Viewing a 2002 in the boonies (No Porsche dealer near)

I'm possibly viewing a 2002 Carrera 2 this coming weekend in a small town near my home town called Nelson. Car looks mint, and has 56,000 kms on it. Only problem is this place is small, and the closest Porsche dealers are about 600 kms away in either Vancouver or Calgary. I'm not even sure if there is a shop in this place that could do a PPI?! Any ideas for situations like this? Thanks.

you could bring your own equipment and do a mini-PPI on the spot. Bring: a friend (always good to have a second set of eyes, hands, and an unbiased mind :-) flashlight jack stands and jack simple tool kit. duramatic to check for codes, over revs, etc. a compression testor. You'll need an allen set to get the coil paks off and a sparkplug socket. should bring a torque wrench to tighten them back up. you can drop the oil filter can and inspect the oil filter -- you will not loose too much oil -- bring a quart to re-fill. bring an infrared thermometer -- good for checking exhaust temps per cylinder as well as AC temp, coolant hoses. I'm sure there are other things that you can check easily. Mike

Don't buy it without PPI!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Work something out or walk on the deal. Offer to give them the PPI if they bring it somewhere(your choice) and you don't buy the car. Sorta share the time and cost.

I could give the car a real good once over, but I have no compression tester, or durametric, so that won't work. To drive to the nearest Porsche facility would be about 7-8 hours, which I'm pretty sure will not be likely. I trying to see if anyone locally in Nelson would be fit to give it a PPI even though they are likely not Porsche certified.

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I don't consider Porsche dealers to be the best for a PPI. There must be some foreign/german auto repair shop somewhere in the area that could do a solid PPI.

Been scouring the google, but can't seen to find anything solid.

here is another thing to consider...since there are no shops to perform the PPI, where has the owner been going for maintenance. Check that history before doing anything.

I had a dealer do the PPI on my car and they did a very lousy job and were dishonest to boot. I vote for a good indy.

Is it cheap enough to pull the trigger without PPI? With durametric you'd get most of it out of the way, then leaks around where trans meets the block and see if the coolant is low. I bought my car w/o a PPI, but it was at a Porsche dealer for 60K maintenance 2 months prior.

I think the asking price is fair ($28,900 Canadian)...I would of course like to get it for less than that. It's a 2002 with 56,000 kilometres (34,800 miles) Seal grey on black full leather, 18" wheels. I'll be speaking with the owner via phone shortly, but it looks as though he purchased and had it serviced by Weissach in Vancouver B.C.

Would at the very least want to hook up a Durametric to read any codes and over revs.

Write up from owner below. I also got a scan of the RMS seal replacement invoice. I might have someone to view the car as well...a guy with rally and Porsche history who lives in Nelson. Original window sticker said the car was $90,000. **Here is the data on my car. It is more or less a garage queen as you can see from the mileage. There are no outstanding repairs per your inquiry. Clutch has not been done but may go a long ways yet as the car is basically only highway driven. This was the dealer's opinion last time I was there a couple of weeks ago. All servicing is up to date. At each oil change the used oil is sampled for wear and contaminants. The closest dealer is in Spokane and we sue them regularly. I also have an independent shop there I use. I am not sure about this weekend. I was heading out of town to pick up my new Porsche. However if you were coming to Nelson and interested, I can make arrangements for you to see the car. I have a couple of dealers who have made offers on it and I'm looking to move the car quickly, hence the price. This is way more car than most you see advertised for lots more money. The car is well optioned with a gorgeous full leather interior. Far different than most 996s. The factory sport suspension makes the car handle terrifically. Attached are a number of photos. Also attached is a copy of the build sheet. The car is excellent condition. There are no body dings or stone ships. It has 3m clear bra on the front end and rear quarter panels. It is garage kept and only summer driven. Appearance is immaculate except for a small blemish on the one headlight as seen in one of the photos. I haven't been able to find an inexpensive way to repair it. Otherwise Mileage is 56,364 km. Car had 50,000 km. service in March 2011 Brake rotors and Pads were done at 30,000 km. Rear main seal was done under warranty (copy attached) Tires are Michelin Sport Rib: 5/32 front; 7/32 rear tread remaining Complete records and invoices from date of purchase are available Purchased privately from the first owner (a friend) in 2006 Car runs and drives great This is a great car. An awful lot of car for the money. Not sure what else I can tell you. I can send high resolution photos if you want to see finish etc I more detail. Let me know what your thoughts are and if we should perhaps talk further. **

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Hooger raises a good point. With no nearby Porsche dealer I would question the car's servicing. If there's no place qualified to do a PPI you either have to do without -- not recommended -- or do one yourself which means it will almost certainly be not as good as a PPI. The car is a big risk. Is there no car available closer to you and closer to well, with no Porsche dealer nearby I have to say it: closer to civilization? Apologies to all who live in the boonies but while there are some advantages I'm sure not having a handy/nearby Porsche dealer is a big negative imho. If you want some ideas on what you can do to do a PPI at some level just ask and I'll lay out what I would do. You can use this as a starting point. Sincerely, Macster.

