switching / changing interiors between 2 cars - does it make sense?

Surely a strange idea, but I just can't find the car I really want (996 Targa) with an interior I can live with. I can, however, very easily find another 996.2 with a great interior. So I came up with a clever plan: Buy 2 cars, switch the interiors, and sell the non-Targa with the interior that does not appeal to me (most likely a black interior). I have two concerns: First, anyone know if there are any interior parts that are hard to correctly uninstall and then reinstall? Maybe carpets? Headliners? I'm not worried about the cost, which is more of a known evil. I'm worried about unknowns, like rattles, damage, etc. Second, resale value: If there are lots of buyers who don't bother to check the option stickers and have their Porsche dealer look up the VIN, then no problem. (Are there?) For a smart buyer, I'd need to really convince them that there was nothing wrong before they started doing research (perhaps film the conversion process), though that might still worry them (e.g. about rattles - and their ability to resell it (there are so many 996s with a black interior, so why buy one with an unusual history?)) Any thoughts / advice on this?

Seems to me that it would just be easier to buy the car you want and buy the interior pieces you need. I'm currently in the process of doing a full leather savannah beige interior swap over to black. So far I have both carpets, door panels, rear panels and all the trim pieces. The last of it is to buy the seats, dash and headliner. How much did it cost...I'm not sure that I want to calculate that yet, but if you troll eBay you can get some really decent prices. Of course I can also sell the panels I replace, so that may offset the cost by 1/2. I specifically wanted a black exterior with TC/limited slip diff or PCM. Found one at a reasonable price and interior change/update is much easier than painting a car.

What color interior are you thinking of? There is def gonna be red flags everywhere if you swap then sell right away. You can always see if some local member would be willing to do a swap with you first. Personally if its not a rare interior color, I'd rather buy the Targa(or hold out) and piece together all the trim through places like eBay and salvage yards. You will probably be at the same price point or under and with a lot less headaches and you will be able to sell off your old interior and get majority of your money back eventually. Either that or keep your targa open in the rain... j/k

Wow, it sounds like a whole lot of work to me. How much of the interior would you change out? I assume you would change the whole dash which sounds pretty involved. If options varied between the two cars, you might run into hassle trying to remove and install switches, seat wiring harnesses, etc. Also, the headliner for a Coupe and Targa would be different, so you would probably have to buy a new one anyhow. There may be other Targa specific pieces besides that too. It sounds like quite a bit of work to me, and double the work because your scheme requires you to do both cars. You might consider searching out and buying an interior from someone who is gutting their car for racing. Or shopping at a dismantler for a new interior. Is there something in particular that you want in a Targa interior that you are having trouble finding? It just seems to me that you would be far better off searching and waiting for the right car, even if it meant having to fly across the country to buy it.

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I know the seats can be the most expensive part but here's an alternative. http://www.leatherique.com/do_it_you...e_leather.html I was skeptical on the durability of these color changes first but I've seen first hand someone that did this and I was pretty amazed at the results and durability even to this day(~7 years).

I'm familiar with leatherique, as I have their rejuvenator product, but this would be interesting approach. My only concern would be the plastic backs on the fronts and the carpet on the backs of the rear seats. I've tried a water based dye for carpet on the rear storage shelf on my Boxster. I attempted to dye grey to black with less than stellar results.

If you have the budget to purchase 2 cars then you can certainly afford to do a nationwide search to find the Targa of your dreams. Swapping out interiors seems totally unrealistic to me. BTW you never mention what color combo you're looking for. My Targa is Seal Grey with a Grey leather and dash. Not for sale nor is it that rare at least I don't think.

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Everything. Well, 90-100%. Seats, doors, dash, carpet. As pointed out, the headliner I'd have to buy new. Nationwide search isn't helping. Actually, continent wide - I'm in Europe. The selection is a bit better in the US, though there's nothing on the market that interests me right now. And the car would have to be perfect for me to fly across the ocean to see it, send it back across by boat, deal with customs, have it converted to European standards ... Buying two cars seems easier :-( Interesting. I didn't see anything on their site to confirm they can go from a dark color to a light one, though I can find a Targa in grey. Nor that they can dye plastic - even if I could find a full leather car, there's sure to be some plastic. Though I think I've heard of someone trying to dye their grey BMW dashboard to a different color (no idea how it turned out). Frankly, this also scares me. And I'd still have the issue of selling a car with an interior that does not match the color code. Just one car, fortunately. (But if I have a Targa with a great interior, then I have something very rare for which, based on my experience while looking for a car, there'd be enough demand that I could sell it despite the color change.) I'll probably give Leatherique a call, but I'm skeptical. Then there's the eBay idea. That's just sure to be an endless hassle for any color other than black. In fact, I recently looked, and I don't think I could even find 996 comfort seats in black, much less in the color I was looking for.

