Hi all,

Trying to get my foot in the Porsche world and I'm currently on the fence with going through with a purchase and could use some advice. I got my eyes set on a 996 4S with 98K miles located out of state. 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.

Also attached a copy of the seller provided Carfax for perusal.

 

I’m surprised no one chimed in! Anyway, from what you stated, I’d pass. It’s verrrry difficult to make an offer, yet, $32.8 is on the high end.
my 2 cents.

 

I have been following the values on these for awhile. That sounds like a $20-25k car. With that said, the value of a car is what a willing buyer and seller agree upon so it may be worth it to you. The 4S is a little more difficult to come across, but for a $33k value I would say you should be in the 75k miles range with a clean carfax.

 

Well, in retrospect that was a very good price. Hope you picked it up!

 

I believe that was a reasonable notice for the 2021 market. I would have perhaps negotiated down to 31k or so but good luck finding a 4S for much less than $35-40K.

 

I also would say that is about 5k high. But, again, a more rare car. I would get the boroscope done for bore scoring and make the call then. 29500 may be the sweet number needing the water pump.