msdunkel

I'm in the market for a new (to me) vehicle and I'm considering used 991s. (Un)fortunately I live in the Atlanta area and think I want to avoid Atlanta Experience cars. This brings up my 2 questions along with some rambling on my part.

1. Is there a way to determine if a car is an Atlanta Experience car?
2. Do I want to avoid these at all costs or are these an opportunity for a good deal?

Regarding #1, I am looking at a couple '18 GTSes that are priced a bit below their competition. The 1st one is being sold by a Porsche dealership and they outright told me the car was from Atlanta Experience. Only 8000 miles but never been titled. The other one is also an '18 but wasn't titled until April of this year with 13k miles -- mental math says 8k at the experience and 1k/month since then is roughly the current mileage. The car is at an independent dealership, the salesman claims to have no knowledge of the car's history but that it was bought new from Hennessy Porsche earlier this year. I called Hennessy Porsche service and they have no record of ever working on this car. The car seems over optioned to have been a track mule but I really don't know their ordering philosophy so I suppose anything is possible. Is there some other way to nail down the history of this vehicle and will something like carfax at least tell me how many miles were on the car when it was 1st titled?

Regarding #2, I must have spoken with the best salesman ever when discussing the GTS at his dealership. He had me convinced that 8k miles of hard driving wasn't a big deal and that I NEED to get that car (or the funky colored '16 991.1 that has all the right options -- I'm telling you the guy was REALLY good Can anybody relate their personal history with a previous track car? Are there specific items I'd want to check before considering one of these cars, stuff like bushings and rotor wear (both cars are PCCB equipped.) If it helps, my car would primarily be a pleasure vehicle with somewhere between occasional and rare track appearances.

Thanks!

dr914

We were just at the experience center this last sunday (july 14th 2019) loading the 914 collection into the museum, and getting very ample track time as well. (great day!) We were remarking to each other about the poor "suckers" who purchase some of these ex experience track cars and how beaten they would be even with 8000 miles. (especially the "hole shot" test they let everyone perform!!!

You can certainly find out if one of the preowned "certified" Porsches was a track car. The dealer owes you that info. On the other hand, the best Porsche dealer sales person in Atlanta is John Dissen, Here is his contact info: John Dissen

Porsche Brand Ambassador



HennessyPorsche

2017 Premier Porsche Dealer

990 Mansell Road

Roswell, GA 30076

Main - (770) 643-6100

Mobile – (678) 778-2416

Fax – (678) 781-0560

www.hennessyporsche.com

BSO

I was at the Atlanta PTX to pick up my ordered 911 and also drove a similar model for the 1 1/2 hour driving experience, which was great.

A couple of observations, the tires on these cars last 300 miles per set at the track, they are the standard tires that Porches are fitted at the factory. Further, in the prep talk, my coach stated that I would do things in the PTX car that I wouldn't do to my own.

They are driven hard with several launch control starts per session. The coaches do encourage that you drive aggressively and brake HARD because that is one of Porsche's advantage, braking, as is exiting corners.

So this is repeated throughout the time that car is part of the fleet for thousands of miles.

I also drove at the Birmingham PTX and those cars are driven even harder.

So would I buy one of these to save a few thousand, NO. The cost of a transmission or replacement ceramic discs, or an engine out repair would eat up whatever you saved in the purchase price in a hurry after the warranty ran out.

The factory warranty should be in effect but it's an unknown quantity past that.

As to buying from an independent dealer, probably no again.

msdunkel

Thanks for the replies.

As a pile-on, I found a very nice looking '18 GTS which is NOT an ATL experience car . The car has the manual transmission and the salesman was very much against providing the DME report. I know the car still has mfr warranty and CPO, but if the previous owner missed a big shift then I'd like to know about it. The salesman went into how the DME is expensive and a waste of money on a car under warranty, is this some process more involved than plugging a scanner into the OBD 2 port?

n8kruger

My dealer gave me an overrev report in about 15 minutes during my lunch hour before I sold my last 991 (privately). They didn't charge but Lord knows I spent enough money there anyway. it sounds like there may be something on the car they don't want you to see!

msdunkel

I put this in the wrong category, any chance a mod can move this to the 991 section?

Trader220

Don't assume that just because the car has miles on it and was not titled it was an Atlanta X car. Many many more cars are used as PCNA Demo cars, which means one of the PCNA regional reps or other high ups in PCNA spec'd the car and drove the car on a manu plate and therefore the car was never titled. I was the GSM at a Porsche dealer and I always jumped at the chance to buy those cars from PCNA. They were typically spec'd really nicely, well cared for and mostly just driven from dealer to dealer in one of the regions. Also, if we bought one and it needed anything and I mean anything we could bill PCNA for it. That means our shop would go over every millimeter of the car and replace anything they didn't like. They are always good value plays.

msdunkel

Not a risk I'm willing to take on a 6 figure vehicle. Unless there is definitive proof, I won't buy a car that is titled the year after it's model year. If I miss out on a few nice demos it's far better than mistakenly buying an experience car from a shady dealer. If I lived elsewhere it wouldn't be as big an issue, but those X cars have to go somewhere, selling 'em where they were run makes a lot of sense.

wareaglescott

Dont think because the car is highly optioned it wasn't a track mule. The main purpose of the PEC is to sell cars. They have cars there with all the goodies so potential buyers can see them in action. That 90 minutes session ended up costing me 130k lol.

Honkity Hank

I did the Atlanta Experience about a year ago. The 911 I had was fully optioned and the only manual box that they had. I wanted to work on the low friction parts of the track so spent the who session except for a couple of laps doing that. So pretty much 50% of the time out there we were sliding around the skid pad, the low friction course, or the kick plate.

The car was fully optioned out, with the exception of the stupidly expensive options like painted key, and carbon fiber ashtray hinges. As I remember it was well optioned.

I have no idea where the cars go when they are done with them, but I would be surprised if they only go into the Atlanta market. They may get CPO'd or go to a high line auction, that is a good question. I wonder how many cars they go through in a year though, can't be that many that I would worry about getting one on the used car market.