(I'm still wondering about my original two questions: First, whether there is anything that makes changing interiors easy to mess up? Spokayman pointed out that it could be a problem if there are different options. I'm confident, though, that I can find a well optioned interior donor car, and I hope that that if color is not a constraint with the Targa, I must also be able to find a well optioned Targa. But still, if anyone knows of any particular option mismatches that would cause a big headache, it would be good to know. Second, whether there are many Porsche buyers who simply see a car they like and buy it, without checking the options. (There are obviously lots of people who buy cars that way, I'm just not sure they buy 10+ year old Porsches.))

As for value, I really don't see the early 996's as a collectors car....there were just so many made. A Targa....probably not either. Actually, the online vendors are been great to work with and many have given additional discounts for multiple items. My interior will be a Frankenstein of standard black leather trim with other pieces from a 40th anniversary (no, I did not purchase any of the anniversary badging ). Have yet to perform the swap, but it should look really nice. The most expensive part will be the seats, but the current beige are in great shape so that should help offset the cost. Once all the parts arrive, I'll try to do a separate post documenting it. I just want to be smart about the swap and not have to install/reinstall because I've yet to collect all the pieces. I actually look at it as a project, which I enjoy doing, and part if the reason I bought this particular car. If you're in no hurry, I'd say wait it out another month or two and see what comes up. I probably jumped too quickly into my purchase, but I've been looking on and off for about 4 months. A few good ones slipped away as I was not quick enough to pull the trigger.

important question you have not answered is what interior color are you looking for? I looked for about 1 min and already found a black interior, grey interior and a beige interior http://www.autoscout24.eu/ListGN.asp...0=15880&flzh=1

Nephrite green?

Red?

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X2 Plus exactly where do you live?

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There is a real risk to messing something up changing interiors. These pieces are installed at the factory by very well trained/experienced assemblers and installed in a certain order. There is also at hand considerable resources to address any screw ups like a scuff or a wiring or other problem. I have known automotive techs who at the dealer specialize in sorting out interiors and these people are worth their weight in gold. As for options ideally the destination car should have the same options as the donor car. What option differences would be easy to overcome or deal with vs. which ones would be difficult I can't say for sure, but at the top I would think -- to state the obvious -- any options that result in different dash or interior pieces. The biggies are (at least to me) would be heating/AC options (for instance standard heater/AC vs. autoclimate control), stereo/sound options, communication options, navigation option, etc. What you also have to deal with is you have to make this work in both the car you intend to keep and the one you intend to sell. It is a real red flag to come across a car with a different interior than the one with which it left the factory. Accident damage, theft damage, vandalism, water or flood damage, fire, these are the usual reasons why an interior gets changed or replaced. Even if you could show the prospective buyer that you changed the interior to have the one you wanted in your keeper car you have to convince the buyer that the swapped interior in the donor car is on par with what it was before. This is a hard job. Interiors generally do not take kindly to being messed with. There are the option differences issue but there are squeaks, fits, electrical connection issues, and so on. And another consideration is the swap may have the donor car receiving a unsuitable interior color that other buyers find intolerable and unacceptable. In short: ugly. I think the advise you have received from others is good. Buy the Targa you want and afterwards replace the interior pieces you want sourced from salvage yards, or from the dealer's parts bin, or consult with a quality automotive interiors shop about having the interior redone to suit you. Let me add when it comes time to sell the donor car I think you should be very upfront with what you have done to the donor car. Document the operation with lots of pictures, before and after. While not every buyer will do due diligence and may miss the interior inconsistency someone will spot it and the word gets out. If you have not been honest up front you will be seen perhaps as a less than honest seller and the car becomes magnitudes harder to sell. You could end up taking a big bath on the donor car larger than the bath suspect you will take even under the best of circumstances.

To paraphrase what Macster said, once you start removing interior pieces from a car, it's never quite the same. They just never fit exactly the same as before. In other news, if you happen to want the Nephrite green interior, there is a complete one on Ebay right now...

This whole thread is goofy if you ask me. If you're clearly that worried, don't do it and just wait for the right one or settle on something else. Yes it really is that simple.

Why not just take the time to hit up as many porsche mechanics as you can handle going to and tell them you're looking for X car, with X color interior at around X euros and there is a 400 euro incentive for them to facilitate the sale? I promise you will find 5 cars in a week within the criteria you're looking for.

