Car from AZ Silver-Black top- VectorEquipment Wheels

I just bought it and was wondering if the previous owner was a forum member... Just looking for some background on the car The good, the bad and the ugly :-) Silver 2000, with a black top, aftermarket head unit with navigation, tiptronic and aftermarket Victor Equipment 19 inch wheels Thanks!

Boxster front end? Did your car come with an aftermarket intake by chance? Accident?

No, it appears to be the stock intake... I think it may have a different exhaust (not stock), it only has one tip on the drivers side and it does not look like it is missing anything underneath. I wouldn't know about the front end, does it look different? Not sure, the trunk all looks right.. Porsche is a new world to me, so be easy on me :-)

another picture from the side...

Looks like a hodge podge of parts. Looks like a 2002-2004 mk2 rear bumper. Tints look dark too. Hate to profile but an owner that has all those different parts, chrome rims, dark tints would have me go over the car with a fine tooth comb. Did you run it through car fax or autocheck before you bought the car? Both front and rear bumper replacement would make me suspicious. For starters, you can lift up your front hood carpet and see if any of the metal underneath is wrinkled. Also look at the frame rails next to each side of the engine and see if it is straight. You can also take it to get the alignment checked.

Where/how did you buy it? Is it the repo/auction car? Get the PPI (post purchase inspection) done to see what you got, run the Carfax on it too. I would not worry about the tint, as I have mirror tins on my car too due to 110 degree weather in AZ. Front end and rims do look a bit out of place though. Congrats on the purchase.

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I don't think this guy is remotely close to AZ/CA/FL/TX, etc as he seems to live in an area with snow based on all the trees that don't have leaves. Just sayin...

Man, you Porsche guys are observant!!! Thank you for the replies, I live in Kansas but the car was bought at a dealer auction in AZ... So the front bumper, I am not able to find a exact match when looking at pictures? And the rear you think is MKII, is that a later year 996? I will look under the carpet and at the frame rails. Thanks again!

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His car is from AZ ^^, so dark tint should not be a red flag.

^^^ In that case I would not be suspicious as dark tints are normal down there. Texas has some really dark tints too. I'm just glad Illinois finally passed the tint rule and legalized at least the 35% tint. OP, I would get a PPI as mentioned by a good Indy as soon as possible so you know what you're working with.

Even though you have already bought the car, I would still take it to a good local mechanic and have him go through it and look for prior damage and at the same time go through the mechanics of the car so that you know exactly what you bought. It would give me peace of mind .

For sure, I have a good friend that has a local high performance shop, and there is a really well known Porsche shop here in Kansas City, so hopefully between the two I will have a good idea of anything wrong with it. I does run, and handle killer. It is not leaking anything, and really most of the aftermarket stuff I would have done anyway (wing, wheels, exhaust, electronics) Cars history's are always interesting...

2000 - congrats on the purchase. I think I saw your car at the Mecum auction last week, right? It was in really nice shape. Let me know if you want to swing by and put it up on my 4 post lift to take a look at it underneath. I'm in the 127th & Antioch area.

Thanks for the offer, I will take you up on it! Hopefully who ever owned this car before will not be offended to badly, but I was going through the car last night, and at some point, it was seriously amateur night at the car audio club. They had attempted to make a couple of amp racks in the trunk, and there is wood actually glued to the metal, not even a single piece of MDF, it looks like wood scraps from old shelves! It is amazing the things people do. lol Looks like I need a hot knife, or something!

No problem. Just PM me via the Rennlist system and we can find a time over the weekend. FWIW, I had to remove some really poorly done tape stripes and replace the "painted red with nail polish" gear shift **** (apparently painted red to match the tape stripes). Have been pleased with the rest of the car though.

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You can't go legally darker than 35% in Texas (Bexar County).

Congrats on the purchase. As the years go by, there are some "interesting" things that can happen with used cars. I have a factory aerokit car that was in a minor front end collision at some point in the past, but repaired with a non-aerokit front bumper (much cheaper). I'm adding on a GT3Tek front spoiler to return it to the correct aerokit look.

That is so true... it is always interesting! I still have not figured out what my front bumper is off of. I looked under the carpet and pulled out all of the plastic and trim like alpine003 suggested, and everything looks strait and normal (other than the wooden glue job!) I am sure I will find more, kinda like a Easter egg hunt :-)

Be careful with the 19" aftermarket wheels on an MK1.

They rub the inner fenders big time... Not sure what I can do about it other than, i guess, buy new wheels. Anyone have any experience with that? Anyone want to trade for a factory style wheel? :-)

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Looks like a boxster front bumper as I've previously mentioned but you can kill two birds with one stone by removing the bumper and checking for engraved part number on the inner bumper. While doing that, you can clean out the radiators as well. Do a search for radiator cleaning and there will be some great step by step guides with pics.

Craigslist & ebay are your friend for an inexpensive wheel swap. Quick way to verify offsets & rim widths is to look it up on tirerack.com (I know there are many other sources, but I refer to tirerack since it is so easy). Then look for wheels on craigslist first to see if anyone locally has them so you can see them in person and not have to pay shipping. Second option would be ebay. Once you have your replacements, then put your old wheels up for sale via the same websites. With any luck, the net difference between what you pay for your new ones and get out of your old ones will be minimal. I've done this a couple of times with other cars.

2000, if you aren't happy with your wheels, I would try posting here and 6speedonline to see if anyone would be interested in doing a swap.

I think they look pretty sweet, very nice wheel, but I need to address the rubbing in the front when turning into or backing out of a parking spot... also, with the black top, I wonder if a wheel with a black center / spokes, and polished lip would look better on this car.

Yeah, I think black wheels look good on a silver car. At the risk of sounding like a Tirerack ad, they have a feature that let's you select your car and view different wheels on it.