pwoodruff89

I put a 2014 Porsche Cayman into pre-purchase today in Frederick, MD. It has a clean carfax and around 46,000 miles.

The shop said it was overall in good shape. The rails underneath were straight and there were no apparent undercarriage damage. Suspension looked good. This is a long-distance purchase, so I also had a friend run up to the shop and give the car a cosmetic look, with special emphasis on looking for signs of hidden damage or repairs. I noticed a slight misalignment from his pictures and I was wondering if any of you with 981s have cars with similar characteristics. See the attached photos of the left side and if you happen to have an up-close picture of your car it would be very helpful. For all I know, this is just a manufacturing defect for very early Caymans. I'm ok with something like that but otherwise prefer a clean, straight car.

If you have a 2014 Cayman, especially an early one, I'd be interested to know if your car has similar imperfections. Other pics are attached in case you see something that gives you any other clues.

The issue is most clear in picture 2

Edit: Solved - appears 2014 Caymans are just this way on the left side. See below.

Tom R.

carfax and vinanalytics, no picture link

pwoodruff89

Thank you. Pics should show up now

okie981

I don't think a rocker panel adjustment will make all those lines match. Doesn't look right to me, but I can't say if the rocker is distorted or the quarter panel is distorted in that area.

pwoodruff89

I went out today first to the dealer, next an independent Porsche shop, and finally to a Porsche certified body shop. The dealer was of little help. The independent shop referred me to the certified body shop The body shop looked over the pics and was pretty confident it was a defect in the moulding. Also, they had a 2014 Cayman (without side damage) in their shop for some minor work. That Cayman had the exact same imperfection on only the left side. This must just be an early Cayman thing.

alvitdk

Same on mine, had it checked out, no damage or previous issues...bought it anyway and don't even think about it any.more

okie981

Sounds like the mystery has been solved.

pwoodruff89

Yep. I pick it up on Monday and drive 19 hours back to Texas. This has near the exact build I'd want if I ordered from the factory (Black/Gray/Silver exterior with Black interior, sport steering wheel, and Sport Chrono).

Blu RS

For what it's worth, it's not impossible that some of the mounting tabs on the backside of the panel are not properly inserted into their respective slots or tabs on the body. I've had the driver's side panel on my 2016 Boxster that just didn't look like it fit right. Plus when I pushed on that panel it would squeak a bit, depending on where I pushed on it. You should try that as well. Push on the panel on different spots all along the panel. If you get squeaks it's not mounted right. In my case a chassis mounting tab (or bracket) had been bent (how that happened is another story) and the insertion points were not lining up but yet the panel was being slightly distorted because of that disconnect. The solution was to remove the whole panel, rebend the tab/bracket then remount the panel. It took a pro body guy to figure out what was going wrong.

So maybe that's your panel's problem as well, or as earlier suggested, they're just badly moulded from the outset.