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Hi guys, in the market for a 981 Boxster S. Found a good one, CPO from Porsche dealership, however there's a catch. The door panels are starting to warp slightly, and they won't be fixing that before CPO'ing and selling me the vehicle. They stated that the cost to repair it, plus a convertible top glitch (which they will 100% be fixing) along with other CPO repairs would cost too much on their end, and that they may be better off auctioning the vehicle off if not sold to me, per a salesperson. If I do buy the vehicle, they'll be CPO'ing it - just doors won't be fixed.
This is my first P car which I've been working years to save up for and purchase, so it's a big decision. Sales person couldn't guarantee if dealers would fix it under CPO. If I buy it, it will be CPO, and I've seen people have their warped door panels fixed under CPO. Is this a safe bet to purchase? 1 owner, clean carfax, good spec, low miles. Called a couple of dealers in a state over and got some mixed answers, common one being "we'd have to take a look at it, see if it was user error etc."
What would your approach/mindset be? Any advice would be super appreciated. Thrown my plans in the air a bit now on what'll be the biggest purchase of my life so far - financially and emotionally :-)
If the car and price are right for you, I would not let door panels be a deciding factor. I wouldn't have the panels replaced under CPO anyways as they will warp again in a few years depending on storage location, ambient temps, etc. I would send them off to Pedro's Garage Technolab in Florida for a permanent fix under $1k. That's my opinion after having my 2014 CS panels repaired by him.... work is top-notch!!
I just repaired my own door panels, if you are handy, it is not difficult as long as the warpage is not horrible. If the warpage is terrible, send them to Pedros. If everything else is right, get it, enjoy it, and you won’t look back! Even with CPO, pay for an independent inspection. Warranties aren’t an answer to all issues. Mine was a dream fulfilled, even exceeded.
And also note that the CPO warranty specifically excludes cosmetic complaints - including cloudy headlights (as well as the door panels). That's not a ding to CPO - as it should cover you for major mechanical issues or functional failures, but it's important to know going in.
My advice, even though CPO provides a lot of security, it does not guarantee a problem free car. Get a pre purchase inspection to better understand what you are buying. Check Carfax and AutoCheck too. CPO cars can be delivered with UV failure of the coating on headlights, warped door panels and even minor body damage from collisions. There can be other issues with the car that might even be present that dealer should have caught and repaired but did not (either by choice or poor discovery during CPO process) that may or may not be covered by CPO repair. If that happens the repair is not on the dealer's dime or time anymore, but now becomes your problem to resolve, and it is not always going to be covered.
I received a 2015 dealer sold CPO Boxster with 7600 miles from Florida, that was purchased online and shipped to me in January 2023. Arrived with an electrical issue killing my battery overnight (bad instrument cluster), the beginnings of warping doors and mildly crazed headlights. It became a 5-month nightmare getting it sorted out due to an initial misdiagnosis at servicing dealer (claiming no coverage allowed due to my issue caused by water damage from leaking ac condensate from blocked drains while under previous ownership), which turned out to not be the cause of problem, and then back ordered parts.
But in the end, I finally have a pristine low mileage car. CPO covered about 9K worth of repairs (including replacing a bad instrument cluster and replacing warped door panels, but not my headlights, which I restored to like new doing sanding, polishing and PPF coating lens myself, so from my experience, even with the aggravation I went through, it was worth having CPO. My car is not in Florida anymore, only will see limited use on nice days and is always garaged. If I get another 8 years out of doors and headlights that is fine, I can repair them then.
Best advice, always buyer beware, do your due diligence inspection and only plan on the CPO coverage for catastrophic repairs. CPO does provide much more than catastrophic coverage, but warranty administrator must clear all repairs to rule out customer abuse, water damage, or lack of proper maintenance as cause. Sometimes this review can provide unpleasant results for you, lengthy PCNA challenges and extended car down time.
Last edited by 2ndTimeAround; 06-22-2023 at 11:22 AM.
And also note that the CPO warranty specifically excludes cosmetic complaints - including cloudy headlights (as well as the door panels). That's not a ding to CPO - as it should cover you for major mechanical issues or functional failures, but it's important to know going in.
Probably varies with dealers, but cloudy headlights reduce functionality, so technically they should be covered. Some dealers may even replace them or refurbish them before CPO. Door panels? I guess that depends on how bad. You could try arguing that the raised edge is a safety concern for people that want to hang their arm on the sill when driving or reaching out for that triple mocha almond whatchmacallit at the drivethrough.
