Should I go ahead with purchase? 996 4S buying advice

Hi all, I posted a week or so back about a 996 4S that I was debating whether to get a PPI on. It ended up going to another buyer before It could make it to it's scheduled appointment but the then buyer walked back on the offer after finding a car local to him. Long story short it's up for grabs again and I'm thinking of going through with it but I need a sanity check from the more experienced members of this forum. Here are the quick footnotes of the car: 3 owners. Originally bought and driven on the East Coast until it was relocated to Oregon 98K miles with a limited service history available, but I have record of major service items being completed relatively recently (including IMS, RMS, Clutch, and AOS) Car had a partial PPI done (just putting up on a lift and digging through the ECU) and it was found the water pump needs replacing soon but otherwise came back clean. I'm having a borescope and compression test completed later this week which will ultimately determine whether the car's engine is a grenade or not The carfax shows a collision on the driver side door early on in it's ownership but there is no physical evidence of damage (possibly a red flag since I can't examine the car myself but it wasn't brought up in the aforementioned PPI) Seller wants 32.8K (private party) Manual transmission With these facts, would you guys consider buying this car or should I pass? If so, what would you offer for it? Nothing is set in stone yet so be brutally honest if I should pass or not. Sorry that I do not have pictures to share.

Get the water pump done asap. Maybe you can get the owner to do it while you are having the scope done. It's a cheap part but will grenade the engine if those fins shatter. IMHO, it's not what was just done to the car with major service as of late, it's the potential lack of service by the previous owners that are the problem. Lack of service records may mean lack of service, which may mean very few oil changes, which may mean future engine problems and in particular, bore scoring. The 15k oil changes are hugely too infrequent and a recipe for early engine disaster. As such, make sure your bore scoping is thorough and exhaustive to see what you got. If everything looks good, then you can celebrate. If it looks bad, you can renegotiate a better price. The 996 is a truly awesome car. Have had mine for almost 20 years with no plans to ever sell it. Good luck with the final steps in the purchase.

My opinion-compression test is of limited use, unless a cylinder is bad and most likely would already have been noticed. Bottom scope of bores and sump inspection are what you need to help assess the engine condition. UOAs would’ve been icing. Keep in mind a little scoring/slight marking of the walls, for a 100,000 mile motor, might not be a show stopper. Fingers crossed.

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Yeah, the lack of records is a bit concerning but some owners like to change their own oil so it not necessarily a total red flag I suppose? I figure if the bore scope and compression test comes back good then the worst of my fears would be subsided. I'm asking them to scope every cylinder and turn the crankshaft to see the bottom of the cylinder.

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Dumb question maybe, but would there be anything a sump inspection would catch that a thorough bore scope inspection wouldn't?

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It really doesn’t matter since the sump has to be dropped to do a thorough bore scope inspection…but yes, it could reveal lots of other issues. Consider attending the What’s In My Oil webinar. Then you can better evaluate what’s in the sump. Making the choice of what is good or bad is up to you. This will help you evaluate the photos from the PPI.

I would also have them check cam deviation. Not hard, just connect the vehicle to a scan tool (like Durametric).

I would have them meticulously disassemble the car and check each bolt for stretch before committing

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Thanks jerk, now I have to get a new keyboard spit my coffee out laughing. OP buy it if you want it, disassembly is not required it's part of an elaborate sales pitch. I would not touch it at 98k miles just because that means you eat that huge psychological 100k price hit. If you are ok with 98k buy something over 100k so the other guy eats it.

I mean it sounds like its got good (enough) maintenance, its been driven well. If you drive it and it checks out, go for it. I can't believe anyone buys a 996 with the lengths of these "necessary" invasive PPIs

I�m not mechanical. I don�t work on my cars. I simply love driving. With that disclaimer I would only buy a 996 C4S with such high miles if I knew I wanted to keep it for a long time. The 100k miles �hump� seems to matter a lot to future buyers. Also, a C4S would seem to me to have been more likely to have been tracked, or at least driven really hard during all those years. It seems like getting all the advanced inspections that other more knowledgeable guys have been suggesting would be absolutely essential. Finally, as a west coast person who grew up in NY, I would avoid cars that have lived in the northeast, and thereby seen any salted, nasty, cold winter roads. Not sure if my perspective has nearly the merit of previous posts, but wanted to share and wish you the best of luck with whichever 911 you end up with!

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For a 996.2 with a 3.6L, I'd probably opt to get it bore scoped. Checking cam deviation is easy and quick enough, maybe check the over-rev report. Small price to pay that *could* save the cost of a potential motor replacement. Regarding the car, has good driver miles, recent maintenance history addresses some areas of concern (curious what type of IMSB was it replaced with), 4S is always nice, price doesn't seem off base. Not a bad buy if it ticks all the other right boxes (ext. color, coupe/cab, interior, options).

Here's an idea! Buy it, leave it with me an I'll do an ENTIRE PPI video series with it. What to look for, how to bore scope, durametric, etc. The only catch is that i'lll need it for about a year or two, (depending on how much I like it), with unlimited miles. Once I'm done, I'll give it back. 😎 The good news? You'll get to see it on YouTube!

With this bore scoring being as prevalent as it is, you�ll spend 10K on bore score testing before you find a car that�s okay. Better hope the Imsb is under 5 years old and under 30k on it too. I was shocked to see that in my Bentley book, it claims Porsche recommends swapping every 30k miles. That�s at least 2k a replacement. I bought a car from Buffalo (snow belt), clean as a whistle. Most Porsche folk only drive in nice weather in my opinion so I wouldn�t discount any cars. I would do the butt test, check the car at start up and at running temp, check pipes for soot, listen to motor and then bring to shop to ppi excluding a bore scope. Personally, I wouldn�t want some buyer pulling my car apart. Stuff happens. Good luck in the search.

All things considered $33K for a manual C4S coupe with the major maintenance boxes checked and 100k miles seems pretty good. Of course, it�s no guarantee and some further PPI investigation wouldn�t hurt.