Torminator

I'm sure there are a dozen of these sorts of topics out there, but I could not figure out a way to phrase the search that it found anything.

As the title says, I'm looking at 996 turbos. I've done a fair bit of reading on them here and elsewhere, but I've still got a few questions.

I plan to get a PPI before buying anything, but since those aren't free and the closest car to me is still 4 hours away, I'd like to know some things to look out for on my own. Common failure points and how to spot them, that sort of thing. I've heard some mention of depressing the clutch with the car off to see if the accumulator works as intended; are there other "tests" of that sort? Any red flags in the description or history of the car to be wary of?

The car I'm looking at most closely is a 2003 with 32k miles being sold for $50k at a Porsche dealer. ( here )
This is definitely on the upper limits of the prices I've seen, but my hope is that the car will have documented service and maintenance records, and be in very good condition. I'll gladly pay a bit extra now if it means less chance of something going quite wrong in the near future. Someone on here said "Pay for it now, or pay for it later," and while I feel like that assumes the car is priced intelligently, it's probably pretty good advice in general.

I am a bit concerned though, for a few reasons; for one, judging by one of the photos where the temperature reading is 31 degrees F, the car has been at this dealership for a while now. The higher-than-average price may be dissuading some, but it could also mean there's something quite wrong with the car. I don't know if that sort of thing is typical or atypical for these cars.

Secondly, looking through the carfax, the dealer it's currently at bought the car at auction. I'll admit here that I have little experience dealing with used cars, and essentially none in dealing with a used car of this type, so I don't know if that's abnormal or not.

Third, there are a few entries for service and maintenance listed in the Carfax, but not many. I can't determine if this means it was mostly serviced at places that don't report such to Carfax, or if it was just rarely serviced. When I talk to the dealer, I will definitely ask if there's documented service history.

I know there are some who would recommend only buying from a private seller, but there are some advantages to a dealer. Namely, I can trade in my current car, and my state is one in which you only pay sales tax on the difference if you trade one car for another. May or may not be advantageous; I'll have to consider the tradeoffs.

I apologize if I'm committed some faux pas. I tried to lurk 'n search as best I could.

"02996ttx50

there are indeed countless threads on thee most problematic issues and the topic has been covered ad nauseum. if you try the same search on google i bet many of the threads would come up. good luck in your search.. for the car and the threads!

Carlo_Carrera

Sign up over at Renntech and read this thread.

http://www.renntech.org/forums/tutor...ential-issues/

Macster

Did a google search of the VIN and found the car listed for $49996 (really!).

Link:

https://autos.yahoo.com/used-cars/po...-55697934.html

An "auction" Porsche car at a Porsche dealer is not that scary. My info is Porsche dealers get hard pressed for used cars and they will buy them at auction.

Generally the auto brokers have high standards and avoid bad cars, but not always. The dealer will address the obvious short comings like a slipping clutch, shot tires, shot brakes, etc, (and grumble all the time while doing this -- dealers hate to spend money bringing a car up to "spec"). So you have to be on your toes.

The Turbo is just a used car so you have to give it a good used car check out.

I'm pressed for time and can't cover this very deep. I've posted on this before so as much as I do not like suggesting you do a search that would be my advice. If you want some additional guidance contact me via private email.

The link provided by Carlo_Carrera after a quick glance appears to be a good link so you can start there.

There may be a sticky at the top of this forum that covers used Turbo buying too.

rmc1148

Looks nice with some good options= I believe if it checks out worth the price.

Torminator

I hadn't thought of going through google (but should have). My problem is usually figuring out which terms to search by, since there are quite a few ways to phrase this sort of question.

That was immensely helpful. Thank you very much.

That's good to hear about the auctions. Alleviates a bit of concern.

As I said to 02996ttx50 above, I'm just never quite sure what terms to search for. I do appreciate you sharing your thoughts in spite of the time crunch, though.