It does seem true that the customer experience, specifically with headlights and door panels is mixed. I tried to get mine covered at a dealer under cpo and actually saw a memo that addressed what qualifies for warranty replacement. Document had pictures of various headlights with cracking UV coating. I was denied coverage because the damage on mine were not significant enough. Was told that I could come back when they got worse for a reevaluation. I just chose to repair myself. As far as the door panels, I tried another dealership and they had an administrator look at it while I waited and immediately approved the replacement. Just have to wait for backorder to come in. I was told by someone in the industry that the reason why some dealers approve what others may not could be because of a dealers CPO claim history. If a dealer is too liberal doing repairs, it may be a ding to them at PCNA. I can't be certain that this is true, but I have seen that kind of monitoring go on in other industries. Maybe if too many claims are submitted in a short window of time beyond averages nationwide, it causes audits?
Probably varies with dealers, but cloudy headlights reduce functionality, so technically they should be covered. Some dealers may even replace them or refurbish them before CPO. Door panels? I guess that depends on how bad. You could try arguing that the raised edge is a safety concern for people that want to hang their arm on the sill when driving or reaching out for that triple mocha almond whatchmacallit at the drivethrough.
Yeah, I certainly tried the "diminished light output" argument but they didn't budge. (I had them polished and they looked great for nearly 4 years thereafter.) If you are well known to the dealer and regularly buy cars there, then you'll get some extra accommodation with CPO and even out of warranty, but that didn't sound like the situation for OP.
Thanks everyone for the words! Seems it's not as big an issue as I originally made it out to be. Overall, the car is in fantastic shape. Appreciate the advice again!
Cloudy headlights could just be a cosmetic issue and can be easily corrected (I'm a detailer lol) - so I wouldn't think they'd replace this. Cracked is a different story. I do second you on the door panels, I know there are airbags in there and wondering if the warping could affect proper airbag deployment.
Hi guys, in the market for a 981 Boxster S. Found a good one, CPO from Porsche dealership, however there's a catch. The door panels are starting to warp slightly, and they won't be fixing that before CPO'ing and selling me the vehicle. They stated that the cost to repair it, plus a convertible top glitch (which they will 100% be fixing) along with other CPO repairs would cost too much on their end, and that they may be better off auctioning the vehicle off if not sold to me, per a salesperson. If I do buy the vehicle, they'll be CPO'ing it - just doors won't be fixed.
This is my first P car which I've been working years to save up for and purchase, so it's a big decision. Sales person couldn't guarantee if dealers would fix it under CPO. If I buy it, it will be CPO, and I've seen people have their warped door panels fixed under CPO. Is this a safe bet to purchase? 1 owner, clean carfax, good spec, low miles. Called a couple of dealers in a state over and got some mixed answers, common one being "we'd have to take a look at it, see if it was user error etc."
What would your approach/mindset be? Any advice would be super appreciated. Thrown my plans in the air a bit now on what'll be the biggest purchase of my life so far - financially and emotionally :-)
Respectfully, sod the door cards! That’s a known issue and entirely unrelated to the care of the car. I’d be focused on condition, mileage and service history (all relative to price). If that adds up, go for it 👌
Following up. If the car has a good PPI, you love it and are willing to accept that you will have to pay for headlight and door panel repairs to make car cosmetically perfect, buy the car. At the worst it will cost about $900 to have the headlight lenses professionally replaced (or DIY if you are capable for about $200, or possibly even less if you just sand, polish and uv coat them). Then try to get the door panels replaced under cpo, or plan on paying up to $1k depending on how bad the panels are to get them professionally repaired, You will be adding just a couple of hundred dollars to a max of $1900 to your purchase price to get car perfect (assuming all else is already fine). Or just live with it and enjoy the ride.
These are repairable cosmetic items that if fixed ultimately will help you sell car when and if you do. Buyers would be happy to know that you already fixed known cosmetic bugs in the car (unlike repainting body panels that might turn some fussy buyers off). These are known issues that I would attempt to use to negotiate price with the dealer. $1900 is way less than the dealer would have to pay to replace doors and headlights themselves, so maybe they would be flexible and discount car and pass repair project on to you to close the deal. Worth a shot.
I unknowingly had these issues when I bought my CPO Boxster remotely so I got stuck with them. I am particularly fussy so I sanded, polished and PPF coated headlights myself, and found a dealer that would cpo the doors. Only spent about $200 for materials to do the headlights (orbital sander, sand papers, polish and PPF) so well worth the money, and all will be like new (once panels arrive).
