W288SH

I'm in the market for a 991, and would appreciate some perspective / advice.

I'm looking for a 991 S or GTS, w/ Sport Chrono, CPO, Can be 2 or 4 wheel drive, I'd consider manual or PDK. I won't consider a car w/o the Sport steering wheel. I'd prefer Sport Exhaust. Black interior. I could go either way on a .1 or a .2

- I'm currently looking only at CPO cars. How much does CPO legitimately add to the value?
- I understand that CPO can be applied on cars up to 12 model years old. I have found a few CPO '13 or '14 model year cars equipped with what I'm looking for but I have concerns about buying a 10 year old car. One car I'm looking at is just above the min CPO brake pad requirement, so the dealer isn't replacing the pads/rotors. I don't want to buy a car on the margin of wear items needing to be replaced. I'd appreciate some perspective on this.
- Is there a mileage number to absolutely stay under at purchase? (I'll probably drive the car 8-10k miles/yr)
- How much does color (interior and exterior) affect value?
- I've been told by several people to buy for the features I want and ignore the color. But for me the car color is part of the experience. Are cars with black interior rare? I see lots of beige which I won't consider and grey which I don't prefer.
- Is the market softening for these cars?
- What else should I know going into this...

Thank you!

awittig

I would suggest making a list of your "must haves" to narrow down the search.

You will start a holy war here asking for opinions on .1 vs .2, manual vs. PDK, but i would recommend beginning there to point you in the right direction. Each generation and transmission has its own pros and cons. Just an FYI, i believe only about 10-20% of these cars came equipped with a manual transmission, so if that is your preference, your search may take a little longer.

Be patient - they made a lot of these cars and the search is part of the fun.

These cars are incredibly well built and last a long time with proper maintenance. Don't be afraid of a well maintained higher mileage example.

Also, if this is your first P car, you may be surprised at the price of basic maintenance, even if you DIY. Brakes, plugs, etc. can add up very quickly and you should factor that in when negotiating a price.

There's a lot of great information here on RL and many very helpful members. If you share your location, you may even have members willing to meet you and show you their cars up close.

Good luck!

WP0

I think that CPO is officially worth about $2500.
Just get the car you want, and then you don't have to worry about the rest, as you'll have it for a long time. . . .but post above does seem helpful with that.
If you're looking for a bargain, buy a Toyota, not a 911.

rensoyka

2017 991.2 C2 here in night blue metallic with black interior. you will always find people who love the 991.1 but in reality if you can afford the extra cash the 991.2 is a far superior car IMO. porsche does such a good job adding twin turbo to the flat 6 engine. do some research on the differences between the two cars, there are a lot, not just the turbos. some people love winding the car up over 7k rpm for power, been there, done that, doesn't make me smile any more. boost power FTW.

rensoyka

if you are on the edge of affording a 911 then you may want to reconsider your choice. general maintenance can be expensive for a new battery, oil change, spark plugs, etc. if you drive your car for sport and fun you will find that it eats tires and brakes faster than your average sedan or SUV and those tires and brakes are also expensive. most new tires are between 300- 500 bucks each.

Jonny9999991

If you’re buying a .2 then none of it matters 😂🙈

Go .1 and save a few $ and in a few years get a 992.1, at least you can say you had the last of the NA, options wise depends on the type of person you are, I didn’t realise I’m not bothered by manual seats until I drove mine, otherwise I wouldn’t have ever gone if I knew the seats were manual, pdk all the way and sports chrono, pse is a must - trust me having the option to have it on or off will make you realise what a godsend it is.

If I was to buy again, definitely the .1 if I’m buying a turbo car it’s the latest model.

Tier1Terrier

You sound a lot like I did when I first set out to buy my 911. I was all over the place. After spending a few months learning (mostly here on Rennlist) and test driving a few, I eventually narrowed my desired options down. I knew almost exactly what I wanted. Buy a color that you love and don't settle on that. You need to figure out between manual & pdk. For me this was non-negotiable and it had to be a a manual. I eventually realized that I would be happiest with a .2 for a number of reasons, but ultimately it boiled down to raw power. I strongly wanted it to be CPO but I ended up finding such a well kept very low mileage example that I was able to purchase a 10 year Fidelity Warranty for a song. Other features that I insisted on were Sport Chrono & Sport Exhaust. Rev matching with a manual & sport chrono is sublime. If you get the Sport Package in a .2, then you get Sport Chrono, Sport Exhaust, Sport Steering Wheel AND Rear Axle Steerting. Vented seats were a bonus for the hot climate I live in. Back to color... There were only two colors I wanted... Miami Blue OR Lava Orange. Finding either of those with the list of options I described above proved to be tedious and I eventually discovered a color I never knew about and grew to love it... Graphite Blue Metallic.

Here's some advice. Take the time to read about both the 991.1 and 991.2. Don't rush into the purchase if you plan to keep it for several years. If you don't keep your cars very long, then it won't matter much if you get one or the other because you'll love either of them. Good luck and enjoy the hunt.

