rpm's S2

I am sick of this nonsense.

Show me an ad or prove a completed sale for my car's equal - a 2002 with 60k in outstanding condition - for $20k.

Seriously.

wjk_glynn

I used to use Edmunds, but now I mostly look at CarGurus for pricing analysis. Their scatter plots, info about how long the car has been for sale, any price adjustments, etc... all very useful data.

I spend waaaay too much time monitoring 996 prices on SF Bay Area CL (home to about ~7 M people) and I see the exact same pattern. My experiences are:

#1 - There are less 996 cars for sale out there than I first thought
#2 - A surprisingly large percentage sit for months and months -- which should contradict #1 (?)
#3 - Then examples will come up (usually about one per month) that are priced to move and they're gone within a few days.


But back to CarGurus...

For those that aren't familiar with it, it can summarize asking prices by year and mileage. It gives you a very good view of the "spread" - who's being aggressive, who's a dreamer, etc...

This morning, I sampled national asking prices for base 996 C2 Coupes, manual transmission, for each of the available model years:








Generally I assume you can typically negotiate a 5% reduction from most sellers' asking prices...

Karl.

wjk_glynn

I've never seen a 3.6L 996 with that condition/mileage for that low.

But I do think you can with some patience (I define that as looking for at least 6-months) that you can get good/great condition, 75K-80K mile 3.4L for $20K (especially a '99)...

Karl.

rpm's S2

Exactly! And while those are asking prices, as opposed to transaction prices, even if buyers drive dealers down a couple of thousand this data shows that good to excellent 996.2s are generally running in the mid to high 20s, just about where I bought mine for 3 years and 25 thousand miles ago.

This data also reflects the $21k trade-in offer I received recently from a dealer. As far as I'm concerned, my 2002 has depreciated very little since I purchased it and its any decrease is related more to higher mileage than to declining value.

Macster

First, my second hand info mainly from service managers at Porsche dealers is Cabs really depreciate.

While SM's are not directly involved I've heard about the Cab owner who comes in to trade in his car for a newer one, or like happened the other day a guy was in to sell his Cab outright, and the conversation between the customer and the dealer that comes when the Cab owner hears what his car is worth can really be heated.

The word is that the only owner for which a Cab is worth the premium is the 1st owner. Subsequent owners, not so much.

Since you are considering a Cab I would think you would want to gravitate to the lower values.

'course if it were me looking for a used car I would do this anyhow. Not my job to find out why there are differences of opinion between these sites.

However, I would also follow some cars to try to learn for how much they sold for compared to what they were being offered for.

At a dealer, used cars have a very high markup. Figure 20% or more. I mean do the math. The dealer probably has no more in the car than what its wholesale (auction) price is and often the word is whatever is in the "book" is actually more than the dealer pays.

Dealers often claim to work from the "back of the book" when offering one a trade in value. (Sure sometimes the dealer offers more than the book (happened to me after some negotiation when I was trading in my 06 GTO for an 08 Cayman S). But the dealer probably has something in the new car he can play with to sweeten the trade in offer, even though in the case of the new Cayman S it was discounted from a MSRP of $60.6K to $50.6K. Kind of suggests the markup that a new car has too...)

Anyhow, the dealer offering something from "back of the book": This is to some extent though the flip side of what a car salesman will tell you when he's trying to sell you car.

If you are a buyer, everything a car salesman says is intended to get you to buy the car as soon as possible and pay as much for car as possible.

The flip side, if you are a seller (trading in a car), everything the car salesman (now functioning as a car buyer) says is intended to get you to sell the car as soon as possible and take as little money for the car as possible.

Anyhow, compare the wholesale prices to the retail prices and you'll get a feel for what kind of markup there is.

One technique then is to follow the market via a select handful of similar cars and learn when you can what a comparable car actually sold for vs. what it was listed for. Note too how long cars remain for sale.

You have to consider possibly letting a good car or two slip past as you develop a good feel for the market prices. OTOH you could be looking at saving thousands. (Case in point: an 03 Turbo was offered for $62K. I bought it for $57.7K. I developed a good sense of the market for these cars and was able to negotiate a lower price. I'm sure the dealer still made money.

Or... note the wholesale values for cars you like and start from there. You can always offer more for a car. But it is nearly impossible to take money off the table once you put in on the table.

Doing the above takes more than just a willingness to make a low offer. You have to back up your offer with some data. Rattle off a the details on a number of similar cars available. Be intimately familiar with these cars. Show the dealer you have viable alternatives to his car. Indicate you are a serious buyer and will buy a car today if you get a car at a price you believe is agreeable.

Be sure your offer is being communicated to the GM or sales manager. A salesman can only say no. Only the GM/sales manager can say yes. A salesman will say no out of habit and if you offer less than the car is being offered for he will say no, no, hell no, because he sees his sales commission falling to the floor.