Can you help me decide if this is a terrible buy..

Hi folks, I'm new around here so please let me know if I'm out of place. I'm looking at a 2001 Porsche 911 Carrera convertible with 58,000 miles. The Carfax is a bit odd as it jumps from 2001 to 2009 when the first owner who drove it 4,131/yr finally shows a service. It was sold in 2010 to its second owner who drove it 782 mi/yr until it was purchased by the dealer in 2021. The carfax shows no accidents, 2 owners and 5 service records. It comes with the removable hard top. There are no service records to speak of. I am assuming IMS has not been done. The car itself is in good cosmetic shape and it is in the color combo that I have been looking for. I did take it for a pre-purchase inspection which showed: 0% brakes left in front and 25% in the rear. Brake fluid needs change, windshield washer pump needs to go, the RR wheel was apparently repaired at some point (welded), HVAC throws out pieces of foam at times, smells slightly moldy inside and it has 4 SNOW tires with little tread left. I got an estimate for $4K to sort out all of its issues and put on four all-season tires. The listing price is 27K and I was able to bring it down to $26K. They are telling me they can get at least 26 at auction so will no lower it although I showed them the inspection report and the work that would need to be done. I know the market is pretty high right now and I don't want to miss a potentially good local deal, so I wanted to get some opinions from others to see if I should definitely walk away from this car or take a chance on it. The good thing is that I've had a chance to test drive it and see it in person vs other deals I'm looking at which are remote and would involve shipping. Thanks for any advice to a first time Porsche buyer!

OP - Welcome and good luck with your search. What area are you in? Is this car a 6 speed? What color, wheels, etc? Any options worth note? $26k seems pretty steep for a .1 cabrio unless the car has LSD, great color, mint interior/paint and such. IMS, clutch, brakes, good tires are gonna be more like $6k+. Broken wheel and heater blend door foam, mold smell (possible the ragtop?) are not great signs of a well-kept, garaged car.

The biggest concern would be potential lack of routine fluid changes. I would try to find out who the original owner was and see if you can find out what was done.

The color is forest metallic green with tan interior. It's an auto with tip (I know). I am in Ohio area. I wouldn't say there are any notable options on it, it's a RWD, power seats, comes with the hardtop (in my search many of cabs have had the hardtop delete). The interior is not mint but no major issues either. I would think this car should be worth in the low 20s but like I said, in the current market I wonder if they have appreciated for the foreseeable future as I am not finding many good condition 996's with low mileage at much lower price. Thanks for the concerns and the fluids! Unfortunately the original owner is now far removed from me so I wouldn't have any way of finding out.

I haven't searched the market in a while, but a Cabrio auto is going to be lower than others. Forest green is a nice color, and better than your typical silver/black. I would look at it like this: how much can you afford to spend? Because it won't cost you just $26k. You've already identified that it will cost you $30k-32k, all in, once you get the issues that you know of sorted. Unknown issues could put you anywhere from $33k - 52k (engine rebuild). So, the question is, what is the probability that you currently know all issues with this particular car, or that there are other, potentially major and costly, unknowns? No brakes and bald winter tires (now, at the end of the summer) means that it wasn't taken care of at all, and that it's been sitting or has been with the dealer for 6-8 months minimum. The dealer doesn't care about it either, or they would have at least changed the brake pads as part of their prep for sale. It's not hard and surely their service people could have handled it, and I can't imaging them being okay selling a car with no brakes and bald tires. These cars, when well prepped for sale, can sell for good premium, just look at Bring A Trailer. The mold smell would be seriously concerning. It might be the top, and a clean will fix it, but mold is the kind of thing that you could pursue forever and never be rid of. Was the car flooded at some point? Cabrio top drains can get plugged and will flood the cabin leading to water and mold in the carpet. There's certainly no indication that prior owners would have shown enough care to clean the drains, or that the dealer would have done anything other than a superficial clean to hide it. Brake fluid needs changed, and given the apparent care of the car overall, do you think oil was regularly changed? I wouldn't. So what's the actual life expectancy of the engine? Overall, I would rate the chances of finding new and exciting (expensive) issues with this car as pretty high. So, if this car will ultimately cost you $32-$50k, why not just look for another car, which seems well sorted and taken care of, for somewhere in the low $30's? It will be more upfront, but it might be much less in the long run. Which is why I ask, how much can you afford to spend? If you can only afford $26k-30k, then this is not the car for you at this time. If you can afford more, find a better car. Of course maybe you know everything and this car is a great deal. I personally wouldn't regret passing on what might have been a great deal, when it also might have been a money pit. All of that said, I tend to be pretty conservative with respect to risk, so I may have missed out on more than my share of great deals. If you are more risk tolerant, go for it!

