I'm probably in the minority on the number of owners issue. As long as the car checks out and has documented maintenance records I don't care how many people owned the car previously. I've seen 4 owner cars in pristine condition with complete maintenance documentation and I've seen one owner cars with little or no maint. documentation that looked like they've been to hell and back.

As for location of the car, I don't know where and how you draw your limits but you're obviously opening up a lot of additional options for yourself if you're willing to expand your search area. I personally search the entire US when looking for a new car. Gives you all options available and also gives you a much better idea of the current prices. Bought my current GTS sight unseen in Ohio and had it shipped to Florida after a thorough PPI and plenty of pictures. Even if you insist on seeing the car in person, buy a one way plane ticket and drive the car home, chances are you're still saving money and you're guaranteed to have a much bigger selection, increasing the odds of finding what you're looking for. Some people limit their search to their home town and its immediate vicinity and I think they do themselves a big disservice. For a Honda or a Ford, no discussion but these cars are few and far between in some markets so it's a whole different game.

Thank you for the advice! I have decided to pass on the black S, primarily because it doesn't have full leather or sports seats. I have been looking within a 500 mile radius so that I can see it and drive it home in the same day ideally. It's a bit out of my comfort zone to buy sight unseen, so I hope to have a PPI done and then buy the car after seeing it myself.

Makes sense, but if in your search, you find the right car with the wrong seats, swapping seats is not a big deal so don't let that stop you. If you can find a 997.1 launch car, that has just about a perfect spec with PCCB brakes, sport seats, 6 speed MT, sport chrono, and full leather. In a C2S ,they are all black over black. Since they were launch cars they were early 05 models, which mean they have the smaller IMS bearing, so either that will either need to have been addressed or you'll need to factor a couple grand into the price to do it. There's a separate thread here for launch cars something like "997 launch editions check in". Maybe post in that thread that you're looking for one and maybe one of those guys is getting ready to sell.

When it comes to # of owners, you have to look closely at the carfax and figure out if in fact there were actually separate owners or was car re-registered by same owner who moved, did car get sent to dealers, lien put on it, etc.
In my particular case, the 07 C4S I just purchased showed 6 owners. However there were only 4 people who owned it.
After reviewing the carfax and speaking with the seller, the previous owner to seller moved from Texas to California and re-registered/Titled the car in California. (which showed transfer of ownership)
Then that owner took a loan out on car which was used for collateral on his business venture which again shows as another owner on carfax.
So the above move and loan/Title change reduces actual physical human ownership by 2 people so actual ownership is 4 people

As far as multiple owners, many Porsche's I have owned have had many owners. My last 05 997S had 7 owners - It is not uncommon for people to buy these cars and they either get little use and sold or owner wants to upgrade to another model. I only owned my 05 997S for 7 months and sold it putting only 2000 miles on it. Before that I owned (3) 996 C4S's in 5 years and put less than 500 miles on each one of those.

IMO as long as the car shows service history, passes PPI inspection, looks and drives great, who cares how many owners it has had.

All a matter of comfort level and risk tolerance I guess. I've bought two E46 M3's and my current GTS this way and got exactly what was promised with all three of them. Neither car was sold by a brand dealership but all three PPI's were done by BMW/Porsche dealerships followed by an in depth phone discussion with the service manager who in each case had nothing to win by being dishonest about the condition of the car. What may have helped was that I offered a $100 tip if these managers would take a personal look at the car, drive it a mile or two and then give me their impression in addition to the tech doing the actual inspection. All agreed and again, it worked out well. They had little to add to the actual PPI's which were very thorough. Just pointed out very minute things such as "barely visible small scratch on driver side inside door handle".

Would do it again. Just have to spend the money to get the right people to do the PPI and as I said, I want a follow up by the service manager for his opinion after the actual PPI is done and I'll pay for it. Maybe I'll get screwed one day using this method but so far the people I paid to do what I couldn't have done anyway except looking at the car and driving it have done exactly what they promised to do.

https://www.platinumsales-llc.com/in...tails/44090886

This car looks interesting to me. Porsche maintained all its life and the selling dealer acknowledged the worn tires and said they would replace them. Any thoughts? What is a fair price for it? It's a couple hundred miles away from me, so I would do a PPI before heading up there.