I’m considering buying a very clean 928. It’s across country so relying on pictures. Noticed the rails under the car all dented / crushed from improper jacking. How much would you ding a car for this? Runaway? Ignore? Lower price by X?

 

If you rule out cars that have this problem, you will narrow you search to very few cars (although my GTS was frame dent free). I'm not aware of any functional problems it causes, and 928 motorsports used to make a plate to prevent it/cover it up. The metal is pretty soft, so I suspect that, if it bothered you cosmetically, you could pull it out pretty easily.

 

Usually they are less pronounced, not particularly structural, but those are bad in my opinion. Maybe our real experts will weigh in, but ouch. Am not going to give you a %, but its definite leverage on a driver car. Dealbreaker on investment monies vehicle.

More importantly, possible precursor to other stuff.
Isolated bad event or years of neglect because non 928 mechanics worked on it.

Maybe you need to post some other pics, esp closeups in engine compartment. Guys here are able to see a lot. And price. Ok to crop if you want to hide source/ location from scavengers.

I'm a bottom feeder, so the minute you indicated clean, I was out.

 

It’s a very clean very long term owner 928 manual asking top top dollar. Overdue for a TB by a decade but only a few thousand miles ago. Not a concurs car but an excellent driver near show quality on body and interior. Engine and undercarriage are driver dirty but not missing the jump post cover :-) My sentiment is whoever jacked it wrong shouldn’t be working on it. What else did they do wrong on such a loved 928? Not showing pictures because I’m in the verge of buying it. Not new to 928’s. This would be my 5th. Been on a break for several years though.

 

My 87 S4 survived many years dent free until a couple of months ago an imbecile lifted the car and decided that those are “chassis rails”. Needless to say i was looking for a cross to hang him on.

It is cosmetic and can be pulled with glue and then hammered back to shape. I will be doing this “surgery” on mine soon. Lots of imbeciles and its not an issue.

 

There ya go!

 

to fix it,
best bet remove the seat and push it out from inside the car,
there are some holes where access is gained

 

I've seen worse and usually further forward. Most 928s have some dents like that in those rails. I try not to have garages lift my cars. I take the wheels off and put them in my truck for tire work and you don't want an alignment shop lifting a 928 anyway as it throws off the ride height.

Lift bars are the best solution for jacking from the proper plates.

 

You could spend the entire rest of your life looking for a car without damage to this area....idiots working on cars they should not be touching.
This particular damage is very, very minor....I'm used to seeing cars with 6-10 dents per side!

To answer your question:
No impact on the sale price, at all...
And if this is all that is wrong with any 928, at this point in time, buy it!

 

I remember reading a Rennlist post that detailed repairing these. It showed how to access the rail from inside the car and the using a block of wood and a hammer to straighten out the damage. I’m not able to find that post now but hopefully someone can find it.

 

Maybe this one:
Chassis Rail Straightening - Rennlist - Porsche Discussion Forums

Hope this will help.

 

I am planning to have the car lifted and get the PDR guy work on mine from underneath using the glue and pull method to reform the metal rail and then they can tap the sides to form using sheet metal hammer. Once I get to it, I will take pics and share if successful) as I believe this would be the least damaging approach and a way to bring it back to 100% cosmetically.