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Hi there,
First off, I wanted to say a big thanks to all in this forum. The discussions, FAQs, and insights have been incredibly helpful. Wanted to introduce my car and my story.
The 996 came out when I was in high school and I remember being instantly in love. I distinctly remember working at a hardware store in high school and chatting up the owner of a 99 silver coupe. I would look forward to seeing the car every time he came in. He never let me drive it though- don't blame him at all.
Fast forward 16 years and my wife gave me the go ahead to begin the search. I decided I wanted a cabriolet so I could take my girls (wife, 2 year old, and dog) cruising in the summer. Living in the frozen north, I decided I had to have a hard top too. I was initially looking for a C4 or C4s for AWD capabilities, but after much reading and input from a family member who DD's a Cayman S year round with adequate snows, I decided to look at C2.
As I looked I decided I wanted something other than black, silver or grey, but red or yellow didn't fit my personality. Enter lapis blue. Gorgeous color in my opinion and suits me very well.
I found my car across the country and had several detailed discussions with the seller (awesome guy). It checked all the boxes- 2002, low miles (33000), 996.2, lapis blue, full leather, heated seats, nearly perfect body. Clean carfax and I was able to use it to confirm some prior service details at a southern dealer where it had spent its early years. It was CPO'd twice, so it spent the first ~10 years under warranty.
It was January when I sent it for a PPI- site unseen. I found a great shop- Black Forest Motorsports in Buffalo NY- who did a thorough PPI. No issues whatsoever. Without laying eyes on it, I sent the money and had it shipped here.
It's been a dream to drive and I get a thrill every time I open up the throttle. This is my first sports car (delayed gratification due to too many years in school etc) and so it is great to go from sports car obsessed to P-car owner.
Oh and the carfax gave me a nice surprise. Before purchasing, I had talked to the original dealer and gotten info that it had the IMSB taken care of in 2009. After I bought the car, I called the dealer to see if I could gather more info about details of the procedure. I asked the very nice service advisor to just look through ALL its major service history. Surprise surprise- about a year after the reported IMS work, it had catastrophic engine failure and had a remanufactured engine replaced (under CPO) warranty in 2010.... at 22000 miles. Reportedly an IMS failure so maybe it was on the way out when the IMSB was replaced originally. All of this was unknown to the seller (and me at time of purchase) and I was very happy to find out! It now high serial number "AT" engine with the non-serviceable IMSB with a much lower failure rate so I just going to enjoy it and put all that business out of my mind. Just a plug for using the Carfax info and calling your helpful dealership!
Anyway, I plan to daily drive this car and look forward to putting many great miles on the car. The pic below is with winter wheels (craigslist purchase) and hardtop still on. The summer wheels are sport design and I'm looking forward to putting those on and taking the hardtop off- as soon as the Midwest decides that spring is here!
Congratulations on the new cab.
I too owned a Lapis Blue/Metropol blue cab (an '01 C4) and I thought the color was very appropriate for the car.
Like you, I wanted something other than the usual silver or black, and Midnight Blue was too close to black.
Let's see more photos with the hardtop off when you get there.
KC- I'm in Minnesota. It was 70 here yesterday and now there are flurries. Very erratic.
Paul- yes Jason Is a good guy. Good detailed PPI and great communication. He even acted as title transfer agent and held the title while the money cleared. I had him do 30k service at same time as PPI, even though I now know the engine only has 10k on it 😀
04-03-2016, 11:53 PM
Lapis blue is the new black... New owner thread
