lomac92

I recently bought my first Porsche and I feel like I perhaps got an amazing deal. Wanted to share my story here and get some feedback.

Apologies for the length... TL;DR: I bought a mystery 997.1 C2 Cab from a repo auction for $17,250 CAD that showed some signs of neglect, but was able to address most of the issues and the car runs and looks great.

I've been looking hard at a 911 for a long time and the 997 has always been where my heart was. The 997 was new when I was a teenager, and the generation that really made me fall in love with Porsche. I like small sports cars, the 991 is just a little too big, and I'm not a fan of the 996. Obviously the old air cooled cars are amazing, but I just can justify (or afford) the price those go for these days.

I've spent the last several years reading up on all the issues that come with the 997 generation, chief among my concerns was bore scoring. This fear is further exacerbated by the fact that I live in Canada, where "warm weather" climate cars are not really an option on the market. I knew that whatever car I ended up purchasing had a high likelihood of either coming with bore scoring or developing it over time. I came close several times to the trigger on a .2, but I just found it hard to stomach some of the prices ($70k+ CAD) for a car that was prone to developing a problem that would require an expensive rebuild. I also kind of preferred the look (specifically rear taillights) of the .1 car.

Over the last few years I kept my eyes on the market, only to watch with pain as the values of these cars continued to go up, even as bore scoring seemed to be popping up more and more. My faith on finding a car that ticked all the boxes and was available for a price that I could stomach was waning...
...Then one day a few months ago, I spotted a 2005 C2 Cab at a local auction company. Surprised to see a Porsche of any kind, as this is typical the kind of auction outfit that carries repo cars etc. I always felt I wanted a coupe, not a cab, but the opportunity intrigued me. Maybe for a cheap price, it was worth it?

Car had a listed reserve price of $25k CAD, it had 158k km with a note that the CARFAX had a "mileage inconsistency" indicating a possible odometer rollback, 2 minor accidents noted on the CARFAX, it was missing the fuel door (oddly) and it had notes that the front and rear bumper were in poor condition due to scratches. Initially, I thought $25k CAD sounded like a good deal considering the market and so I set off to go check the car out, even with a $30k rebuild down the road, I'm still in for under $60k. Unfortunately, this company does not let you drive the cars, but will let you start them up.
When I got there to check out the car, I noticed some more issues:

• The front lid had a looped wire hanging out of it, quickly realized this was a bush style repair as the electronic release wasn't working. The owner cut the wire coming from the electronic acctuator and created a manual pull to get into the frunk. It was just hanging out over the nose of the car, looked like a septum piercing.
• A/C obviously was not working
• Floor mats were two different colours and were obviously cut to shape with scissors to fit into the Porshce
• The rear bumper was very poorly repainted following an obvious fender bender, and the paint was cracking
• Got an error message on the screen for "headlight adjustment fault"

Other than that, everything worked fine electronically and when I started the car it fired right up and sounded good. I didn't notice any smoking on start up or any noticeable ticking noise. Both tailpipes had some soot, but the drivers side was not discernably sootier than the passenger side.

I decided that $25k might be a little much, but I would bid on the car and take the gamble that I can fix the other issues myself for a reasonable price. I also figured that even if the car had some bore scoring or bore scoring in it's future, that at the right price I could be at peace with that reality considering the car has value even just for parts.

Fast forward to the auction: this was a live auction, not your BAT week long online process. Opening bid came in at $17k (CAD) and I jumped in at $17,250.... no more bids came it. The auctioneer said "that's a long way off from the reserve, but we'll try for you". At this point my heart was racing, was I going to get a running 911 for $17,250? Unfortunately I had to wait several days to hear back, but eventually got the call "The car is yours, you have 48hrs to come here with a cheque to pick it up". Holy ****.
Got everything lined up immediately and picked up the car that evening. When I drove it home everything seemed fine to me (other than the lack of AC), the interior of the car looked honestly great for something with 160k km on it. No rips or tears, no big scratches and nothing was broken.

First thing I did was change the oil with DT40, LN engineering spin on filter & magnetic drain plug. Sent the old oil into Blackstone (more on that later). I was also able to address the following issues myself:

• Ordered and installed a new fuel door (painted to match) from the local Porsche Dealer for $200 CAD
• Ordered a new front lid actuator from the local Porsche dealer for $130 CAD
  • When I went to install this I found that the old actuator had actually been ripped out of the wiring loom, so I had to splice the wires back together when I installed it, but no issues
  • I noticed a 3rd wire was also severed from this bush league repair, and so I spliced that wire back together too. Turns out it was for the auto-leveling headlights, as splicing this fixed the error I was getting
• Dug into the CARFAX odometer issue and quickly realized this was just a filing error when the car was serviced in the US and KM's were reported as Miles. Reported the error to CARFAX and they fixed the report, no more odometer warning

Issues that still need to be addressed:

• I tried to re-charge the AC, but it still doesn't work. Must be a leak somewhere, I'll have to get a real mechanic on it. But the car is a Cab so god has me covered on hot days.
• The rear bumper clearly needs a re-spray
• The alarm seems to randomly go off sometimes when I walk by the car. I've read this could just be an old battery, battery tests fine, but I'll probably try to replace it soon and see if that solves it.

Otherwise, I've put about 2,000km on the car since I bought it and changed the oil. With respect to bore scoring, I haven't bothered to get it scoped but I've looked for the signs:

• after about 1800km, I added about 0.5qts of oil as it had worked it's way down to the bottom tick (no light on yet). Obviously the car is burning some oil, but well under the amount in the manual and well under what I've seen some people report here
• I do not notice any ticking or sounds that mimic the bore scoring videos I've poured over online.
• I DO notice the drivers side tailpipe getting sootier than the passenger side. This is obvious after cleaning both tailpipes, it's not that excessive, but it's noticeable.
• The car doesn't smoke on start up, really at all.

I've been patiently awaiting my Blackstone analysis. Finally got it back today (PDF attached). Aluminum came back high, but everything else is normal. Honestly I was expecting worse, I figure if bore scoring is advanced I'd be seeing silicon/iron and significantly higher rate of oil consumption. I plan to do another oil change fairly soon and get an analysis done again.

So, here I am. I have a 2005 C2 Cab that runs well and has some minor issues still to solve. I'm all in on the car (with taxes etc) for under $19k CAD ($14k USD), I love driving it and even the look of the silhoutte of the Cab is starting to grow on me...

I'd really love to come across the previous owner. The car is such a mystery to me, CARFAX shows it was generally serviced at Porsche dealers and the condition of the interior suggests it was well cared for. However, the bush league repairs, missing fuel door and the fact it wound up at this auction house suggests neglect...

I'm a natural sceptic. I can't really shake the feeling that I must be missing something. This deal still feels far too good to be true. The optimist in me says I just timed the auction well and managed to get into an auction where the right people weren't looking at the car. The pessimist in me is saying I've missed something major that could come bite me at any point... Curious if anyone has some feedback or thoughts for me? Does the aluminum levels in the oil analysis mean things are worse than I'm thinking here?

Below are the pictures I took at the auction house. She looks a lot better now, with the matching fuel door, and a good clean/polish.

Graufuchs

Nothing wrong with taking in a rescue and making it yours....I think its a bit more rewarding in all honesty. (You went in with the expectation of the worst and the associated costs)

Great story....keep sorting the car out and post some pictures of the car in its current state!

aasilvia

row or auto?

lomac92

Manual, forgot to mention that above. Under no circumstance was I prepared to buy a Tiptronic (no offence to Tip owners, just not for me!)