HardRider

Commical, you wouldn't consider a car without sport steering wheel, but don't care if manual or PDK. You have no clue what you want. Have you looked at Accords or Camry. You will take this as an insult but you would be happier in either of the aforementioned.

Bud Taylor

The sports steering wheel and exhaust are very simple to add to any 911.

The .1 and .2 are different platforms. NA vs Turbo. Have you had a sports car or MT before. The MT and PDK are very different. Compare sports chrono as that is something you can not change.

From the sound of things you are probably best off in buying the newest model you can afford and may want to consider the Taycan.

vanlieremead

Agree with what is said here but don’t be stuck on a particular color. Look at everything and decide what you like. Here is my agate grey interior with the sports steering wheel and I appreciate it. I also profess to buy the latest version you can justifiably afford. Porsche did quite a few improvements to the .2 over the .1.

K996

I dont know if this is a troll post or not but in the off chance that it's not... the biggest purported advantage of CPO (in my opinion) was that it at least ensured that the car was caught up on maintenance.
In the ones I was looking at (age and mileage) there were some major service intervals that would be due and that's not cheap. The potential downside being that you will need to continue taking the car to the dealership during the warranty period to keep it maintained so you're gonna be paying there too.

Huge thanks to the forum for letting me know some of this as otherwise I wouldve not thought about it and walked away with only 1 key, other than that just verifying the tires, plugs and pdk service were done. Also provided me some assurance that I wasn't going to have catastrophic problems immediately after buying the car, although I've put about 3000 miles on it and have only needed warranty once thus far for a boost sensor failure (maybe $450 repair?)

MingusDew

One of my favorite vanity license plates was on an 03 Cobra: “PSI FTW” and i couldn’t agree more

Slamminc6

Don’t settle without sport Chrono and sport exhaust. 18 ways are also sweet.

DR911s

To the OP: Have you driven ALL of the variants that you are considering? i strongly suggest that you take the time to do so.

Initially my goal was to replace a 1993 BMW 325i 4 door sedan that I had modified to be beyond a 1995 US specification M3 and had driven for many years in HPDE programs. That car was very reliable over 26 years of ownership and over 138k miles of service, except for my needing to replace the left wheel bearings 3X and the right ones 2X, and many sets of tires and brake pads and rotors. No clutch replacement ever, but the slave cylinder eventually needed replaced along with the hydraulic hose to it. I replaced the radiator and water pump and a few hoses as preventative maintenance... after 19 years, and the battery after 12 years.

When I decided that I wanted a Porsche, my goal was a 2012 - 2015 Cayman S with PDK and Sapphire Blue metallic paint. I looked for more than 2 years without success, and missed the one car that eventually appeared for sale during that time because it sold very quickly after it was listed on the public internet cars-for-sale websites. I was not then a member of Rennlist, and didn't know anyone in my locale who had a Porsche for me to drive. I was limited by drives at dealerships with their sales reps aboard. I did drive some cars that had different paint and interior colors than were of much interest to me, mostly to experience how they drove with various options and to compare 2WD and AWD.

After I had essentially given up on finding any Porsche Cayman meeting my range of acceptability requirements in terms of colors and equipment, I expanded my potential cars to include 911s, and after about 6 months a car became advertised on the internet websites as well as the Porsche dealership websites that was near me, and I decided to check it out despite it not being my first choice in colors. It turned out that the day I visited the dealership to inspect and drive the 2017 C2S car that the dealership had a nearly identically equipped and same paint and interior colors in a 2016 C2S that was parked immediately behind the 2017 car. That facilitated comparison. I decided to choose the 2017 car despite its cost being nearly 10K more. I did so mainly due to the engine which has much more torque available at much lower RPM which means that you don't have to rev the engine to accelerate briskly from any road speed, and generally don't have to downshift if accelerating lightly. The other reason was the upgraded PCM in the 2017 car which has Car Play which I have found very useful to use with my iPhone compared to using the built-ion NAV system. I frequently use Waze for its real time alerts.

As others have written, you need to decide what options are essential for you and what colors are acceptable. Steering wheels and Sport Exhaust can be added later, and even a form of Sport Chrono, but if you want these items, you're best to look for a car with the Sport Package. My car has it, and although I wouldn't have chosen RAS on my own, I've grown to like it for low speed maneuverability.

boldish

Things that you need to figure out in order:
1. Manual vs. PDK
2. 991.1 vs. 991.2 (i.e. NA versus Turbo)
3. Base vs. S vs. GTS
4. RWD vs. AWD

My opinions (as an owner of a manual 991.1 S):
- Don't get a manual because that's what people online say, figure out if you want to drive a manual. It's more work, more expensive (since they are rarer and fetch a higher resell value), and ultimately slower than a PDK but man, it's super fun.
- I don't think a GTS for either a .1 or .2 is "worth it". Are they great? Absolutely. But they are harder to find and more expensive which considering what you get for them.
- If you are interested in some DIY work or are interested with paying someone else to install parts (OEM or otherwise), figure out which options can be added later (like PSE) versus which options cannot (like Sport Chrono or Sport PASM) and then determine what are must haves.