sgtpeper

Hi All,

I can't be the only one who needs help figuring out if a particular car is a good deal, so I figured I'd start a master thread for all of us who need help!

....and of course I'll start it off.

http://www.motorcars-intl.com/vehicl...2ed0970cd0fa1/

It says it's a tip, but it's obviously a 6mt. I checked the vin and it doesn't have a ton of options, but it does only have 9k miles on it...

What do you all think of this car?

Thanks!

RClurg84

For me personally I'd never buy a 15 year old car with that low of mileage unless it had a warranty. I like to drive my cars and that's almost more for someone who isn't going to drive it. And it just screams "Drive me and watch me break" that's how I feel.

sgtpeper

I have that feeling as well. I would definitely want to see the maintenance records and make sure everything is in really good condition...

Macster

Very nice looking low miles Turbo. A 15+ year old Turbo just to put this into perspective.

Wonder what if any servicing the car has had. Annual oil/filter services? 2 year brake fluid flush/bleed? Plugs every 4 years? Probably has the original coolant. Wonder if the tires are original?

If you are seriously interested in a Turbo then go kick the tires and light the fires.

Remember with just 9K+ miles the car is still "new" and new Turbos can suffer from some issues. Clutch accumulator and slave cylinder. Noisy power steering tank (bypass valve). RMS. And any premium one pays for low miles evaporates as the car is driven.

Freddie Two Bs

I'd expect a pure car with that mileage and color scheme to go for a lot more money, especially at a dealer I'd expect an ask for 10 grand on top of that price. There might be a reason why it's kinda low. Ask for a DME. I looked into a 5k mile car once, the DME was pretty ugly.

sgtpeper

What's a DME?

mffarrell

Digital
Motor
Electronics

SeabrookPorsche

+1, this seems like a hell of a deal.

Have proper PPI done.

Freddie Two Bs

The DME readout gives you various bits of ECU information, most notably the cumulative number of overrevs of the engine, which are a number between 0 and 65k (2^16 bit). There's range 1 and 2. Range 1 ain't so bad, especially if it's only a few hundred and many hours ago, but indicates that the car was driven fairly spiritedly.

Range 2 is undesirable and could mean a missed shift. Tons of range 2 occurred at a recent number of hours = red flag.

Also a tune could lead to range 1 being hit all the time but a 9k mile car rarely has a tune.

The 5k mile car I went to see was 65k range 1 and maybe 30k range 2.

sgtpeper

Ahhh didn't realize that's the name for that report.

65k range 1 and 30k range 2 sounds ridiculous!

sgtpeper

Interesting, carfax shows 32 items for this car! Does anyone have an active carfax account?

wolfgang1

for a turbo that isn't ridiculous. easy to bounce off the rev limiter...

manimal

65k is totally ridiculous for a car with 5k miles! Also, note that 65k (65536 = 2^16) is the max value that can be stored in the DME.

FRUNKenstein

Great idea for a thread, sgtpeper! Hopefully people will use it.

On that car, that's a good price for the mileage, but . . .
-very lightly optioned car;
-there's a lot of tan expanses in that interior;
-as said above, the value is in the low mileage, so drive it and suffer the consequences in depreciation; and
-expect to have expenses from replacing aged-out parts

I'd rather pay $10k to $15k less for a well-maintained, better optioned, regularly driven car that you can actually drive and enjoy.

wolfgang1

fair comment..

I guess it could be worse... at least they are isolated to 1's and 2s!