End of lease coming - need advice
 

I'm nearing the end of the lease on my '01 C4 tip.
Mileage will be around 51K in April '07.

The car has never had any problems and was a CPO (warranty just ran out).

There have been zero leaks, no RMS, nothing.
It IS getting the odd rattle and squeak, which can get annoying.

My buy-out in 4 months is $35K.

This looks reasonable, but not great, in terms of price.

My dilemma is this:
Do I
1. Buy the car and take it to an EVO installer and get the EVO Supercharger
or
2. Hand the car back and start looking for a good '01 or '02 996 TT with 40K miles or less? I am willing to spend mid to high 50's, which appears very feasible.

The C4 + SC is cheaper, but I expect my luck will run out in terms of 'no problems at all', considering this will be a six year old car.

The 996 TT is more money, but the engines don;t have RMS issues and are 'stronger' from what I have read (no intention of starting a flame war on this).

So, I guess my question is: what would you do? and Why?

Thank you for your time.

I'd look for a 996TT

I have heard you can negotiate the buy out?

I mean...the dealer doesn't really want the car back...because then they would have to resell it, or lose money by auctioning it.

thanks,
Amir

996tt
 

I was daydreaming about the X51 package a while back at the dealer and the parts description said 6 speed only. That made me think the n/a tip is limited in it's ability to handle extra power. Can you safely run a blower on your car?

If it was me, I would get the 996tt. The excitement of having a (new) car would be well worth it!

.02

I think it comes down to how much you want the rush of speed and the new (to you) car feeling.

My initial instinct is that you're in a great spot being able to buy a one-owner moderate-mileage C4 about which you know every detail already.

You know the car and it's owner very well. If you love it buy it, even if it's more than some of the "deals" out there. Or , if you want to get something newer, faster, different, then turn it in to the dealer and look for an '02 or newer 996 with the larger engine, revised exterior and interior. Or find a TT, but I'd be worried about a TT in the $50Ks...the better ones will comand higher prices IMHO.

Thank you all for your feedback.

I'm not the first 'owner' of this C4. I picked up the lease from the previous owner on Leasetrader.com after I had him do the PPI .
I basically took over his low payments without having to put down his large downpayment.

Another option, along the same lines, would be to hand in the old C4 and take over a short lease on a C4S and throw the EVO SC on immediately, knowing I'll be buying the car at the end of the lease...
What do you guys think of that?
C4S leases regularly show up on Leasetrader.

(Leasing a 996 TT is not as easy. There aren't many that show up on that site and the lease payments are steep).

My buy-out on a previous pcar lease was a difference of 7k between the actual buying price and the price on the original contract. Porsche Financial wanted to get rid of car quickly and was willing to deal. However when I contacted them 6 months prior to the end, they were pretty firm about not moving from the contracted buy-out price.

Thanks Tonytrini.
Whom did you negotiate the lower price with and when?