I would prefer a local car, and have looked at a few, but they had much higher kms... more like double, and the shape wasn't up to par with the asking price IMHO. That and the ones locally are about $32-38,000 for the same car because most people in Calgary have $$ and will just pay what is asked in most cases, at least that is what I see.

I was looking at a car in penticton and i was referred to kelowna as being the closest for a ppi. Spokane may truly be you best bet. As for living in the boonies...you all would die if you knew what the highways were like in the nelson area. Truly spectacular. If you end up getting her or another, im sure youll be loving life zipping over to rossland and castlegar and osoyoos and such!

I was looking at a car in penticton and i was referred to kelowna as being the closest for a ppi. Spokane may truly be you best bet. As for living in the boonies...you all would die if you knew what the highways were like in the nelson area. Truly spectacular. If you end up getting her or another, im sure youll be loving life zipping over to rossland and castlegar and osoyoos and such! Or you could zip to van for a couple days and pick one up with full ppi by either the fealers or the many indies, and drive home. Probably save you a couple thousand too.

porsche dealer PPI is A JOKE ! Do your own research and you will have a much better idea. PPI is only an exterior inspection, all other compression oil filter and stuff will cost you extra a lot of extra. count $1000 if you want to do it all with coolant compression , alignment. you can never be sure.. trust your guts. if the seller is not clean then walk away, people usually are what they look like. I bought my car to the nicest guy, still was scared but in the end, he was the nicest guy indeed the ppi on my car was clean but still they could not detect an alignment completely out of whack. I assume they did not even drive the car at all. bring as much knowledge and tools the seller if willing to accept. Still hard to convince a seller to start putting his car into piece unless he think you are really serious buyer.

Ha, ha, I know very well what the roads are like around Nelson, as I come from a town not far from there (Nakusp) and spent my youth booting around on those roads in a 944. The guy seems a very nice guy, and sent me a tonne of stuff on the car. He seems like the type who is **** retentive about the car and gets everything done no matter what the cost is. I think I have sourced a couple places who can give it a good once over...one is a VW and Audi specialist who has experience with 911's, and the other guy is an old rally guy who also has Porsche experience. Hopefully one of these will work.

Reading some of these threads reminds me of why, when I sell, I just trade the cars in. Sure you lose a few grand, but it's worth it. This guy's car is being shot down, sight unseen, on the basis of where he lives and he's only asking $29k! LOL To the OP I would say you are on the right track. Go with your gut, do your own inspection, and try to get a local enough specialist to have a look. The deal sounds pretty good, the seller sounds honest, and we're not talking about a Bugatti for goodness sake. I suspect that unless a car were maintained with video taped documentation by the Porsche museum, and on sale for 70% under market, folks on forums would recommend "proceed with caution!" Exaggerating a bit for sure, but the caution flags do tend to get a bit crazy

OP If you can't take the car to an indy, bring an indy to the car...

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I hope that's a typo and you meant "use". I got a chuckle.

