Flying Finn

When I bought my 993, I gave VIN to the dealer (Champion) and they printed the records right away...

Van1

Nobody can fault you for the hard work you are putting into this search. I just hope that someday you actually get to enjoy owning the car instead of just searching

I have found that carfax will give you an account of how the miles were put onto the car most of the time. Carfax will also sometimes list when it was serviced and what service was done. When I bought my car, it came with no records other than the manuals with a few maintenance stamps from the dealer. Using that and the maintenance that was reported by carfax (said "oil service"), I could tell that at least the oil servicing was done on schedule through out the cars 38k mile life. I don't know if the 30k full service was done but I don't care as I did it myself anyway. But other than that, I didn't expect much else to have ever been done to the car. My PPI uncovered a few minor issues which I have since addressed, but 3.5 years later and over 12k mi, my car has been doing fine without previous records.

NaroEscape

When I bought my personal 993 cab back in 2002 (before I opened Exclusive Motors), it had no records at all, not even a maintenance manual. I got a PPI done, came out "perfect" which was hard to believe for a 80k mile, 7 year old car, but I bought it anyway. I immediately took it to my local mechanic and had him do a complete workover, major service, check EVERYTHING. Amazingly, it still came out "perfect" and was noted that it had the original clutch! Well, 72k miles later, all I've had to do is scheduled maintenance, replace wear items such as brake pads and rotors, and replace an alternator - twice and the steering rack. That's it. Had I been overly concerned about the records, I would never have bought it, but it has never let us down, goes everywhere (obviously by the miles we've racked up), still has the same ORIGINAL CLUTCH, and runs strong. the engine has never been out of the car, so no top end work has been done or is even needed. Uses very little oil - about 1 quart per 3000 miles or so.

so...do all the research you can, but in the end, don't let lack of records deter you from buying and enjoying such a great car.

Fred's 964

For those of us who carefully, lovingly maintain our cars ourselves because we truly care for them, and often do many extra things "while we are in there", does this diminish the value of the records when we sell it? Many dealer mechanics don't really care about our cars. All we will have are the receipts of parts purchased, not records of maintenance actually performed.

stubenhocker

+1

Dudley

I also got all the service records for my car from Champion.

stubenhocker

You can do that, I won't! Even if I do maintenance myself I always keep records, dates, mileage, and even receipts for oil and filters etc. Yes you can get lucky, but in my experience a well care for car generally will have complete documentation. To each his own , but like a great man once, "trust, but verify".

TAI2

You might try doing a CARFAX as I believe they tell you who owned the car. You could contact them and get a release letter. Just a thought.

Jcentsr6

I believe you can be given service records..but the customers personal info must be taken off the forms...so you can not see phone #, addy and such....other than that, should be okay

Fred's 964

My dealer would not give me copies, but would let me read them on the screen. I didn't try to get a copy after the sale, don't know if I could.

Bearclaw

Did he use the Men In Black memory pen on you after that?
Dealers are really funny in how each one handles this subject. When I bought mine from a Porsche dealer in Chicago, they had 11 years worth of service records on their computer from the previous owner. I got the impression that these were on their internal system, not something PNA could access, but I could be wrong. I asked to have them faxed to me and they said no problem. They had all the details on them but no names or personal identifiers. That was about 2 1/2 years ago. Recently I looked for them and couldn't find them so I called and asked for them again. Service mgr. said, "Nope, sorry, privacy issues, can't do it." Could he 'sanitize' them and send them? "Nope, we could get fined $10,000. I'll ask our legal adviser what I can do." Yeah, right. I called the salesman I had dealt with, a guy who's been there forever. He said no problem, and faxed them to me.

I bought it without a PPI (yeah, I know - what can I say), but the car turned out to be great, and one reason I did that was because the service records were available and so thorough. It had just had the 60K service before I bought it, and I didn't want to spend money duplicating something that had already been done.

I think it's a gray area for them, and many just don't want to take the chance as they see it.

Funny how our privacy rights over important things keep getting eroded, while they're so protected on sh*t that doesn't matter.

LAT

The service records are part of the cars history and therefore by design part of the car. The mumbo jumbo about privacy is just that. Privacy legislation never envisioned automobile records it was designed to protect the public against the unscrupulous use of private information.

Porsche and all manufacturers should be made to provide all records without names for an administrative fee, period. Porsche will and has sold me a copy of the original window sticker for my car so why not the records.

hddude

Yeah, anyone who pays twenty bucks to join a Web discussion board can be trusted to reveal everything about a car.

Bearclaw

SNAPS !!!

mrsullivan

this is very simple, whoever is in an ownership position on the car (could be individual, could be dealer) can release the cars service records, in the case of individual ownership, they can give permission for the dealer to do it to a potential buyer...

however, the dealer is not at all obligated to share service records with anyone on a random car, and in some cases personally identifiable information (privacy rules) prohibit it