"02996ttx50

that'd have been brilliant if you'd been referring to MY "time crunch" as as many have stated, i clearly have none

and i would also expand your search to include a google search which will ultimately lead you to another popular forum which many here disdain for it's lack of "seriousness" on more topics, i suppose, and that of course would be six speed. but try "common issues with porsche 996 turbo"

i bet you;'ll have stuff for days to peruse. again good luck with the searching and the ultimate 96 turbo acquisition. they are a GAS

PCarSD

Things to look out for:
Potholes
Police officers

Nico911

+ 1 lol

Nico911

Torminator :

I'll give you my very personal way of seing this (buying a used car) :

1- Try to buy from the owner, not from a dealer, and go to his place to see the car. You'll get the see how he takes care of his stuff : other car (s), house, wife (joke), etc... it tells a lot. About the dealers : I'm almost always disappointed with dealers. Also, try to buy from an enthusiast, not a guy who bought the car for showing off. These guys normally don't care about maintenance.

2- Insist of including ALL the books and records with the car, it's priceless. It will give you a lot of information about the car, will prove the mileage and it will make the car easier to resale in a few years (spare, jack and tool pouch are 'nice to haves' as well). About the books, don't forget that these car are relatively complex, so it's nice to know how to check the oil level, for instance... or how the hell you clear the previous owner's seat position settings...

3- Don't buy a car that's been completely repainted and/or involved in an accident. It's not normal for a 10 to 14 years old car to have a bad paint, plus it's harder to sell. Crash : just run.

4- The weak points are, for what I know so far : second gear pop out (not on mine though), hydraulic clutch system (slave and accumulator), batteries (seems like 996 TT are battery eaters), coolant hoses breaking apart (happened to mine with it's previous owner) and some minor electrical gremlins (like most modern german cars), but nothing major.

5- I tend to prefer stock cars : they keep there value more easily over time and you won't feel like your driving other's wet dream. Instead, you'll fell like you're walking out of a Porsche dealership with a new car. Sweet !

6- Having a pre-purchase inspection is nice too, but before putting your fate in other's hands, make sure it passes your own inspection (basic judgement and observation).

That's what I can think of right now, I hope it's helps !!!!

Nicolas

DaveCarrera4

+1, copy + paste in about 3 to 4 days... :-)

Torminator

Thank you very much for your thoughts. I've only ever bought one other car used before, and that was from a dealer and had some serious problems. It's given me a healthy distrust of dealers, especially used car dealers. I'd rather buy from a private owner, all other things being equal, but all of the ones I've been finding that seemed worthwhile (I pretty much skip all the "640whp MUST DRIVE!!!" ads) have been at dealers. I know, I know, I should just wait for "the perfect one" to show up, but half of my problem is I don't really know what the perfect one would be.
The above car being at an actual Porsche dealer, and one other I'm looking at being at a dealer that seems to deal extensively in exotic/rare cars quiets my concern a little bit, but I'm going to take what precautions I can anyway.

Now, in my defense, I did go back about ~12 pages on the 996 turbo forum looking through threads and didn't find anything overly relevant. But I do know the frustration of repeated threads asking the same questions.

"02996ttx50

if i could add a little anecdotal info that may or not be helpful. i bought a very low mileage one from a dealership and had to fix stuff ( thankfully ) on their dime for the two years of warranty coverage. i had handed the svc mgr so many c notes that by the time the cpo coverage had ended we collectively had to have spent 25k$ ( really their prices, not mine ) i work the car needed as the common issues ( spoilers/accumulators/steeringpumps/expansion tanks ) that ALL fail had not been dealt with so in many ways that will inevitably fall to the the owner of ANY low mileage car, to repair at this late date, provided of course,..that they DRIVE IT lol.

whereas, i picked up a mid level back then say a "stage 2" ( 550 crank ) modded car with heavy track use and comparatively HI mileage and the car other than simple maint and replacing things that ANY 100+K miles ( then about 60k mi ) car would need has turned out to be essentially trouble free, to say nothing of about 33% faster than my original pristine porsche dealer car. dealers are some of the most dishonest and usurious mf'rs on the planet. they actually attempted to sell me on the notion that they had "no idea what 2nd gear pop out" was!?! by then i'm guessing they had probably fulfilled 50 if not more trans rebuilds on the earlier 01/02's. in fact they had to do mine TWICE under warranty ( idiots )

there is a guy a i met years ago that worked at a very well respected pcar tuning and track prep shop in la and i saw a car on ebay, and when i found it was being brokered/owned by him, i drove the 20 minutes to meet him and bought the car on the spot. he offered me a handshake warranty for 90 days that if ANYthing broke he would fix it. the car is a banshee with FAR more added parts still at 127800+ miles and counting daily. just broken in, as i like to say