Do you have your heart set on a moldy cabrio with an automatic? If not, there�s plenty of nice 996s out there. You just have to be patient. Good luck with whatever you decide.

Jdbornem,very good points,well written.

Great color but otherwise this car is a hard NO. A Tip Cab is the least expensive combination and should never command a premium. This car has not been well maintained and its next owner will quickly find out just how expensive a 996 can be. Keep looking for a better 996, they are out there.

That�s a terrible buy. Others have covered the relevant points so just chiming in with the headline�

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Ok this made me chuckle but... You're not wrong.

I would be very concerned that there are no service records. I would be very concerned that there are no pads left. What this tells me is there has been little service performed, few oil changes, which means a boat load of potential problems which means a lot of future costs. Not a problem if you love the car and want to keep it until you can't drive it any more, and are willing to potentially kick in 20-30k for an engine rebuild. But what if there is a 996 carbrio with service records out there? I suspect there is. But it's easy being an arm chair QB. At the very least get an in depth PPI performed with a bore scope to eliminate that variable.

Well, this has been extremely helpful and you have all far surpassed my expectations of posting on this forum. Thank you all for helping me avoid a costly and potentially moldy mistake, particular thanks to jdbornem for the great write-up which really clarified every bit of this decision! I'm ashamed to say I never learned how to drive a stick, I'm not sure a Porsche is a good first car to learn with. I'll increase my budget and look for some automatic 996s and possibly 997s in better shape and hopefully the tiptronic/PDKs will save me some money over the manuals.

Sticks are a blast to drive and it won't take you long to learn it, trust me. Take a friend who knows how to drive a stick and have them test drive with you in it. Just gotta get in and try it and after a bit, you won't look back. However if you are going to DD the car in traffic, a manual is not fun. Ask me how I know: I live in Seattle

My thumbs shift a lot faster and easier than my right hand. My left leg is happier too. I stopped buying manuals a long long time ago and never regretted it.

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^^^ ... I suppose whatever works for you is fine, but to me a �sports car� has a manual transmission - end of story. All this being said, this car is priced way high for what it is...

I have both a manual 996 and a PDK 997.2 with paddle shifters. Though they drive and feel very different, both transmissions deliver the true Porsche experience when driven as they should be.

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Hey, if you want a cab with a tip then that's what you should look for. As we all have suggested in many ways, there are very good examples of 996s in great shape with service records that demonstrate what has been done to the car and what hasn't. A complete PPI from an experienced Porsche Indy should be performed including a bore scope to check for bore scoring. At the end of the day the 996 is one of the most awesome cars to own and drive. I have had my 02 since 02 and will never get rid of it. But there are issues that can occur with the 996 just like any car that can easily be mitigated thru the proper service. 1. Bore Scoring: more oil changes the better. Porsche made a HUGE mistake in suggesting a 15k oil change. What this means is that if the car is 20 years old and it has 90k miles, there is a very good chance that the car only had 6 oil changes in 20 years. Thats a bore scoring nightmare waiting to happen. Solution: IMHO it should be at least 2x a year, pre winter and spring. If the car is being tracked, the oil should be changed after every event. Fresh oil is the lifeblood of any engine. 2. IMSB: intermediate shaft bearing may go, which will destroy the engine. Solution: Easy fix with IMSB solution or retro kit. 3. AOS: Air oil separator is frail and WILL go causing multiple problems in the engine. Solution: Replace with UAOS which is a better product. 4. Water Pump: the water pump will eventually go, in particular, the fan blades will break working its way thru the engine which will cause it to fail. Solution: replace the water pump with a new OEM water pump. Porsche says 50k miles, I would consider doing it at 30k since its a cheap part. Many more service items to look at such as to make sure that fuel injectors, spark plugs, ignition coils, and MAF sensors have been replaced at the proper intervals, but you get the idea. You will know when you find the right 996. It's out there for you.

