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This strikes me as a nice deal at Porsche Bellevue. '13 C4S cab $60k off MSRP, 13k miles, not CPO though (at least not yet). (Sorry - can't quite figure out how to post the build sheet as a picture.)
2013 S model, 32k miles, $127k MSRP, $68.5k, CPO to 11/18, PDCC, PSE, PDK, SC, 18-ways, carbon interior package, ST wheels, no sunroof, already Xpel wrapped.
Last week it was $74.xxx. I was about to go check it out even though i was looking for non-S and blue was not even one of my choices. This car is loaded.
Hi all – while this purchase story is not for a 991, I wanted to share it as I consider it to be a “Hot Buy” and it was a result of the information / research tools I learnt about on STG’s HFS thread. Also, I thought I’d provide some information I learnt about Carmax along the way.
Here's the good news – I just bought a 2011 Cayenne TURBO with an MSRP of $136K and paid only $49K for it!! The downside is the miles - it has 50K but that is only 10K miles a year and it is a one owner, CA car. The upside is I will pay $3,500 for a 5 year, 100,000 miles warranty that is as arguably as good as a Porsche CPO. That’s 5yrs/100K miles from the date I bought it – not in total like a CPO.
Where to start? I decided I wanted a Boxster Sypder to replace my 991.1 Cab S. There’s another story here with the European Delivery, but that is for another forum. Long story short – I am soooo happy with the Spyder and the decision to get one, but then decided I needed a more practical everyday car with the family in mind. After driving quite a few, I settled on a 2011-14 Cayenne Turbo being my target car.
After some great RL advice and researching older threads over on the RL Cayenne forum, I determined my “must haves”, for example the Sports Package with PDCC and PTV+, and commenced my search.
As STG doesn’t have a thread on the Cayenne forum it meant doing all the leg work myself. Seriously guys - you have it easy over here on this thread!! I started with setting up searches on autotrader, cars.com and the Porsche search agent – and got a decent sense for the market. I was really looking for a CPO, but with my options it was somewhat a needle in a haystack.
When I saw someone post here about Carmax, I added that to my search. Their app works very well and it sends you email alerts as soon as a new car comes up. Armed with the online Porsche admin VIN tool – you just drop the VIN in and can see the options it has.
One evening I got an app alert on a Cayenne - opened it, dumped the VIN into the admin website, saw the options compared to the price they were asking and almost fell off my chair and called them to lock it in while I was still scrolling through photos and carfax. No haggling - my wife was laughing at me as that has never, ever happened before in my life.
So, I paid the transfer fee to get it up to me in NorCal from SoCal - for all of $149, and when it arrived I had 72 hours to decide to buy it. The transfer fees vary based on the location and range from $149 up the coast, $449 half way across the country to around $899 coast to coast. I think it’s great, and cheaper than an airfare to go see it, let alone get it transported back to you! As soon as you reserve it, it becomes unavailable to others on the website. The car was transported up to my local location in 2-7 days where I could inspect it. If you walk away, you lose the transfer fee.
Once it arrives and you decide you want it, you can buy it and then you have 5 days to decide if you want to keep it, or just hand it back. Figured anything catastrophic and I would return it to get my money back. "5-Day Money-Back Guarantee - If you decide that a car isn't right for you, simply return it within 5 days—hassle-free. Just bring it back in the condition in which it was purchased, and you'll get a full refund." No questions asked. I had my PPI done after I bought it – and won’t be handing it back!
Additionally, there is a 30 day warranty. "CarMax 30-Day Limited Warranty. Covers all of your vehicle's important systems, plus hundreds of parts inside and out. Repairs made under warranty cost you nothing—parts and labor are included." I’m finding Carmax very receptive to fixing things – rattles, squeaks – you name it. There’s always things you find after you buy it and start driving it.
Finally, there is the option to buy an extended warranty. Cars can be out of, or close to out of factory warranty, and some with mileage higher than what I would typically want. However, this can be offset by a Carmax warranty. You can get 5 year with 75,000 / 100,000 / 125,000 miles coverage and a $50, $150, $300, $500 deductible - pricing varies with each variable. I need to read the fine print, but it looks good and you can have the work performed by Porsche or any other mechanic of your choice. As I noted above, the big bonus with this is that it is 75,000 / 100,000 / 125,000 miles ON TOP OF the miles the car has when you buy it (not capped at 100,000 miles in a CPO).
So in closing, if you’ve read this far, many folks think Carmax are overpriced, but the higher end cars can be the exception. I personally think they are clueless on the higher end, higher optioned cars. They use an algorithm to price and I'm convinced they don't take options into account (or the ones you and I would care about ie the ones that make a car desirable or not) - so can be advantageous to the knowledgeable when armed with the tools on this thread. Hope some folks may find this info useful.