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Seems like your getting more info on the car which appears to be easing your concerns. It is easier for me to say "walk away" because the 1st rule of used car buying is there is always another car. I'm still a bit leery of this car because in some cases it seems to good to be true. Excellent servicing/low miles/"garage queen" and a below (if I didn't miss something) below market price. You can do your own PPI to some level. Arrange to visit the car with it dead cold. Be sure A/C is off. (You can check this later.) When you turn the key on be sure all warning lights come on -- CEL particularly but all are important! -- and go off when you start the engine. Let the engine idle. Listen to the engine as it idles and warms up. Let the engine idle for 10 minutes or so. As it does walk around the car looking at the body panel fits, paint finish but always listen to the engine. After the 10 minutes have passed have the seller take you on a test ride. The route wants to be 15 miles long and such the seller can drive the car in a variety of scenarios that demo the car/engine runs/behaves in all situations. Once the engine is fully up to temp, have the seller run up through the gears, starting from say 2nd and with full throttle going up to 3rd then upshifting and keeping the pedal down. You want to be sure the engine pulls good and smooth from idle to red line. Afterwards be sure the engine settles down in to a smooth idle. Back at the starting point you take the car out and drive it over the same route, driving it the same way. Back after the test drive, then you give the car a thorough used car check out. Assume nothing works until you have verified it works. Now here's one reason why. Say the brake light doesn't work or there's some other apparently minor issue. No biggie you think but this could arise from the car being eaten up from mice. Maybe the car spends the entire winter garaged while the owner is in Florida? If after you have done all the above and you believe you can buy the car then have a PPI done. Now of course, you can't. But can you have a shop/garage in town then lift the car up in the air so you can examine the car from underneath? You want to look for any signs of fluid leaks, damage, repairs: new/old fasteners, one side's suspension newer than the other side's, uneven tire wear, the list is huge. But you do what you can. Look at engine seals, gaskets, tranny seals, including the hard to see shifter shaft seals that come from the side of the tranny case, the CV boots, steering lines, steering rack, and so on. Every hydraulic line, hose, fitting, connection, gasket or seal wants to be viewed for any signs of a leak. Take a bright flash light and a mirror on a stick/swivel. You want to peer into places you can see otherwise, or unless you are able to remove the underbody panels/covers. Unless you have I guess a Durametric what you can't do is read the DME overrev counters to assure yourself the owner isn't selling the car because he missed a shift a while back. The longish test drive if has occurred gives time for any damage from this to make itself known. You want to make sure that CEL bulb works but stays dark once it goes off at engine start. You also do not have the engine run time in hours, decimal hours so without this you can't do the math and see what is the average speed. Around 30mph is average, though if the car was truly a highway only car the average speed might be higher. You also can't, at least easily, have the oil filter housing dropped and its oil and filter element checked for scary bits. Sure, the owner has the oil analyzed but serious internal engine problems while rare do not give much warning. They can easily come on between oil change intervals. Do the above or make up your own but always keep this in mind: There is always another car. Sincerely, Macster.

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I tend to agree with this. Before I bought my car, I got a PPI from a major and well known Porsche dealer around the area. They handed me an itemized inspection list afterwards of the things they did. I started to laugh and just shook my head. I attribute a "general" PPI to a home inspection. There are a lot of things you can check yourself fairly easily if you know what to look for. And that's the key, most avg buyers don't really know all the things to check and look for. As Philoo indicated, if you want a deeper inspection, it will cost you and even then, you're inspector is not going to crack the tranny housing and such, just like you don't expect home inspectors to tear through drywall to see what's behind it. However for the avg buyer, I still think a PPI is good to have.

Ok. Lots of good advice here. Also, recognise that you are buying a ten-year-old used car. You cannot free yourself from all risk. This is why one of the best cars on the planet is available to you for a mere $29,000. There are members here who crossed all t's and dotted all i's and had a major catastrophe shortly after purchase. And there are guys like me that did minimal due diligence (a PPI at an arms length Porsche dealer) and have experienced nothing but bliss for two years. Do the amount of work that will let you sleep at night, whether or not that results in you buying the car, and recognise that other members would have done differently. To each their own. It's a different story up in Canada. I want to agree with Macster that there is always another car, but it just isn't the case up here. I searched for months and only found two cars that met my criteria. I lost one and bought the second. Good luck. Enjoy the drive.

I also just found out that the owner has the car registered to his business, so if I'm interested I will have to pay HST of 12% on top of the price, which I'm not so keen on. I'd also have to pay PST when I go to register the car here in AB, plus have an out of Province inspection so that puts the car over my set budget of $30,000. I wish it was a case of there will be another one, but you are right Targatoo, that's just not the case.

I don't know if it was brought up, but where would YOU have a Porsche serviced if you bought one? Is there someplace within tow distance if you have a problem?

I have a number of indy places here in Calgary to choose from.

There are a bunch of Indies near my house as well, but I dang sure would not take my Porsche to them.....

That's unfortunate. We have a couple of great Indy shops here.

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The tax issue is the sellers problem to solve for you (in terms of a reduced price), unless he has another buyer lined up. I've never heard of this and wonder if there's a way around it. Usually, an item sold by a business direct to a customer in another province is not required to charge tax in the province of sale, but the buyer would be required to pay tax upon receipt of the item. Not a tax lawyer, but if my logic holds true you could have the car shipped across the interprovincial border for less than the tax.

Well, looks like I'm on the hunt again. Owner and I couldn't come to some sort of agreement on the 12% tax, so he is taking it to the dealership he has purchased his new Porsche at and they are going to buy it.

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Wouldn't he actually be losing more money that way? I would think the stealership would offer even less considering he already bought his new Porsche already.

