craig001

John Lee Nissan, Panama City wholesaled the car, but I had the same thoughts about the front end and wheels. Do not know enough about TT's to pick up on the exhaust tips.Cleveland did not accept a lower offer I made after talking to the shop that worked on the car.

I get the deposit, if I say I coming down it is a one day trip so they would do all the work listed above before I showed up. That is why I am looking around for an indie PPI. Got some suggestions for shops down there so I need to use Mapquest to see where the shops are in relation to Ellis.

rmc1148

Keep looking it will be cheaper in the long run to buy a well kept car with no stories.

Dock

^This.

Shadetree930

Agree.

These are 50k+ cars all day long.

You can buy them cheap (they are all over the internet) but, you will end up putting the money in after the fact.

Or, you can find a properly sorted one and pay up front.

There are lots of people that are willing to talk about how cheap they bought their 996tt. Those same guys rarely talk about their post purchase spend. Many of them quickly recognize they got in over their head and pass the problem on to the next 'bottom feeder'

Dock

You hit the nail on the head.

rmc1148

^Agree 110% and people sell them quickly once they find out their bargain isn't.

leftlane

Amen. You usually get what you pay for with these cars. Not always, but usually.

I chuckle with all the threads new owners start, needing help with all sorts of problems - they are usually from the same folks who were determined to pay as little as possible on the purchase. Very few people are willing to admit they made a mistake.

Warehouse33.net

Hi my name is Jason and I admit I bought a 996tt without seeing it in person and "just" with a check engine light on. It wasn't as described when it showed up, but the worst part the driver side camshafts were welded in the engine from extreme heat or something. For some reason it still ran....barely. It would have been cheaper for me to buy a better car, but the plus side is. The engine is getting full ARP hardware, Cometic headgaskets, ported & polished heads, Pauter rods and I'm sure I'm missing some other things.

So moral of the story buy a nicer car instead and look at it in person or get a ppi from a qualified person!

-Jason

jeanmarcboilard

Thank you for sharing Jason. The first step is admitting you have a problem. The recovery will be long and difficult but you and your car will come out better and stronger in the end.

"02996ttx50

pure conjecture. "no stories" could easily mean that a 15 year old car has never had any known points of failure items occur and will fall to the new owner. ask me how i know when i bought one that was "no stories" certified by porsche and the first year of paid for by pcna repair items totaled over 14,000.00 dollars.

you are somehow tied to the belief that these cars that just sit will not develop problems while ones that have been driven and repaired are less valuable.

i say the only thing that makes them
less valuable" would be the "mileage". for a driver and a "driver's car", a car which has had the myriad number of know issues dealt with could well be the more trouble free of both examples.

i genuinely believe you have not driven your car enough miles under your stewardship to have experienced what i am talking about, and that's ok, if so.

rmc1148

That's my opinion yes and I'm sticking with it lol. I consider it an educated opinion from owning as many cars that I have and driving some over 200k. In the past I drove over 50k miles a year for pleasure not including my work vehicles. The more miles the more problems= on average.

"02996ttx50

fair enough lol. i really felt brave as this is the first pcar out of 5 that didn't come with a factory warranty. so i feel I've been lucky but also highly diligent.

rmc1148

I'm sure luck has something to do with my experiences also and honestly I over maintain my cars and when younger even more so. My father owned service stations/repair shops and thought I was nuts for replacing o2 sensors etc before failure. I have bought cars sitting for years and after changing gas/tune up they were fine and I enjoyed many miles.