This is what my door panels look like until my replacements are installed.
This is how headlights turned out after sanding, polishing and PPF film coated.
Last edited by 2ndTimeAround; 06-24-2023 at 08:54 AM.
Following up. If the car has a good PPI, you love it and are willing to accept that you will have to pay for headlight and door panel repairs to make car cosmetically perfect, buy the car. At the worst it will cost about $900 to have the headlight lenses professionally replaced (or DIY if you are capable for about $200, or possibly even less if you just sand, polish and uv coat them). Then try to get the door panels replaced under cpo, or plan on paying up to $1k depending on how bad the panels are to get them professionally repaired, You will be adding just a couple of hundred dollars to a max of $1900 to your purchase price to get car perfect (assuming all else is already fine). Or just live with it and enjoy the ride.
These are repairable cosmetic items that if fixed ultimately will help you sell car when and if you do. Buyers would be happy to know that you already fixed known cosmetic bugs in the car (unlike repainting body panels that might turn some fussy buyers off). These are known issues that I would attempt to use to negotiate price with the dealer. $1900 is way less than the dealer would have to pay to replace doors and headlights themselves, so maybe they would be flexible and discount car and pass repair project on to you to close the deal. Worth a shot.
I unknowingly had these issues when I bought my CPO Boxster remotely so I got stuck with them. I am particularly fussy so I sanded, polished and PPF coated headlights myself, and found a dealer that would cpo the doors. Only spent about $200 for materials to do the headlights (orbital sander, sand papers, polish and PPF) so well worth the money, and all will be like new (once panels arrive).
(Image) This is what my door panels look like until my replacements are installed.
(Image) This is how headlights turned out after sanding, polishing and PPF film coated.
I appreciate this so much! I'll be getting the vehicle, hopefully later this week. Decision was made
As for the headlights, I run a detailing biz so that's not a worry for me at all. Door cards seemed to be the only real issue with the car and as you said, I'll try and get them repaired via CPO. Also, did you put PPF on the headlights? Or just coated/waxed them with a protectant/ceramic coating? They look fantastic and you did an excellent job!
I will gIve you the long answer and whole process. Since you are in the biz, you may or may not know this but the UV coating on 981’s is not like the average yellowing you see on most older cars. The classic pea soup yellowing on other cars can generally be removed by any good detailer or consumer using over-the-counter kits you see in auto parts stores. When the UV coating starts to degrade on 981’s the impact is not so much yellowing but is cracking of the actual coating into small hairlines. Sometimes it really gets bad as you can see other by posts about this. This coating is very slick and hard as nails. You will want to remove the headlights from the car to do the restoration. This is simple do on a 981. There is a tool in the left front toolbox that unlocks them, and then they pop right out. PPF is easiest to install with them back on though.
My lights had micro cracks that were particularly noticeable at night. It was a Florida car, so saw a lot of UV exposure. Researched all the options from least invasive to most. People debate all day dry versus wet sanding, spray UV coat or film, but IMO only process #3 below had enough bite in the sanding phase to remove the very hard UV coat and take lenses to a nice frosty appearance before doing staged sanding. I also preferred coating after done with Xpel PPF because it eliminated messy sprays that can run and will wear off in time. The film protects lenses from impact and UV, plus is REALLY glossy and will last a long time. Footnote here. If head light has not had the factory UV coating sanded off and you are only polishing the existing surface to lightly clean up, DO NOT put PPF on the lens. It can delaminate the factory UV coating from the lens and then you will have to remove it and end up back to process 3 that I outline below. Xpel specifically advises against putting it on factory coated 981 lenses for protection.
So many mixed results posted on various threads out there, so I went full overkill on them. Had a junker broken headlight to test out different techniques first, so it built confidence with my final method before grinding my own lenses.
1) Tried machine compound and polish lenses with orange pads (cleaned up but does not address the UV cracks) 2) Tried wet sanding with commercially available kits (again, not enough cutting to really correct) and I noticed that under close scrutiny, I could still see very fine cracks and swirl marks in the lens. Old UV coat was not fully removed.
3) Ended up going with the more aggressive staged dry sand first, then wet sanding/polishing/PPF process. Worked great. Did not need to do the nuclear option of cutting out the lenses and reglueing new ones in.