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Keep an eye on that dealer and that car without tipping you are interested in the car. You might still be able to buy it and for a price you can live with. Sincerely, Macster.

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Maybe. Maybe not. Depends upon how good a customer he is. I've heard second hand some customers because they buy a lot of cars get treated rather well when it comes to trade ins and consignment sales and such. With my 3rd Porsche I thought I was a "good" customer but I've attended a few new car/model intros and run into *good* customers. One owner drives a new Turbo and has other Porsches in his garage that his family members drive. One is a child who drives a Cayman. I spotted the Cayman and asked about it and thus learned a bit of history. Seems it was time to replace the Cayman with something a bit more special and the Cayman was left at the dealer to sell while the new car on order came in. In the meantime the child was given dad's Turbo to drive while dad I guess had to make do with the Panamera or Cayenne. I had my eye on the Cayman but it was sold before it even made it through the used car processing phase. In another case I came across a very low miles 996. When I asked about this car's history the salesman told me it was traded in by a woman who ordered a new Porsche and while she was waiting for the new car she bought the 996 to use in the meantime. When the new car arrived she then traded in the slightly used 996. When I expressed some surprise at this the salesman offered that the woman was a very good customer and he wished he had more like her. One more. I spotted a Cayman R at a dealer and looked at it since I was told it was a special order that the buyer had had a change of heart and the car was being offered at a discount. I wondered why and the salesman told me the car had been ordered by someone who wanted it for track use only so it can been ordered with no A/C. Bummer and a no sale to me. When I asked the saleman why the dealer had allowed this buyer to change his mind and leave the dealer holding the bag with a difficult car to sell I was told because he had bought another new Porsche that while I wasn't told which model I gathered it was an even more expensive one than the R, and was this wasn't his first Porsche nor was it expected to be his last. IOWs, another very good customer. Sincerely, Macster.

Dealership offered him $1000 less than his asking price, so I guess he's going that way to make things easier. Plus he needs it gone for garage space for the new whip.

That gives a good marker for pricing. Looks like $29k was a great price, if a dealer thinks they can turn a profit on it. Too bad. Same kind of bad luck happened to me when I found a good car at a good price. The seller sold it to someone else because the buyer was local and the transaction easier. No matter, I found my dream car the next week. Keep looking.

I paid $29k for my 1999 with 55k miles in 2005......

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In Canada? It's a different market. Canadian prices are influenced by those in the States, but not equal. There was no way you could get that price in 2005 up here. Many guys went down and scooped up bargains like that, imported them and then that started to drive prices downward. But the exchange fluctuation, duties, taxes, availability, etc means that used Porsches generally are more expensive up here.

Ah....I did not pay attention.

I paid $39k for my 2000 in '07! Prices have come WAY down since then - whatever. It's not an investment, it's a sports car! You will find another car. Or, like others have said, watch that dealer to see if they turn around and advertise it. Could be they will just put it in a wholesale auction and you wont see it again. That's what most dealers do to cars that are that old. Good hunting!

Fabian, just don't get in to big of a hurry cause there's Great Deals to be had (though living out of the US may make a lil' bit of difference). But, I promise you if you're patient you'll be able to get the perfect car for you (you'll know it when you see it believe me)! jmo

Yeah, I'm in no hurry. Just too bad because it was mint. I viewed it yesterday and it didn't have a mark! Just couldn't get a deal that aligned to my liking, so he took it to the dealer today. Guess it doesn't really matter now as I took a spill on my ATV earlier today, and it looks like shoulder surgery for me, and no driving for a couple months

Sorry to hear that. I sold all my bikes after my last wreck & bought my car in order to get my speed fix. Get wll soon!

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Dang, Fabian man I hate that for you! We live down in the South (La., you're probably wondering what state that's in, right! Lol) we have 4 4-wheelers & we pretty much ride them everywhere around here but they can be Very Dangerous. (matter of fact here locally there's been a couple of deaths from accidents within the last month, alcohol related) Glad to hear you're still alive, but man surgery that had to have been a pretty bad accident. Get Well & keep us informed!

It was actually a slow speed tip over on a muddy switchback, and it was just the way I landed...feel kinda dumb actually. I've been riding for over 20 years and am pretty skilled, it was just one of those fluke things. It's frustrating more than everything. Now I'll have my wife driving me around for a while as my Tacoma is a manual. Oh well, no crying over spilled milk I guess. Funny thing is I sold my YZ450 three weeks ago because I figured I would be safer riding my LT-Z400...guess I was wrong.

Hope you heal up fast and then find the Porsche and price you're looking for.