I would walk away from a car smelling like mold. I bought an 83 944 many years ago that sat in a garage for 4 years. The seats had mold on them as well as the carpet and roof liner. I owned that car for 14 years and never could completely get the mold smell out of it. As others have stated, it sounds like the car was not cared for in several years. Walk away - it will become even more of a money pit than the usual 996 money pit.

That is definitely a bad buy at that price, minor neglected items could mean bigger neglected items. For future reference foam in the vents isn't a huge deal, seems to happen all the time and its a relatively easy fix if you are willing to do a little work and make one small cut that no one will ever see. For reference if I were to list my car I would list it around $30k and its had major items addressed, has less miles and is cab so you can certainly find better cars/value.

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If you have the mental strength to write that sentence you have the mental strength to learn stick in a 911. I applaud you for your vulnerability, it's a rare trait. (That said if you can learn stick in a not-911, that's probably ideal, but I have a "run what you brung" mentality.)

You should run away from this car. Buy a tip cab if you want, but find one in better condition. Eventually learn how to drive a manual...even if you never buy a manual 911, a real car person should know how to drive manual. They really are more fun to drive...until you hit stop and go traffic. I wouldn't turn down an inexpensive tip coupe, but that would be an addition to my fleet, not a replacement for my manual coupe.

You: You Tube

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I have a 2000 C2 tip. I also bought a blob eye Sti about 6 months ago and taught myself to drive stick after watching YouTube (there are a lot of great tutorials. The guy from the smoking tire did a good one). If I could only have one sports car I think it should be a stick shift. My C2 is well sorted and just doesn�t make sense to get rid of it to get another one that is a 6 speed especially when I have that itch with the subbie. If you�re gonna get a 996 and it�s your only toy I would encourage you to get a 6 speed and just learn. It isn�t super hard. You get the hang of it. But if for whatever reason you want a tip cab it�s YOUR money and you do you king

I taught 3 of my kids stick on my 996! Taught a gf on a 73 240z. Not hard just patience. I had a tip turbo. Hated it. The tip that is the turbo was great. I have a stick turbo now and LOVE it! My oldest son and youngest son both drive sticks. Saab and Mazda. My oldest daughter can drive one now but chooses not to. The youngest well shes literally a rocket scientist and does not even want to learn. Oh well! My current gf will drive the Pcar but she prefers me to drive since we are almost always together. Take the time to learn stick. Feel and feather that clutch and it will come to you quickly. Like an hour of practice.

With how inflated 911 prices are right now, I would really consider alternative cars that offer similar or better driving experiences without the incredible risk of complete engine failure. Spending $20k plus on a 996 that has obviously been neglected would be a huge red flag for me. If you need an automatic, fun convertible with occasional back seats I'd go buy a BMW 128i or similar. No big turbo issues, probably faster, sounds nice and probably half the price or less.

To the OP; it�s never to late to learn stick. I more or less taught myself in a 944 at the age of 34. Nothing wrong with an auto but don�t let lack of knowledge stop you. also, I would think a questionable auto can would be a $20k car�

Following up on some of the above comments about learning stick.. I am now looking at the 996 Turbos but feeling some hesitation since I'm not comfortable with a manual. Is it too risky/dangerous to learn to drive stick on a 996 Turbo as my first manual?

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i don�t think so�as long as you aren�t slow on the uptake and burn out a clutch I don�t see much of an issue. I would just watch many YouTube videos on how clutches work and how to drive one so you don�t do anything bad like over rev the engine or lug it

Any 6-speeds on Turo?

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No you can pretty much learn stick on anything, the hardest part is getting moving anyway in which case you won't be moving very fast. Taking off is the hardest part, then getting use to it when you are stopped on a hill.

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This is the only item you list that's not of concern - not because you want to see those pieces of foam, but rather because all 996s do this. A fix is possible, though not trivial.