Worked my way backwards on dry sanding with an orbital machine until I found sweet spot for getting the original UV coating to come off without taking too much effort (320 sandpaper used the least number of sheets (2 per lens) to get each lens nice and frosted). Then I moved to 2 sheets for each lens at 400, 600, and 800 dry sanded to smooth out any micro scratches from the heavier grits. Then moved 2 sheets of wet sanding for each lens with 1000 and 2000 grit. Finished with a wet sand using 3m 3000 grit Trizact, and 8000 grit Trizact. I am cursed with being a perfectionist so that last Trizact step was probably overkill and Trizact pads are pretty expensive, but I loved the final results.
Once that was all done, I compounded with an orange cutting pad followed with a fine polish with a grey pad. Lenses looked crystal clear now but did not have the high gloss of original, plus had no UV coating. I could have sprayed with UV spray, but I opted to use Xpel PPF. End result, about 4 hours labor to sand and refinish, plus PPF install to have like new (maybe even better lenses, as you can see result in my previous posting). UV crazing (hard to see but whole lens was like crackle glass) Particular annoying at night.
I will gIve you the long answer and whole process. Since you are in the biz, you may or may not know this but the UV coating on 981’s is not like the average yellowing you see on most older cars. The classic pea soup yellowing on other cars can generally be removed by any good detailer or consumer using over-the-counter kits you see in auto parts stores. When the UV coating starts to degrade on 981’s the impact is not so much yellowing but is cracking of the actual coating into small hairlines. Sometimes it really gets bad as you can see other by posts about this. This coating is very slick and hard as nails. You will want to remove the headlights from the car to do the restoration. This is simple do on a 981. There is a tool in the left front toolbox that unlocks them, and then they pop right out. PPF is easiest to install with them back on though.
My lights had micro cracks that were particularly noticeable at night. It was a Florida car, so saw a lot of UV exposure. Researched all the options from least invasive to most. People debate all day dry versus wet sanding, spray UV coat or film, but IMO only process #3 below had enough bite in the sanding phase to remove the very hard UV coat and take lenses to a nice frosty appearance before doing staged sanding. I also preferred coating after done with Xpel PPF because it eliminated messy sprays that can run and will wear off in time. The film protects lenses from impact and UV, plus is REALLY glossy and will last a long time. Footnote here. If head light has not had the factory UV coating sanded off and you are only polishing the existing surface to lightly clean up, DO NOT put PPF on the lens. It can delaminate the factory UV coating from the lens and then you will have to remove it and end up back to process 3 that I outline below. Xpel specifically advises against putting it on factory coated 981 lenses for protection.
So many mixed results posted on various threads out there, so I went full overkill on them. Had a junker broken headlight to test out different techniques first, so it built confidence with my final method before grinding my own lenses.
1) Tried machine compound and polish lenses with orange pads (cleaned up but does not address the UV cracks) 2) Tried wet sanding with commercially available kits (again, not enough cutting to really correct) and I noticed that under close scrutiny, I could still see very fine cracks and swirl marks in the lens. Old UV coat was not fully removed.
3) Ended up going with the more aggressive staged dry sand first, then wet sanding/polishing/PPF process. Worked great. Did not need to do the nuclear option of cutting out the lenses and reglueing new ones in.
Worked my way backwards on dry sanding with an orbital machine until I found sweet spot for getting the original UV coating to come off without taking too much effort (320 sandpaper used the least number of sheets (2 per lens) to get each lens nice and frosted). Then I moved to 2 sheets for each lens at 400, 600, and 800 dry sanded to smooth out any micro scratches from the heavier grits. Then moved 2 sheets of wet sanding for each lens with 1000 and 2000 grit. Finished with a wet sand using 3m 3000 grit Trizact, and 8000 grit Trizact. I am cursed with being a perfectionist so that last Trizact step was probably overkill and Trizact pads are pretty expensive, but I loved the final results.
Once that was all done, I compounded with an orange cutting pad followed with a fine polish with a grey pad. Lenses looked crystal clear now but did not have the high gloss of original, plus had no UV coating. I could have sprayed with UV spray, but I opted to use Xpel PPF. End result, about 4 hours labor to sand and refinish, plus PPF install to have like new (maybe even better lenses, as you can see result in my previous posting).
UV crazing (hard to see but whole lens was like crackle glass) Particular annoying at night.
Wow - love the insights! That's interesting you went all the way up to 8000 grit but as you said - you got the results so it was worth it. Love that you took my personal approach to it as well - least aggressive and you had a tester headlight!! Awesome stuff. I'll definitely keep this in mind if mine ever turn out bad. I'll be correcting/PPF/coating them so hopefully never run into any problems. Definitely seem more nuanced than most headlights!
06-21-2023, 10:16 PM
981 Purchasing Advice