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Browns, beiges, and, with the right trim, boxster red work for me. There's nothing on autoscout, or several other sites, that interests me. (Add just a few other criteria like transmission, kilometers, seats, and no big, expensive trim pieces that just don't work for me (e.g. wood around the center console) and it's still possible to find lots of cars, but virtually impossible to find any that are not black, grey, or blue. Then there are problems with the history ...

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Thanks, this is very helpful. I was hoping to hear the opposite (e.g. "I've done it, no worries"), and I thought I might, having had seats, dashboards, and door cards removed on other cars in order to make various repairs. But these posts suggest that it really is a last resort solution. (Same with dying it and buying it on eBay piece by piece, both of which have many of the same issues and some additional issues of their own.)

THe hardest part of changing the interior is taking the carpet out. There are so many videos on the 996 about everything from taking the door panels off to pulling the mirror off, that it is pretty easy.Making sure that both cars have the same electronic options would be important. Really seems to be a 2 day job for the switch.

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Actually it's the dash. Carpet is easy. I've taken my interior out and to me it's pretty trivial. Maybe for a first timer, you might encounter a couple issues with broken trim or fasteners and such. If you've taken apart other interiors, they're all pretty similiar. You should just study the PET diagrams for any hidden fasteners you may miss.

These aren't overly complicated cars when it comes to interior trim. If you search the site you'll find many that have removed these various parts and, in most cases, have written up the work it takes. As I mentioned earlier, I'm in process of swapping out my entire beige interior to black/dark grey. Of all the posts I've researched, there appears little to be concerned about. Being as it's a 15 year old car, I look forward to being able to address all the rattles and squeaks the car currently has. If you're not afraid to do the work, go for it. Otherwise, keep searching for the "right" car. I must also mention that this is a 3rd car (4th counting the boxster I've yet to sell) in the garage and not a daily driver. This allows me the time to have the car apart for days at a time.

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Thanks for the encouragement! My Targa may have just gotten a bit closer :-)

Great post by Macster. In the end you'll likely end up with two cars that are worth less money and have worse condition interiors than they did previously. Plastic pieces will scratch and snap, parts won't go together quite as well, you'll have more squeaks and rattles as the foam and rubber buffers go missing, etc. It makes much more sense to continue searching for the perfect car, or just stop being so picky. There are a lot of ways to dress up the sea of black or gray that you find in most 996s.

I'm embarking on this journey currently. I have sourced a complete interior in black leather to replace my beige leather [who would put beige in a Speed Yellow car?!!!]. My mechanic was working for the dealer when these cars were new, and swapped out several interiors for customers... It's not something I would tackle without a guru... And as a 'while you're in there,' I'm replacing the supple seats with front sport seats & non-supple rear seats. I'll document the process. Incidentally, my beige interior has a whole bunch of custom leather options, so I'll be putting the parts up for sale in future. There's a whole lot of "wood" in the car...

Are you putting in a black leather center console, vents, etc.? This is something I would like to do with my car, but they don't seem to come off often.

I think you should buy airline tickets for all those people who say it is easy and fly them to where you are and have them do the work...on one condition...if you don't like the fit and finish of the work, they have to pay their own way home. Let's think this through. Money is no object. You will buy two cars and then pay highly trained people to swap the interiors to the same standard of installation as they came from the factory. Even if money is no object, common sense is. Why not just go to a Porsche dealer and order the car you want with the interior you want? It can't be that much more expensive than what you are contemplating.

I searched for a year starting in 2006 for my dream car, a 996 Targa with an interior that was unusual and full leather. I suggest you take your time and keep looking for what you want. Less than 3% of 996 Carreras are Targas and only 1% of those had the Boxster Red. They are always full leather options. John

I searched for almost two years, and did what I should have done after one. I gave up. And it's dark in here! But it won't be black for long. In almost two years searching an entire continent, I saw four Targa's in colors I liked with under 60k miles / 100k km. (Maybe there were more with "sport" seats, which I don't like, I don't remember.) Some had (big) problems with the history, others I missed while trying to negotiate the purchase. And only one was the color I really wanted. Buying black was relatively simple. Low milage, excellent history, excellent condition, and it's now mine. There are enough non-Targas with nice interiors out there. It's my next project.

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WoW...That interior is STUNNING (the red one) ! Unusual indeed. I'm not sure I could "live" with it personally, but it sure is pretty to look at...

Looking at the title of this thread my first thought was: You need a girlfriend dude! But all jokes aside, this is a huge undertaking: buying two cars to switch interiors.....hoohhhh!!! No, thank you! And also, I would never buy a car that doesn't have the original interior.

One thing that might be worth considering is using a vinyl wrap for the plastic pieces (if you go with the leather-dye approach). 3M makes some great products that apparently work well. I found one example on a BMW post here. http://www.e90post.com/forums/showthread.php?t=628655