Anyway, here she is and the build - as it didn't happen unless there are photos .....
Dalema, thanks for sharing your info and story. Will be very helpful to other members. Great deal on the Cayenne Turbo too! Looks great.
dgoldenz was the one that got a killer 991 C2S from CarMax too which you mentioned. Think it was in Ohio and he shipped it to Vegas.
CarMax never came to mind for me in the past, but like you mentioned, those needle in the haystack finds can be had.
I'm glad all these shopping tools that have been shared by HFS followers here have PAID OFF $$$ for many guys. So many great buys, sweet cars, and dreams come true.
I've now checked out three different 991's (as well as two Cayenne Turbo's) in person at carmax... Very hit or miss, mostly miss.
The Good:
I do like their web search and their comparatively low cost transfers. In the Rocky Mountain area, it's even better as they allow no-cost transfer of any 4wd/AWD vehicle into the region, which includes C4's, Turbo's, and of course Cayenne's and Macan's...
The Bad:
As sellers, they have zero product knowledge. Getting a quality walk-around report of a non-local car before you have it transferred is pretty much hopeless ("Interior has no bad smells, no cigarette burns", well thanks for that wonderful report!). Full sets of keys and manuals are rare. I've also seen some mis-match between carfax and carmax reported miles. So far, everything I've seen has not been a a great deal.
The Ugly:
Well, exactly that. Their cars are absolutely filthy every time I've looked at one. Really trashed out. Even when I call in advance and let them know that I'd like to look at one in particular, they pretty much just refuse to clean it or give it such a pitiful once over it isn't worth it. They also keep almost all their cars outside and open on the lot, so they get LOTS of folks just hopping in and playing around in the cars, including in the rain and snow. Really hard to check a car for stone chips and road rash when it's just filthy as hell...
I'll keep checking on carmax, but my hopes of finding something great are a bit dashed.
I've now checked out three different 991's (as well as two Cayenne Turbo's) in person at carmax... Very hit or miss, mostly miss.
I'll keep checking on carmax, but my hopes of finding something great are a bit dashed.
Like I said, needle in a haystack, but as we've seen it does pan out. Just one more place to look. Odds are greater that one will find their car at a Porsche dealer and won't find their car at CarMax. After all, who has the most used inventory??
Hi all – while this purchase story is not for a 991, I wanted to share it as I consider it to be a “Hot Buy” and it was a result of the information / research tools I learnt about on STG’s HFS thread. Also, I thought I’d provide some information I learnt about Carmax along the way.
Here's the good news – I just bought a 2011 Cayenne TURBO with an MSRP of $136K and paid only $49K for it!! The downside is the miles - it has 50K but that is only 10K miles a year and it is a one owner, CA car. The upside is I will pay $3,500 for a 5 year, 100,000 miles warranty that is as arguably as good as a Porsche CPO. That’s 5yrs/100K miles from the date I bought it – not in total like a CPO.
Where to start? I decided I wanted a Boxster Sypder to replace my 991.1 Cab S. There’s another story here with the European Delivery, but that is for another forum. Long story short – I am soooo happy with the Spyder and the decision to get one, but then decided I needed a more practical everyday car with the family in mind. After driving quite a few, I settled on a 2011-14 Cayenne Turbo being my target car.
After some great RL advice and researching older threads over on the RL Cayenne forum, I determined my “must haves”, for example the Sports Package with PDCC and PTV+, and commenced my search.
As STG doesn’t have a thread on the Cayenne forum it meant doing all the leg work myself. Seriously guys - you have it easy over here on this thread!! I started with setting up searches on autotrader, cars.com and the Porsche search agent – and got a decent sense for the market. I was really looking for a CPO, but with my options it was somewhat a needle in a haystack.
When I saw someone post here about Carmax, I added that to my search. Their app works very well and it sends you email alerts as soon as a new car comes up. Armed with the online Porsche admin VIN tool – you just drop the VIN in and can see the options it has.
One evening I got an app alert on a Cayenne - opened it, dumped the VIN into the admin website, saw the options compared to the price they were asking and almost fell off my chair and called them to lock it in while I was still scrolling through photos and carfax. No haggling - my wife was laughing at me as that has never, ever happened before in my life.
So, I paid the transfer fee to get it up to me in NorCal from SoCal - for all of $149, and when it arrived I had 72 hours to decide to buy it. The transfer fees vary based on the location and range from $149 up the coast, $449 half way across the country to around $899 coast to coast. I think it’s great, and cheaper than an airfare to go see it, let alone get it transported back to you! As soon as you reserve it, it becomes unavailable to others on the website. The car was transported up to my local location in 2-7 days where I could inspect it. If you walk away, you lose the transfer fee.