my point ( if ever there is one ) is try to network with a broker of these who can help you with you search you can pm me for his info if you like ) but buy PP all the way. just make certain SOMEone reputable that "knows" these can look at it for you pre-sale. i didn't need to as i had full trust in MY 2nd seller. in fact i buy lots or perf parts from him to this day ( he's five mins away unfortunately lol ) and he has even just GIVEN me about 700$ worth of add on's that complement a recent purchase from him that i made. make friends ( well, not =here necessarily LOL ) and try to network with shops that know these and they will know some current sellers etc. make sone calls. or like i offered, find a broker like my bud.

back to the beginning; there have to be tens if not 100+ threads on the common fail points, if you cannot find those ( with any due respect ) i dare say you'll be at the mercy of whomever, when it comes to finding the "right" car for you. again, good luck, it'll be well worth the process.

Macster

My stock reply is you need to look out for everything.

The 996 Turbo is just a used car so you should give it a thorough used car check out.

This starts with visiting the car dead cold and starting the engine and letting it idle/warm up as you walk around the car checking body panel appearances/fits/etc.

Leave the engine compartment lid open so you can hear the engine.

Might mention you need to verify all the dash warning lights come on then go off as you turn the key from on to engine start and the engine fires and runs. This includes the CEL.

(My Boxster has an air bag warning light on. There is no error code and an instrument cluster repair shop was unable to fix the LED and a new cluster is $2.5K. I taped over the light for now. While I didn't strive for this the tape is nearly invisible. A car buyer -- were I selling the car and leaving the tape in place (which I would never do) -- might not notice this.)

After some idling time then arrange for a test ride. The route should be around 15 miles in length and give the driver an opportunity to demo the car like you intend to use it. This should include at least one hard acceleration -- after the engine is fully up to temp! -- up through at least two gears. The engine should make if not max boost (0.7bar for a stock and non-S model) close to it.

After the hard acceleration the engine should not exhibit any untoward behavior.

After the test ride back at the starting point you take the car out as a driver and cover the same route, drive the car the same way.

The idea is to give the engine plenty of time to manifest any possible issues, like misfires, severe tickity idling, overheating, leaks, etc. This also gives the DME time to run through one possible two complete readiness monitor tests and the CEL should remain dark.

You also get to observe then experience how the engine pulls, how the tranny shifts, how the car steers, brakes, and just generally feels.

I can't stress this enough. You must spend time with the car in its natural state which is with the engine running and the car on the road doing what it is designed to do.

After the test ride and test drive then give the car a thorough used car check out. Assume nothing works until you confirm it does.

And look for any signs of fluid leak. For instance a bit of fluid wetness around the spoiler hydraulics can be a bad spoiler hydraulic system which can be expensive to put right, upwards a bit over $2K if the system is replaced with factory new hardware.

Fluid stain on top of the plastic cover under the front trunk lid just ahead of the driver can be a sign of a clutch slave cylinder problem.

Give the radiator duct areas a sniff. Any antifreeze smell there can be from one (or more) leaking radiators.

Uneven tire wear is a sign of a bum alignment so not only will new tires be required but budget for an alignment as well.

Try to get your hands on a copy of the car check list techs use when CPO'ing one of these cars. While you can't do all the tests/checks you can do a good number of them.

After all of the above if you still like the car and believe you can buy it for a reasonable sum of money have the car treated to a PPI. Among other things this gets the car in the air where the tech can search for any leak sign.

He checks the RMS, water pump, coolant hose fittings, transmission/diff seals, rear CV boots, the front diff seals, front CV boots, the bottoms of the radiators, every place there is a hose fitting, line fitting, seal, gasket or anything with fluid behind or in it is checked.

The above is not a full treatment by any stretch of the imagination it is just a start.

You need to do some research on these cars to know more about them and how to check them out. Also, you need to line up someone who can give the car a thorough PPI. But you should be able to ID a car that you don't want to own. The PPI should only confirm your finding there is nothing seriously wrong with the car though the PPI might find say a leaking water pump which then you can take into account and adjust your offer price accordingly.