 25% of what you paid for the car that's up to you.

 

If you don't have a place or time to "fix" your track car you really need to rethink having a track car. A rough rule of thumb is every hour of track time can require an hour or more of wrench time before prepping the car and after dealing with any issues.

If you can't do this yourself it would be expensive to use a shop for this.

Opinions vary some but mine is you (probably) don't want a garage queen.

After a while a garage queen, a low miles used car, is just an old used car with low miles. These cars can and do develop problems related to age/lack of use.

Ideally you want to find a car that has been used regularly -- it doesn't have to have big miles on it though -- and serviced reasonably well and of course passes a used car check out with flying colors.

Even if you find such a car -- and they exist -- as you use the car problems will develop.

The general rule of thumb is to have set aside 10% of the used car's purchase price for "just in case". In the case of Porsches because they can be rather expensive to service/fix I'd bump this to 20%.

Tracking doesn't interest me in the least. (Years ago as a teenager I raced motorcycles on dirt tracks (a precursor to moto-xing and did some enduros then later when I had my first car -- a Datsun 510 -- did some auto-x events a few times every year. Got my "tracking" out of my system early.)

Different strokes for different folks but I thoroughly enjoy my Porsche cars just commuting to work in them -- 3 days a week the Boxster, 2 days a week in the Turbo (to keep the battery topped up) -- and running errands -- mainly in the Boxster -- and when family responsibilities/work schedule permit -- unfortunately they haven't for some 4+ years now -- taking off on a long road trip of several thousand miles or more.