I have found a nice 2006 Boxster which meets all my needs. The car was originally leased in NJ and the current owner (2nd owner) bought it in 2009. The car is located in South FL, so I cannot visually inspect it. The current owner (private seller) has no problem with me getting a PPI done. So I decided to pay $35 to run a Carfax check. It appears the car was in an "accident" in NY in August of 2006, but there are no details. The "accident" may have been a minor bumper bump to a major repair. The current owner claims he has no knowledge of a prior accident and that he did not get a Carfax report when he bought it. I called the local dealer near the seller and they will only do a mechanical PPI with a computer printout, they will not interpret any results. Further, the dealer advised that it will not check the car over for prior accident repairs, etc. nor will it paint test the paint. The dealer said I'd have to find a body shop to do it. Easier said than done, as most shops won't get involved. I found one who said he would do it finally.

My question, is the car even worth pursuing and spending money on a PPI and a body shop inspection considering that the VIN has a negative Carfax history? I do intend to keep the car a long time and if it was only a minor bumper respray I'd consider it but not if it has had body panel work, etc. I am seeking input on how dealers and the market responds to such vehicles. From my talks with people Carfax histories are very negative to a vehicle's value.

I am glad I got the Carfax report.

 

With accident history, the questions are how extensive, and even if minor, how well were the repairs done. Even if just a bumper re-spray, there could be color matching issues.

I would not rule it out, but I would definitely not buy a car that had been involved in an accident sight-unseen.

 

With all the available cars out there in the market today, I would walk away. You can always find another car.

Just my 2 cents.

B

 

What briweed said.

To add: In your situation you have to spend some money to get the car PPI'd and checked by a body shop to know if the car is even worthy of consideration when ideally you want to eliminate a car unworthy of consideration *before* you have the PPI done.

It doesn't take too many of these PPIs' et al that turn up an unworthy car to add up to some serious money.

And if you are keeping the car a long time don't worry about what dealers/market thinks of the car.

At some point the dealer won't care about the car cause it will be too old for it do anything more than if you are using it as a trade-in just giving you something less than wholesale (auction value) and turning the car over to a wholesaler for disposal.

As for the market (private sale): Your best bet of preserving the car's value is to find a good car, pay a reasonable price for it, and take care of the car. This helps lower the depreciation you experience while you own/use the car and works towards making your time with the car pleasurable time.

In short: Worry about finding and buying a good car at a good price.

Added: I'm probably overly paranoid, but I hope the body shop is not one beholden to the dealer for a lot of its body/paint work? A PPI and any body shop inspection should be done by 1) A qualified person at a qualified shop; 2) A person/shop that does not have any fudicary interest in seeing the car sold.

Sincerely,

Macster.

 

Thanks for the input thus far. Just to be clear this car is a private seller not a dealer and he is open to me picking the inspection places. I'm leaning towards passing.

By the way Guards Red/tan cars are quite rare and there are very few nationwide to pick from. My selection is terrible and I've been looking for months on a daily basis.

 

Keep waiting, the perfect one will come along. I personally would not want a car that has had any accident history.

 

There's no rush. There's always another car. Shopping for your next (or first) Porsche should be fun.

You learn and get better at id'ing unworthy cars early and avoid wasting time on them (and PPI money) and get better at recognizing good cars.

When you do buy the car you have to know it is the right car for you at the right price right down to your socks.

Sincerely,

Macster.

 

If you haven't yet, you could check out my Porsche search engine: http://porschefinder.net. I just released a new version of it. I'm still shaking out some bugs and am adding more cars as I type this, but it's up and running. I'd appreciate any comments/feedback be it positive or negative. I created the site a year or so ago because it was such a pain in the neck finding my first Porsche with all of the different car sites out there. I'm currently including listings from: Porsche, EBay Motors, Autotrader and Cars.com.

Good luck finding what you're looking for!

Jason

 

Nice search engine, very fast. Would help if the dealer name or location was up front.
Would be cool to have some way to search dealer inventory for new cars, it's very tedious looking at every dealer's website. I know the internal Porsche system can do it.

 

Thanks for the feedback. Great idea, I'll add the location to the main listing. Re:new inventory, right now I'm just focusing on pre-owned cars, but, it's something I'll considered for the future. Thanks again for the feedback.

Jason

 

So the rule of thumbs is to never buy a porshe thats been in a accident? Is that the paper clip example? Never being able to be bent back correctly? There are plenty of Boxsters on the market and many have been in accidents. How much would you take off for one thats been in a accident? Thanks in advance.

 

CarFax won't trigger unless there was an insurance claim payout, so its a pretty safe bet it was more than a scrape on a bumper cover. But certain panels are really not a big deal to replace, the question does become how extensive was the damage, and that's something difficult to determine long distance. Keep in mind to, that CarFax will dog you as well at resale time. I'd probably pass on it unless I could put my own eyes on it first, or unless the seller was willing to adjust the price accordingly that you were willing to take a chance on it.

 

If you can find out how much was spent on repairs, I think it takes 1/2 that much off the value.

 

I am passing on the FL private seller car. I must see any car before I pay good money for a PPI and a body shop inspection. A bad carfax will kill me later even if it is just a minor bumper scrape.

I drove to Palmer, MA today over 2 hours each way to some Bartera Chevy who has tons of used Porsches. The salesman insisted over the phone that the car was carfax clean and had no body work, etc. He also told me that he had a paint tester and that I could test it. When I arrived he lied to me and told me that their paint tester dropped and broke and that he told me they did not have one. He then told me a panel had been repainted due to a prior scratch and that he allegedly told me this ahead of time. I complained to the manager who gave me a paint tester. The car had the entire rear driver's side quarter panel painted and part of the driver's door. The job was typical crap and had orange peal and did not match the other side of the car, plus it had imperfections under the paint on the drivers door handle area where they tried to blend it. Junk. What a waste of time and money driving up there. By the way the carfax was clean!!! I do not want a painted car for any reason. My $0.02. My hunt continues to find a 2006 or newer Guards Red car that is paint work free. Not an easy job.

 

My experience at purchasing a 2008 Porsche Boxster (less than 7500 miles with remaining factory warranty) long distance worked out well. I could have flown down and picked up the car but chose to have it trucked. Overall a good purchase at a reasonable price that I am enjoying. I found many low mileage Boxsters especially in parts of the country then experiencing winter weather. Some were probably an even a better buy than the one I selected, but transportation would have been a problem and driving across country in the winter was not something I wanted to do. It seems that there are many that purchase a Porsche but don't drive them. The two sources used in the search were cars.com and craigslist.org. For the search on craigslist I used http://www.jaxed.com/cgi-bin/mash.cg...mit=++++go++++ The craigslist search found more cars at smaller non-Porsche dealers and from private parties.