Hi All,

I'm new to Rennlist and Porsche (coming from a BMW background). I'm interested in acquiring a new 991 Turbo S and wanted to get the community's input and guidance on any tips, tricks, or pointers. Below is a link to my desired build out:

http://www.porsche-code.com/PG2QY337

I'm not looking to keep the car for too long (no more than 2-3 years). My initial thought was to buy and then sell, but the significant, initial drop in value is what is stopping me there.

In my previous experience, I had a 2011 E90 M3 that I sold after 1 year, where I was able to pay off the existing loan and recoup my down payment (5k). It seems that the sharper depreciation curve on the Porsche will probably leave me coming out of pocket if trying to sell within 3 years. If anyone has experience with this, please do share.

This has got me thinking about leasing. I've never leased, but do have a rudimentary understanding of the components (MF, Residual, MRM - hence the basic build linked above, etc). I saw references to an Edmunds forum thread that has gone dry over the last 8-9 months.

I know that I should negotiate price first and foremost. Are there any dealers/sales advisors that are known around the forums to offer no haggle, excellent pricing? I'm thinking of a CA that is known on bimmerpost to do just this. I think he is one of the top M sales advisors in the US (if not world).

Please let me know if there's any additional information I can provide to help you all help me.

Thanks,
Yogi

 

You seem most interested in short term cost of ownership (nothing wrong with that.) Your only remote hope of not getting clobbered with a 991 TTS is to

a) buy a 2014 with 3000 miles on it from some guy who had the same plan you now have, or
b) buy any 991 TTS and hold it for 20-30 years, or till they go all electric or hydrogen or dilithium crystals
c) forget Turbo; go back to 2012 and buy a 997.1 GT3RS 4.0. and enjoy a $150,000 profit over the next two-three years, or
d) figure out a way to wrangler a 2016 GT3RS4.0 away from somebody who's been on the list for months, or
e) buy a barely used 991 GT3 -- most realistic chance of not losing much money over the next 2-3 years on something you can actually get your hands on.

 

I think I sense some sarcasm mixed in for good measure?

One thing I didn't see in your options was the option of leasing. Any particular reason you omitted? Regarding your other options:

A) That's definitely an option
B) Sarcasm?
C) I don't follow - assuming this is something that falls in the "impossible to get your hands on" category?
D) Yeah right
E) Fair point - there is actually one sitting in the showroom at Jim Ellis (noticed you're in N. Ga). My challenge there (again probably because I'm new to Porsche) is buying a car without the ability to test drive.

 

Is this your only car, or will this be your daily driver? If not, I would recommend against getting a GT3 unless the roads you have at GA is as nice as the ones in Germany. Or else you will be scraping the front lip on a daily basis.

Best bet is to find a used TTS or just bit the bullet and become a long term owner instead to spread out the loses, .

 

I travel for work during the weekdays, so it will be weekend car. Roads are decent in Ga, but nowhere near Germany quality.

I know there are several discussions around purchase vs lease. My goal is to have something fun short term while not eating a lot of cost outside of the cost to own/drive the car while I have it.

 

If you're staying under the mileage requirements, the benefits of leasing, from my perspective are that you've locked in depreciation and if the car is involved in an accident see the prior point.

A good rule of thumb on any car is that "generally". Assuming you'll be trading it in, you're going to lose 40% +/- in the first two years, and that's assuming you take care of it and have low miles. So the more expensive the car - the bigger the nominal hit. You can reduce the hit by minimizing options and doing what you can to keep the car cosmetically perfect (clear bra, well detailed finish and interior).

The downside of any lease is, if you want to get out early, it's very hard and if you don't want to get out at exactly the the time your lease is up, it can be very expensive.

 

Makes sense. I think leasing is definitely the way to go for my situation. Circling back to original post - anyone have experience with price, lease term negotiations? I have no measuring stick for what to expect in terms of price discounts. One local dealer just offered me $9500 off MSRP without any negotiation. Is that a starting point or probably their best offer?

 

I haven't leased but the mark-up on the cars is generally around 12%. Once have that nailed down you need their money factor and then the residual. All dealers are skittish on sharing the money factor because it's usually at a rate significantly higher than you could get by shopping around at say bankrate.com.

Here's some background on the money factorhttp://www.leaseguide.com/lease08/

 

Interested to know how Porsche makes their publicized 18%+ profit on only 12% markup. We lose money on every car but we make it up in volume? No, wait, that can't be it.


Anyways its hard taking seriously the idea that sure its just asking to be hosed buying a new car and flipping it the minute the first year or two of maximum depreciation pain has passed, but c'mon guys can you help me figure out how to keep it down to $40k and not $42k??? What?! No, not interested in buying one that'll be just as cool and probably even more fun to drive and actually go up in value, it has to be this one that's guaranteed to lose big time, just please help me figure out how to not lose an extra grand or two, woodja please? (Insert Pink Floyd Dark Sarcasm icon here.)

 

Lots of financial benefits to leasing especially if your a business owner. Can write off 80-100% depending what state you live in and income bracket.

 

Chuck, Porsche also does consulting which is highly profitable. The 18% you see quoted is somebody taking Porsche's pretax profit and dividing it by the number of cars they sell, which unfortunately isn't going to give you their separate margin on car sales. The 12% I quoted is the mark-up the dealer has. Porsche's separate financial statements are on-line.

 

Well, not really sarcasm; just straight forward humor.

Sorry, I don't know anything about leasing. Not something I'm interested in.

Check out the "Hot For Sale Pick of the Week" thread that's always on page one of this forum. $130k cars with 6000 miles for 90k, etc. Turbos are in the same boat, but from a much loftier perch.

Well, again, it's true -- if you want to buy one new, you might get your money back, or close to it, in 20 - 30 years if you want to hold it. I'm just listing options you have for not losing your shirt on a new 991TT.

The 997.2 GT3 RS 4.0 came out in 2012 for 180k, and immediately started appreciating to over 300k now. Yes, going back to 2012 to buy one and holding it till now was not a serious suggestion.

Hey, it should be easier than (C), unless you have a time machine. Correct. You won't get a chance to drive it. I imagine if you do the paperwork and buy it, you can drive it and if you don't like it they'll give you your money back. But I doubt you'll be able to go put any miles on it on the chance you might like to buy it. They don't need to do that to sell it.

I have a friend with one for sale with maybe 4000 miles on it, and I think he's asking about MSRP for it. Point being, if it were a Carrera or a Turbo, he'd be lucky to get within 30k of what he paid for it. So yeah, nothing's a lock, but your best bet at not losing money among cars you can actually buy right now is a GT3.

 

Turbo depreciation is steep and monthly leases are $3,500-ish for 5k miles/year. Look at the 2012's currently listed for sale for a sense of the value of a 2016 in 2018-19.

You could mitigate the total cost by finding a new 2015 on a dealers lot and try to get as close to 10% off msrp as possible.

 

Again, this is absolutely not true. There are limitations on the amounts you can deduct and it's ridiculously low relative to the cost of these cars. I don't know who's telling you that you can deduct your entire lease payment, but they don't know what they're talking about or they are simply comfortable cheating on their taxes.

 

Dealer markup vs. Porsche's profit as a manufacturer. Two totally different things.