Manifold

Occurs to me that there may be a sort of 'game theory' problem going on here. A bunch of guys avoid driving the cars in order to avoid depreciation, so others become reluctant to drive them too and you wind up with hardly anyone really driving them. If everyone instead realized that the cars are durable and drove them a lot, lots of cars would have high mileage, and the mileage would be less of a big deal with respect to depreciation. Even then, looking at prices on cars.com, looks like cars with high miles only take about $20K hit compared to cars with low miles, which is nothing when you spread it out over years of ownership and cost per mile driven.

evilfij

CALSE

I missed the memo! My 2014 .1 GT3 is worthless compared to the low mileage ones. 35K+ miles, heavy track use, 3rd motor, 2nd PCCBs, 2nd PDK, heavily pitted windshield, etc.

It was a fun 4 years and counting tho!

sampelligrino

*sniff* that's beautiful

disden

Was speaking to a Porsche engineer a few months back. He was telling me the cars that typically have problems are the garage queens that sit and don't get driven. He said these cars are designed to be driven, problems arise when the are not driven. So personally, I would rather have a well looked after GT car with some miles on it that has good maintainance history and is also CPOd.

GrantG

+1 - a well driven and maintained car that has seen the track and significant street miles tends to run better than a garage queen.

JRidge

I imagine some owners are only able to afford and/or justify such a large purchase by recouping as much of their original investment as possible. Others, similarly, in hopes of continually trading upward, feel the need to preserve as much value as possible. To varying degrees I suspect many want to own/drive/enjoy it for 2-3 years and still be able to get close to what they paid.

I do believe that a high mileage GT car would retain a larger percentage of its value than a "normal" car with similar value, just nowhere near what a low-mileage example would bring.

Based on what I've heard from Porsche about the .2 engine, I expect it to be near bulletproof for 100k+. But your question is sort of two parts: can the car handle it (yes); and will the value reflect that (to an extent, maybe, but not if there's an abudance of lower-mileage cars available, which their will be).

I for one think it's a total waste of warranty NOT to get the full warranted mileage out of a car. In other words, if my 991.2 GT3 has 4 year/50k miles and I let that warranty expire in 4 years without driving it, that's a waste of warranty. Now I may not put quite 50k (12.5k miles/year) on it just because it's not my daily, I'm frequently carrying more than one passenger, and my wife hates getting in and out, but I'm going to drive it every chance I get.

Manifold

Yep, and likewise for the extended engine warranty on the .1 GT3.

Manifold

I guess, like people, these cars needs to some exercise to stay healthy. What are the typical health issues with the cars that stay caged up in garages?

Dr.Bill

To paraphrase Plato "an undriven car is not worth owning".

Kobalt

I'm proud of my 300k km's on the 991.1RS and 900k km's on the 997.1GT3.

GrantG

I'm not sure if it's the fuel system, internal drivetrain parts that are not washed/bathed in oil or what. But it's been my experience that the old axiom that an exercised car runs better has been true. Seen it commonly in Porsche and Ferrari models that I've driven.

PorscheFrank

I think the concern over GT cars mileage is particularly related to the track. We all know that the track is far more abusive to these cars than even spirited street driving, for example PCCB rotors lasting the life of the car on the street, but only a season of track driving. GT cars are theoretically track cars so I think that's where mileage may be more of a consideration in terms of determining condition.

aruisdante

Yes, that is exactly correct. When the majority of the market is in one place along an axis, and you're in another, especially when that direction on the axis is commonly perceived as "worse," then of course the market is going have a decreased willingness to pay.

You can perform this simple test yourself: If there are 10 cars for sale, all listed at the same price, 9 of them have 10,000 miles, and 1 of them has 100,000 miles, are you going to buy the one with 100,000 miles?

Of course you aren't, because even if the risk is low, there still is more risk in buying a car with higher mileage (both real risk in mechanical failure causing capital expenditure, and position risk in being unable to sell the asset later for a reasonable dollar amount when you have to compete with many other vehicles that have lower mileage), and thus you are going to ask for a concession for taking on that risk. Or you're not going to spend the time trying to get that consession, as spending that time has a cost, and you're just going to buy one of the 9 cars with low mileage. This is economics 101. It's why some cars depreciate more than others in the general sense, and is not unique to GT cars.

Manifold

No doubt that wear rates for some components are much higher at the track - tires and brakes especially. But those types of components can be replaced at modest cost. As far as I know, engine wear isn't necessarily increased with track use, I haven't heard reports of increased rate of transmission failures with track use (I shift manually and often short shift, have never used launch control), and the car's body, interior, and electrical systems, etc. shouldn't be affected by track use. If a car's track maintenance schedule is followed, that covers some other components which will wear faster with track use.