ibmiked

Hi,

I'm hoping to lean on the community to see if anyone knows this car or the background story behind it. I've got a deposit on a 2006 Black C4S in the New York/Tri-State area. The car checks out physically and through CarFax (not a big fan by the way). My concern stems from the fact that this is a 2 owner car already, and has passed quickly through both owner's possession.

From what I can tell, the car was custom ordered and leased for 1 year or possibly 2 starting in April 2006. Seven months into the lease, CarFax shows the car as back in dealer inventory with 9000 miles. The second owner then purchased the car in April of 2007 and put 2000 miles on it before putting it on dealer consignment.

This is where I come in. In a previous career I managed our family autobody shop, so I'm giving the car a thorough going over to eliminate any accident damage or paintwork as a possibility. My local dealer says they can't access service records originating from another dealership, so mechanically the PPI can only help confirm the car is currently A-OK.

My question; does anyone know this car? Because of the way it was ordered and the fact that the original owner put clear side markers on it, I'm guessing he or she was an enthusiast and possibly a member of one of the these forums. Here's the VIN and specs:



WP0AB29996S742499
2006 Black C4S,
Black Carrera S Sport wheels
Guards Red Seat Belts
Sport Chrono
Adaptive Seats
Full Black leather
Manual Tranny
Carbon Fiber Package
Heated Seats
Nav
Bose

If anyone knows this car or it's history, please let me know. The price is good, but the back story concerns me. I'd like to thank the moderators and site owners for providing me with such a great resource.

Thanks, -Mike

Bob in NY

is this car at New Country in Greenwich?

ibmiked

Yes, that's the one.

Eric - Plug Guy

If you make enough calls to the right people, you will determine the previous selling and servicing dealer(s) where you can make a call to a service writer for more info. Hard to believe the 'dealer' cannot obtain service records from another dealer.

Bob in NY

I'm pretty sure that car came from Brandywine Porsche in PA. I was interested in that car too but ended up with a different C4S. The folks at New Country are excellent, I have bought two cars from them.

ibmiked

Thanks Bob and Eric, I'll contact Brandywine in the morning to see if I can find out more.

Bob- Congrats on the C4S, I saw your previous post and recognized New Country in the background. I'm dealing with Patrizio.

Eric- Amazingly fast shipping on my short shift kit. I'm glad I didn't install it as fast, otherwise I'd be pulling it out to re-install in the C4S. Thanks for a great experience.

sandwedge

I see this concern a lot and I admit I don't get it. Why is it always assumed that a late model high end car with two owners means trouble? My C4S had 4,000 miles and two previous owners when I bought it and was flawless in every respect including a DME scan that looked like the car had belonged to senior citizens driving to church on Sundays. Had exactly the same scenario with a 2004 M3 three years ago. The car was perfect when I bought it and remained perfect until I sold it last year.

A lot of people with a lot of money buy high end cars like regular people buy shoes or shirts. They buy something they think they like the looks of.......bring it home, use it once or twice, then look at it for a while longer and .........well, maybe not and it's either stored, traded or sold. I tend to see it as opportunity rather than something to avoid, especially if you can buy it directly from this kind of seller rather than allowing a dealership to rip him/her off first.

ibmiked

sand-

I agree with all of your points. When buying a used car especially though, I think it's important to look for any signs that flag it as not ordinary. There are cars on the market in every price range that have been in accidents, are border-line lemon law, flood victims, or just abused.

A car that was originally leased and then returned early means that the customer paid ALL of the remaining lease payments anyway, even though they returned the car to the dealer. I'm sure that there are wealthy people out there who would think nothing of this practice, but why? Why not have the car sit in your garage for the whole lease term, especially if you are going to have to pay the lease payments anyway?

In my opinion a diligent buyer would have to ask this question to be certain of getting a quality used car.

Tinluver

With so many porsches out there to choose from I would never buy one involved in a lease situation.
Just me.Who needs to worry about all this detective work

blk on blk

Maybe their situation changed. Maybe they bought leased this car and then had a child or somethign shortly beofre the lease was up. The payments were a sunk cost already, but insurance and garage space are not. Maybe they decided they were not going to be able to use it so they paid the payments, cancelled the insurance and got a Cayenne for the child. Who knows but not every story has to be a bad one.

ibmiked

Absolutely! But is everyone here saying they wouldn't take the time to find out first before buying a car like this?

sandwedge

For me......I check every car the same way and all I'm saying is that I don't believe multiple owners over a short time frame necessarily equals trouble. For example, would you rather buy a two-owner car with weekend country road history or a one-owner car that spent every weekend on the track?

MLindgren

Any mechanical that may go bad is restorable. Not that you want to jump into buying a new motor for your new car-a good PPI should be able to eliminate anything major. Much more important IMO to find the color, options, and cosmetic condition than worry about what might go wrong. Certainly there are unabused cars that have failures like the intermediate shaft. DME report should tell the story during PPI inspection.

TX996

I know what you are going through.... my C2S I bought a few months back had one owner from 2005 until July of 2007 and then he put up for sale 3 months later... he said he was losing his job and needed to downsize.... I was concerned at two owners in such a short time.

I felt better after I got a dealer inspection with a DME scan and the results, It came with a certified warranty that was added in July when previous owner bought it, and I had a VERY good, well known Porsche mecahnic do a complete once over of the car that cost me 3 hours labor at $90 an hour.

It revealed some silly little things (uncharachteristic carpet wear, etc) that did not mean that much to me but pointed to the fine tooth of his comb if you catch my drift.

No one can every really know for sure but questions uncover some issues or none and warranties from Porsche mean a lot to me. If they will stand behind my car until late 2011 I felt pretty good about that.

I asked a salesman who tried valliantly to help me find a car about the short turn around on some cars. He said that seems to be more common than not. Financial problems, change of mind in an income group that can switch a car like this at 6 months to a year make it pretty common.

So out of curiosity I wrote down the Vin numbers of all of the potential candidate cars I was looking at and ran them all through my Carfax unlimited 30 day thing. Not that Carfax is the end all-be all but it does catch owners and registrations pretty well and to my surprise many of them did have some quick turn overs (actually more than half).

For whatever this means to you... I would focus on the car and what can be determined by a third party unless you absolutely know and trust the service of the dealer you are buying from.

Best of luck it is a great looking Carrera.

blk on blk

Just to further the points made on this I bought a 2004 996 brand new. It came to me with 24 miles on the odometer. I broke it in exactly as instructed and babied the thing for the most part. At 5k miles I had engine replacement after multuple tries at fixing an alleged bad coil causing a misfire on the number 4 cylinder. Further evaluation exposed metal in the oil filter so new engine at Porsche's expense. I sold the car shortly thereafter to someone I new and he now has put close to 25k miles on the new engine with no troubles at all. I bought my C2S with 5.5k miles and was the 3rd owner of it. It is a daily driver and I have not had one issue with it since I got it. I wouldn't trade it for anything. The point is machines break. Some more than others, and I am not sure at the end of the day it matters a whole lot if you were the original owner or owner #3. that is not to say I would not give any car i was buying a very thorough check up prior to purchase, but more just saying again I do not know that the numberof owners is a bad thing.