bazhart
Well-known member
- Joined
- 20 May 2009
- Messages
- 1,343
I started writing a reply to Uke's post of "It just won't go away.." and as I often do started rambling on a bit off post and thought it better to start a new thread. His post relates to wanting to buy a 996 etc.
In our experience, you can buy both great cars and poor cars from both the trade (including specialists) and privately. It seems to us that wherever the car is being sold, one of the reasons in many, if not most cases for it becoming available in the first place is that its reached the stage of life where an expensive period is due/looming. We've observed two very common scenarios - the first relates to the typical Porsche running costs pattern - We've found that more often than not a Porsche is cheap to run for a number of years/miles when just servicing is needed but this doesn't go on forever and eventually an expensive period comes where typical things like a major service, tyres, brakes, coil packs, track control arms, drop links, clutches, etc. are all needed around the same time resulting in a large bill of say £2000-£3000. Once this has passed annual costs usually get low again for a while and then eventually the next expensive phase comes along when the same sorts of things may need addressing again. We liken it to an oscillating graph with peaks and troughs. The owner at the time knows that these costs are approaching (because he probably went through it once before), he's had the car for a number of years and fancies a change and then decides to sell. (Overall if the total costs were averaged out and taken over say a 5 year period we still find that most of the cars have very reasonable annual running costs.)
The second common scenario is that a major problem is looming such as the first stages of a cracked cylinder and so the owner decides to sell and "move" the problem onto someone else.
Both cars in the above scenarios can still be very nice "good" straight cars with FSH etc. or they may be not so nice but one of the fundamental factors in the owners reaching their decision to sell is looming cost.
The owners at the time may then p/ex the car, sometimes to a Porsche main agent or one of another Marque such as Audi, BMW, Merecedes etc. who then sells it to their usual underwriter, who in turn sells it to a retail car dealer who then sells it to the new owner. They may sell it directly to a retail dealer, or sell it privately but whichever route it ends being offered for sale to the public, it still has the looming expense.
If the retailer properly prepares the car then these areas should be identified and addressed prior to the new owner taking delivery but there aren't many garages or private individuals who do this and so it is paramount (in our opinion) that the new owner expects to spend as soon as he's bought it and get it back to the mechanical condition it should be in (unless he's bought from someone he can trust is going to prepare it properly). We suggest people don't place too much reliance on previous service history (which is essentially a record that a list of jobs should have been completed) and get a proper thorough major service and check over carried out themselves (we use our Gold Major service which is an expanded version of the Porsche major schedule). It's unlikely that every fault found will "need" addressing immediately but the new owner will then be in a position to create a schedule of properly informed planned maintenance.
As a rule of thumb we suggest that prospective Porsche purchasers factor £2000-£3000 into their total budget for this initial service/check over and addressing the more pressing matters so someone with a total buying pot of £20000 should only spend £17000-£18000 on the car.
Just to re-iterate, if the garage/private individual you're buying from is going to prepare the car properly then the same caution may not be needed and of course, not every car for sale has big expense looming - there will be ones on the market where the initial reason was just a change of the owners circumstances etc. but only the owner at the time genuinely knows this. If you can't fully trust the intergrity and motives of the seller then we feel that you should always assume something needs doing and if it doesn't - hey ho you've got your properly serviced & checked over Porsche for less than you thought !
Grant
www.hartech.org
In our experience, you can buy both great cars and poor cars from both the trade (including specialists) and privately. It seems to us that wherever the car is being sold, one of the reasons in many, if not most cases for it becoming available in the first place is that its reached the stage of life where an expensive period is due/looming. We've observed two very common scenarios - the first relates to the typical Porsche running costs pattern - We've found that more often than not a Porsche is cheap to run for a number of years/miles when just servicing is needed but this doesn't go on forever and eventually an expensive period comes where typical things like a major service, tyres, brakes, coil packs, track control arms, drop links, clutches, etc. are all needed around the same time resulting in a large bill of say £2000-£3000. Once this has passed annual costs usually get low again for a while and then eventually the next expensive phase comes along when the same sorts of things may need addressing again. We liken it to an oscillating graph with peaks and troughs. The owner at the time knows that these costs are approaching (because he probably went through it once before), he's had the car for a number of years and fancies a change and then decides to sell. (Overall if the total costs were averaged out and taken over say a 5 year period we still find that most of the cars have very reasonable annual running costs.)
The second common scenario is that a major problem is looming such as the first stages of a cracked cylinder and so the owner decides to sell and "move" the problem onto someone else.
Both cars in the above scenarios can still be very nice "good" straight cars with FSH etc. or they may be not so nice but one of the fundamental factors in the owners reaching their decision to sell is looming cost.
The owners at the time may then p/ex the car, sometimes to a Porsche main agent or one of another Marque such as Audi, BMW, Merecedes etc. who then sells it to their usual underwriter, who in turn sells it to a retail car dealer who then sells it to the new owner. They may sell it directly to a retail dealer, or sell it privately but whichever route it ends being offered for sale to the public, it still has the looming expense.
If the retailer properly prepares the car then these areas should be identified and addressed prior to the new owner taking delivery but there aren't many garages or private individuals who do this and so it is paramount (in our opinion) that the new owner expects to spend as soon as he's bought it and get it back to the mechanical condition it should be in (unless he's bought from someone he can trust is going to prepare it properly). We suggest people don't place too much reliance on previous service history (which is essentially a record that a list of jobs should have been completed) and get a proper thorough major service and check over carried out themselves (we use our Gold Major service which is an expanded version of the Porsche major schedule). It's unlikely that every fault found will "need" addressing immediately but the new owner will then be in a position to create a schedule of properly informed planned maintenance.
As a rule of thumb we suggest that prospective Porsche purchasers factor £2000-£3000 into their total budget for this initial service/check over and addressing the more pressing matters so someone with a total buying pot of £20000 should only spend £17000-£18000 on the car.
Just to re-iterate, if the garage/private individual you're buying from is going to prepare the car properly then the same caution may not be needed and of course, not every car for sale has big expense looming - there will be ones on the market where the initial reason was just a change of the owners circumstances etc. but only the owner at the time genuinely knows this. If you can't fully trust the intergrity and motives of the seller then we feel that you should always assume something needs doing and if it doesn't - hey ho you've got your properly serviced & checked over Porsche for less than you thought !
Grant
www.hartech.org