Roller value of 996.1 C4 75K miles

I am considering a 996.1 (5 chain engine) roller. It has 75K miles, C4 model, 6 speed, in a very interesting ruby red color. Engine has knocking noise and brass / copper bearing fuzz in the oil so a rebuild is required. What would be a fair value to offer in this market? I need to be respectful of the seller.

Quotes source post: 19833575

Whatever you think the car should be worth fully repaired MINUS the repair cost to fix it. Depending on what you want to do with it, you could be looking at $10k-30k to fix the engine.

That's a hard one. Check my thread What's my 996 worth: 2001 C4 with 10k miles . I've gotten opinions anywhere from mid-20's to 50's... But I believe an average condition 75k mile car is probably somewhere in the low to mid-30's when you follow BaT. You may be able to pick up a used engine cheaper than doing a full rebuilt unless you do all the work yourself "for free". I'd budget at least 10k for this and that lands you somewhere in the low teens for the value of the roller. It also depends on condition.

The value is really your subjective value of rebuilding it. No matter what you'll be upside down in it (like most people are in their 996's) but it really doesn't matter as long as you enjoy it and like doing it. You can find motors on FB Market place up in NY for like $4-$6k (I was looking at them yesterday), just not sure what condition they are in but it's not crazy stupid expensive anymore. With the economy slowing, things are starting to come down in value. You can also find rollers less then $7K now so $10K is a lot for a car thats only worth $15-$20K all together.......and keep in mind, they could even possibly drop even more.

Quotes source post: 19834294

A lot of these cars are not selling on BaT for those numbers anymore. The bloom is off the rose.....I've been following a bunch and even 997's are hardly bring high 20's low 30's now...at least in my area of the country. Watch EBay and FB Market place for a general idea on pricing for these cars as they are true indicators of who's paying what for what model.

Quotes source post: 19835103

I think the bloom is off the rose for BaT, not these cars in particular. Too many flippers on BaT selling dubious quality cars of all kinds.

Quotes source post: 19833575

Not sure what model year you're looking at, but most of the earlier 5-chain Carrera C4 have the same market value. (see attached image) Ignore the #1 and #2 values because they only represent the super rare cars that usually show up on fine heeled auctions or museums. lol Most of the cars that people purchase are within the #3 and #4 condition. If I were in your shoes, I would look at it from the standpoint of overall condition if the car did NOT have a problematic engine. What would be the true market value based on the obvious over condition. Let's say that the car would is worth a solid $25,000 on the used market if the engine was running fine. But it's not. Therefore, what I would do is figure what the cost of rebuild will be on a 5-chain 3.4L engine if you have a reputable Porsche shop do the rebuild. What you'll find is a rebuild will cost YOU as much as the current market value (or more) of the car (based on value grade #3 or grade #4). Having a shop handle the rebuild would mean it's a wash! That is, you'll pay as much as the true value of the car. Even if you carried out the rebuild yourself and replaced all known wear items, I would suspect you'd be in it around $15,000. That would mean the "roller" would be worth about $10,000. And so, there you go.. IMHO it's worth $10,000 at best. Yes, that's still very subjective, but the way I see it.

Hey ZZ, what site has that valuation analysis? I have to check out my sister in laws Cat 1!

Quotes source post: 19835257

I like to use Hagerty since they factor in auction data in addition to dealer/private purchases and because they deal with niche cars and point out all the factors (e.g. 996 IMS bearing impact) to consider when buying. They sum things up in a simple manner easy for the average user to understand. But when I get serious about purchasing a car, I will look at local KBB, NADA, and BlackBook values too. It doesn't hurt to look at BaT data, but their graph is a bit hard to decipher.

As a statistician I find this graph quite satisfying. If you look at the range of values and how that has expanded in the last two years, it shows that the buyers are getting more sophisticated in their valuation of these cars. The data here says that the buyers, not all of them, but a growing number of them can tell if the car has real value. This makes a lot of sense considering how much information is out there, the understanding of PPIs, value of having a well-documented service history. For the 2024 year, there are approx. as many of these that sold for less than $10K as sold above $50K. Those are buyers who understand Gen 5 911.

The BaT graph gets even more helpful once you use filters to weed out outliers like GT3s and narrow it down by search terms and model year ranges. The fact that you can drill down into each data point makes it nice to get context on data points.

Quotes source post: 19835322

The things that were sold for less than $10k are things like GT3 seats, wheels, and parts cars.

I am going to pass on the car. I don't need another Porsche or another big project. I'm willing to pass on the information if any of you are interested.

Quotes source post: 19836826

Good choice imo. Understand you wanting to be respectful to the owner. Its a bad place to be for the owner, financially at a huge loss he's got to come to terms with. Tuff thing for a friend to explain to him with an offer of a few % of its original purchase value... Was in similar circumstances with a friend. Wanted to tell him you could give me the car and I wouldn't take it. Unless friend was ok with a part out, and I was younger and had the shop I use to have. Then might take a roller and part it out for a profit. Imo thats all 'less than otherwise "perfect" blown m96 rollers' are good for, a big profit part out. Or a high HP engine swap. jmo