Is warranty a realistic option?

I'm thinking more about the 2003-2008 range with under 70k miles rather than the 1999 with 125k miles. I realize that if you could get a warranty on any 996, it would be fairly expensive but still a fraction of the cost of a new engine over 5 years and maybe worth a little bit of peace of mind in case of a catastrophic failure. Just wondering if anyone has paid for a warranty on a > 10 year old car and what your experiences were. If anyone has ever tried to make a claim, what was your experience? FWIW (and given my experiences with most insurance companies), I think they would probably take your money for the coverage but then find some reason to not honor any warranty claim, but I'm really just wondering if anyone has tried.

Basically the answer is no, warranty is not a realistic option for a 996. You should really just wait until you can afford a 2009 or newer, or just very carefully choose a 996 that has great records and was owned by a car/Porsche enthusiast. When I sold my 2002 recently to a Rennlister for less than $14k it had 124k miles on it but also came with $16k in receipts for the past 3 years. So the buyer knew what was done and what was not done and could make an informed decision. Since a roller is worth $5k...hard to go wrong at that pricing. Do the pre-purchase inspection, take it on a LONG test drive, that's all you can do. There are ZERO guarantees with ANY used vehicle that is 15-20 years old.

Just out of curiosity, what would you say a good monthly warranty rate is if the warranty only covered catastrophic failure?

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I may have a solution to your dilemma. My pristine Porsche year 1999 with 75 K miles is for sale on the Market Place. PM if interested

Personally, I would rather just take the $5,000 (made up number, obv,) and park it in a broken Porsche fund rather than hand it over to a warranty company "just in case the one issue I happen to have is an engine failure." I can almost promise you you'll have way more "wear & tear" issues that a warranty won't even cover before you see the engine go. This isn't even counting the money that most of us tend to spend on refreshing the car after purchase. Things like worn suspension components, rubber, brakes, etc. If you do get quotes I'd be interested in hearing what they are and what they cover. Just like anything - I've heard both overwhelmingly positive and negative reviews of these companies. It could be nice to get some fresh data if you're going to go about doing the research. Good luck!

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I don't really know. I've seen plenty of warranties offered on used cars from dealers (even 996s) and, IIRC, they are usually in the 3k range but I don't know what they cover or what the restrictions are (or if they would actually cover anything). I don't have any real experience with warranties (besides on new cars), which is why I ask. Just spitballing with simple numbers for the sake of conversation, let's say in the first 5 years/50k miles of ownership, somewhere around 15% of owners have some sudden issue that causes a complete engine replacement at a general cost of $20k per owner. With those completely made up numbers, for a large enough insurance group it would take about $3k per owner to cover all of the catastrophic cases. Would around $3k for 5 years be worth it to _know_ that your engine is safe if the worst happens? I don't know. I do know that some people are absolutely terrified to buy a 996 or early 997 because of the possibility that their car might, out-of-the-blue, be near worthless without a new engine and there _is_ some definite benefit to being able to drive it knowing that it's not a huge deal if it happens. Disclaimer: I have no ideas if any of the numbers I used are close to realistic.

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I get where you're coming from but we're going to be spending money on those things regardless and in most performance cars they are going to be in the same price range. Yeah, I've some positive and negative reviews and I think having the situation where your engine is toast and they find a way to _not_ cover it would be a double whammy. I called fairly recently about a 2007 base 997 with 60k miles and Endurance quoted $3900 for 4 years/48k miles but that was their "top" plan that covered pretty much everything. I wanted to get quotes for the different plans but he was being real "sales-guy"-ish and I didn't have time to deal with it when he called.

What would Tavarish say?

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�I am the warranty.� I�ve been saying for years, �Why would I want to pay for a warranty? I always void warranties!�

3rd party warranties are junk and they always find some way to weasel out of paying up. They are like taking insurance on a blackjack table. Read the fine print as they tend to take a no touch stance on any pre-existing manufacturer fault/recommendedation I.e. ims which is what you probably want the coverage for anyway.

Also, if anybody does get an after market warranty, make sure you understand the organization who is backing the warranty. I once bought a new VW, got the extended warranty, but didn't read the fine print. It was a "dealer" warranty, not a VW warranty, so when the dealer went out of business it was useless paper and VW as a company would not uphold the warranty.

I have no personal experience with them, and I think it's right to be highly suspicious and selective regarding third party warranties, but I know from posts on other forums (from users I trust) that there are some good warranties out there. I'll try to post a link later if I can find it, but I remember specifically somebody buying an older Mercedes CL model that was well known to be prone to very expensive maintenance issues (I think air suspension was one of the problem areas) and he ended up saving a lot of money by buying the warranty. Wish I could recall the name of the warranty provider and the details, but if you research, you may find it isn't as ridiculous an option as it seems.

On a positive note, I had a very good experience with the Hendrick Autoguard warranty. I bought a 3 year, 36k miles warranty when I bought my 996 in 2015 at Hendrick Porsche in Charlotte NC. I paid 2k$ for the warranty that was used to replace the engine mounts and a bad wheel bearing. All work were performed at the Porsche dealership and I had the pleasant surprise to see that for the bearing change they also paid for the 4 wheel alignment. Overall I probably used it for 1300$ versus my initial investment of 2000$ because I had to sell my car but the very good point was that the warranty was transferred to the new owner (I paid 50$ for that). I enjoyed my ownership knowing that it would cover an engine failure.

I've investigated a good many of the warranty providers I could find and, to be honest, you can find numbers of really terrible reviews for every single one of them (even the ones mentioned positively in threads I could find on rennlist). Nearly all of them are for denying claims that often seem like valid claims that should be covered. I'm just not sure there is a better way to research this since even the "customer reviews" sites seem to be filled with lots of people who give 5 stars for "easy to make payment" ( Well, that's effing worthless feedback) and/or possibly fake reviews boosting the scores.

I'm curious what you guys would think would make a good warranty for our 996s consist of. A warranty specifically for just covering the engine? What kind of responsibilities would you say are acceptable on the policy holder's part? Should the policy holder be expected to have their engine pre-qualified for coverage? Send in annual oil analysis results? Maintenance requirements?

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Who knows? I can't speak for everyone but I have no problem handling a thousand or two here and there for problems that pop up...something like addressing suspension issues. Even if I can afford it, a single > $20k expense is a lot harder to stomach. FWIW, most warranty companies do offer different levels of coverage and from my anecdotal observations, it seems that the ones that pay for the "everything" plans tend to have an easier time getting issues covered. Yes on pre-inspection. Honestly, I wouldn't mind at all having coverage where I had to have it inspected when I started to make sure that something hasn't already made any claims null. I've heard so many horror stories of claims being denied from some "previously existing" problem that could've saved them from spending money on a warranty plan that was never valid. On oil analysis results, if the car gets thoroughly inspected and it turns up nothing on plan start, I would think any engine brickage that came up later would be a valid claim. Of course, I'm no actuary and don't have any real statistics on the numbers we're talking about here. I don't feel like it's _too_ out of the question that an affordable plan should be able to cover a "worst case scenario" here but maybe it's just not doable. I'm sure there is a valid reason (besides simply greed) that warranty companies get a bad rep.

Your thread intrigues me. It has me thinking about the potential risks for both sides of the agreement. One thing that concerns me is if a warranty company covers the Porsches with M96, the owners of the cars actually have an incentive to let their engines fail. That can bankrupt a warranty company. There's no question warranty companies have to worry about fraudulent claims.