TheRealLefty

Ok, here's some food for thought. We all know that, compared to most domestic and non-German imports, Porsches are capable of putting very high miles on key components with little loss of performance or dependability. A well maintained 944 can have ton's o' miles and still be a good purchase, depending on records.

That said, however, what about cars that are neither fish nor fowl in terms of mileage. Watching here and at PCA sites, seems like anything under 40K is considered a cream puff, preservation car and commands the best dollar from buyer interested in originality.

What, in the opinion of the esteemed group here, does the potential buyer draw from cars that are "middle miles," say 60K-90K. Are these cars thrown into the category of "depends on receipts" or are they considered low mile cars?

Here's what I'm getting at....with a car that is 20 years old, 80K represents 4K use per year, very likely a sunny day only, bad weather stored hobby car. In some cases, depending on the owner and cosmetics, these cars might be better buys in terms of mechanical condition than 20K cars that sit too much, n'est pas?

Put yourself in the buyer's shoes or the seller's shoes and post away guys!

RKD in OKC

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TheRealLefty

Rimshot. Soft shoe shuffle. Jump forward with right arm down, palm up

RKD in OKC

All just woke up, knee jerk reaction attempts at humor aside...

I consider anything under 80K, that looks good and has good reciepts a low mileage car at this point. Not a collector car, but low mileage.

I also personally value a finatic owned daily driver over a garage queen any day.

When I sold my 90 928 GT... I talked about the higher miles on it and how I daily drove the car hard as an enthusiast, fixing anything that even looked funny. I got premium dollars for the car. Which I wil add, barely paid for what I bought the car for, plus all the upgrades and repairs I did to it. I considered myself doing good because I basically sold the car for what I had spent on it.

As for my 89 944 Turbo... I've already spent $5000 more than I could ever expect to get out of it, and am looking another $7000 square in the face within the next month.
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ryanm6100

I've got 57K on my 86, and I consider that to be just on the cusp of being a very rare auto. I expect to get every last dollar I put into maintenance, and maybe have a little bit left over at the end..

jgporsche

I bought my 944S with 145K(165K on body) miles..... it was a daily driver for the PO.

The guy was hilarious, he loved the car to death. When I gave him his asking price he didn't even want to take the money. His wife had to literally ****** the keys from his hands and give them to me.

He wasn't the most knowledgable guy about cars and was taken quite a few times by a local shop, but he meant well. I haven't had to eat too much cost of bonehead stuff. The guy had receipts from 1992 when he bought the car from the original owner (his father in-law).

Let me tell you.... this car is a TANK. It's very strong even with this mileage. I can see it going another 145K, easy.

steve 31673

My 86 has 79,000 km or 49,000 miles

RolexNJ

I'm gonna pretty much have to agree with Richard here on this one, especially if it's an 1986-1987. We can all find "rare" examples, but those aren't the norm and they are hard to find. Most cars of those years I just said, for the most part, I see are over 90K+ That's my 2 cents.

Now if you are talking low milage, I would say that whether or not it's an 1986 to 1989, that around 20K - 60K is low mileage. At least I think so. I happen to love low mile cars, for a variety of reasons. My first 1989 944T had 27K on the clock, bone stock, and was in "mint/collector" condition. But, there were issues that were caused by age, not miles. Now I have a 1988 S with 65K on it, and it's in excellent shape. Regardless, I think Richard is on the money for the most part, even with that Mad Max avatar of his. Kool Richard!

shaheed

to me it doesn't matter, i've seen cars with less than 60k miles in clearly worse shape than those with over 100k. 20+ year old parts break. personally i'd be scared to buy one of those 20k mile cars that pops up every so often. those are the ones that have never had parts changed out, because of the low mileage, and you get the pleasure of doing it all yourself once you start driving. i'd much rather see a thick stack of service records.

billthe3

I think that is sort of what my 80k car is like, where it was getting to the point of all the stuff needing to be replaced and the owner decided to sell it at that point. Luckily for me I didn't research anything and sort of bought the car as a spur-of-the-moment type thing, so now I'm getting to do the headgasket and t-belt/water pump as well as some other minor stuff.

Although I am rather curious as to why my headgasket has gone at 85k while other stock engines last close to twice as long...

shaheed

do you have an aftermarket boost gauge? i had a lindsey boost enhancer in one of my 951s eons ago. it was in the "stock" position as sold by lindsey, i was a little shocked when i hooked up an aftermarket boost gauge and found out the boost enhancer was causing my boost to peak at 19psi.

Scootin159

I've got > 130,000 on mine and consider it low mileage...

That is only 6500/year.

Compare that with my Jeep @ 150,000 and you'll see 15,000/year.

Keithr726

I'd say low mileage is <60,000 miles. My 86 951 has 119,000

philcav7

Bought my '86 951 in May with 38K miles. It currently has about 43k miles and had no issues related to age or sitting too long. Mechanic looked it over twice this summer and only came up with a leaky strut, everything else was fine.

Car seemed pretty well maintained but only came with a few receipts for the major repairs like timing belt and clutch.

BlueRiver86

Mileage is only an indication of how much a car was driven, not HOW it was driven, or maintained for that matter.