Once it arrives and you decide you want it, you can buy it and then you have 5 days to decide if you want to keep it, or just hand it back. Figured anything catastrophic and I would return it to get my money back. "5-Day Money-Back Guarantee - If you decide that a car isn't right for you, simply return it within 5 days—hassle-free. Just bring it back in the condition in which it was purchased, and you'll get a full refund." No questions asked. I had my PPI done after I bought it – and won’t be handing it back!
Additionally, there is a 30 day warranty. "CarMax 30-Day Limited Warranty. Covers all of your vehicle's important systems, plus hundreds of parts inside and out. Repairs made under warranty cost you nothing—parts and labor are included." I’m finding Carmax very receptive to fixing things – rattles, squeaks – you name it. There’s always things you find after you buy it and start driving it.
Finally, there is the option to buy an extended warranty. Cars can be out of, or close to out of factory warranty, and some with mileage higher than what I would typically want. However, this can be offset by a Carmax warranty. You can get 5 year with 75,000 / 100,000 / 125,000 miles coverage and a $50, $150, $300, $500 deductible - pricing varies with each variable. I need to read the fine print, but it looks good and you can have the work performed by Porsche or any other mechanic of your choice. As I noted above, the big bonus with this is that it is 75,000 / 100,000 / 125,000 miles ON TOP OF the miles the car has when you buy it (not capped at 100,000 miles in a CPO).
So in closing, if you’ve read this far, many folks think Carmax are overpriced, but the higher end cars can be the exception. I personally think they are clueless on the higher end, higher optioned cars. They use an algorithm to price and I'm convinced they don't take options into account (or the ones you and I would care about ie the ones that make a car desirable or not) - so can be advantageous to the knowledgeable when armed with the tools on this thread. Hope some folks may find this info useful.
Anyway, here she is and the build - as it didn't happen unless there are photos .....
Congrats!!! Looks sharp!
I bought my 911S (991) through CARMAX two years ago and still love it more than any other car I have ever owned. I had it transferred, it was loaded with the options that I wanted, low miles (7,200) and still had two years left on the factory warranty left on it at the time. The price was competitive (and cheaper than CPO ones I saw at the time) - I would definitely consider a CPO next time but I also glance at CARMAX from time to time. They can occasionally have very nice cars.
Their inventory fluctuates a lot - there have been times when they had several 911's that looked interesting and times when their inventory hasn't been that great.
I've now checked out three different 991's (as well as two Cayenne Turbo's) in person at carmax... Very hit or miss, mostly miss.
The Good:
I do like their web search and their comparatively low cost transfers. In the Rocky Mountain area, it's even better as they allow no-cost transfer of any 4wd/AWD vehicle into the region, which includes C4's, Turbo's, and of course Cayenne's and Macan's...
The Bad:
As sellers, they have zero product knowledge. Getting a quality walk-around report of a non-local car before you have it transferred is pretty much hopeless ("Interior has no bad smells, no cigarette burns", well thanks for that wonderful report!). Full sets of keys and manuals are rare. I've also seen some mis-match between carfax and carmax reported miles. So far, everything I've seen has not been a a great deal.
The Ugly:
Well, exactly that. Their cars are absolutely filthy every time I've looked at one. Really trashed out. Even when I call in advance and let them know that I'd like to look at one in particular, they pretty much just refuse to clean it or give it such a pitiful once over it isn't worth it. They also keep almost all their cars outside and open on the lot, so they get LOTS of folks just hopping in and playing around in the cars, including in the rain and snow. Really hard to check a car for stone chips and road rash when it's just filthy as hell...
I'll keep checking on carmax, but my hopes of finding something great are a bit dashed.
I absolutely agree that the sales folk have absolutely NO idea. Even less idea than the normalPorsche salesperson. And also no idea about selling a higher end car - absolutely no idea.. Mine was also not washed when I saw it the first time. Mine will be getting a paint correction and interior detail - but that's an easy cosmetic fix.
Most were open to hopping on FaceTime with me to do a walk around, but that by itself isnt all encompassing.
When I went to buy the car they said before I left they wanted to fill up the tank and give it a wash. I told them I'd take the gas, but do NOT wash it - they'd done enough already!
05-31-2016, 11:48 PM
it meant doing all the leg work myself. Seriously guys - you have it easy over here on this thread!! I started with setting up searches on autotrader, cars.com and the Porsche search agent – and got a decent sense for the market. I was really looking for a CPO, but with my options it was somewhat a needle in a haystack.
