pewter82

The car checked out well.
tailpipe hanger loose
1/2 qt low oil
tires are 5mm and wearing on inside some

jhbrennan

My guess is they will sell as is - maybe add some oil and fix the horn and tighten the exhaust hanger. Tell them you want the sealant and compressor - I doubt you'll get a price adjustment - this is a pretty good PPI for an 06 with almost 37,000 miles. Good luck with the purchase.

No HTwo O

DME read-out is very good.

Horn is a common repair. The 987/997 have 2 horns.

The active carbon cabin filter is about $68 and a DIY.

Spark plugs cost about $96.00. Ask one of your mechanics at work to moon-light this afterhours for you and throw him a Franklin.

Looks like the report says the tires are at 5/32's NOT 5mm. New tires are about 9/32's so you are about 1/2 way. Keeping in mind tire wear is not linear.

Serp. belt should be maintenanced soon too, based on years of service, not miles.

PasPar2

37k miles / 1k operating hours = 37mph avg which is indicative of mostly highway travel. DME scan is good. The other stuff doesn't give you much leverage.

Macster

I assume the car passes the extended test ride/drive test with flying colors?

You're looking at tires and an alignment (easy $1500 -- or more tires are expensive!); horn; missing compressor, sealer and is the toolkit present and complete?; tailpipe hanger; and plugs (possibly coils too) and filters and possible oil/filter service unless you have paperwork this was done recently.

Same goes for brake fluid flush/bleed. Unless you have paperwork... this should be done every 2 years.

Now about that exhaust hanger? Are you sure the PPI looked into that hanger issue and determined nothing sinister?

There's just a cracked hanger (it happens) but these can also be damaged if the car was backed into something that caught the exhaust tips. While the damage may be confined to the hanger, you want to be darn sure that is the case. A hanger R&R is bad enough, but if it goes beyond that...

Get accurate estimates of what it will cost to address the above items/issues.

Unless the asking price of the car already has the cost of the work above factored in to it (unlikely) then you have to adjust the price of the car down by the amount it will cost to put the car 'right'.

If the seller is asking 'excellent condition' price for the car (and almost always the seller starts at this price level), to state the obvious you want to avoid paying 'excellent condition' price for a car that has some issues.

To warrant an excellent condition price the car should need nothing.

However, as always it is up to you what you want to pay, by how much or little you adjust your offer price, or what you decide is your highest price.

Sincerely,

Macster.

USMC_DS1

Plugs are not that bad to DIY if you want to save $1K. I did my coils and plugs last year for $60(plugs) plus $240(coils) and a few hours off shade tree mech time. BTW, if you need to replace a tailpipe it's $600 so be careful to inspect that one for damage.

Macster

The salesman and manager? Where? Where you want to buy the car?

If so they may just be busy. Whenever I'm at a car dealer I hardly ever (I can't remember ever) seeing a salesman just lounging around.

If he's not with a customer, he's on the phone following leads, or making new ones, or in the lot taking notes on cars, or in the service area following the progress of a sold car being given its going over before the customer comes in to pick up the car.

Also, the salesman and manager are sales people first and foremost and a salesman always believes he has the best chance of making a sale when talking to a potentional buyer face to face.

In short they want to you come back so they can sell you the car.

Remember, everything a car salesman says to you is intended to get you to buy the car as soon as possible and pay as much for it as possible.

Not saying anything (even going so far as to not answering/responding to emails for instance) is just a flip on the above; they are using silence to further the goal of getting you buy the car.

It also is a way to judge your intent, the seriousness of your intent. Emails/phone calls are easy to make. Chances are the dealer gets a bunch of these every day. But people that show up in person will get the attention because that's when most sales happen.

Just to put this into focus: Car salesmen act they way they act, do what they do, because it works most of the time. A salesmanager got his position by being a top-notch salesman. A car dealership is a brutal business and salesmen are always on the knife edge. So if one is working regularly, he's probably pretty darn good at what he does.

Anyhow, the test ride/drive (by you if at all possible) wants the route to be long enough (15 miles or so) and over a varied bunch of roads to give you as a passenger suffiicient time to experience the car to see in short how it behaves.

By going out as a passenger you can focus on the car not the actual driving. And focus on the car. Leave the cell phone off!

Back at the starting point then you take the car out as a driver and cover the same route, drive the car the same way.

The idea is to give the engine (among other things, everything in fact) a chance to act up, show its true colors.

If the engine starts out from dead cold quiet, remains quiet as it warms up and during/after the 15 mile test ride, and then still remains quiet after the 2nd 15 mile test drive, if the CEL remains off, and so on, the odds are high the car's in good shape.

Of course, being a used car you have to subject the car to a thorough used car checkout. I mean to put it bluntly, the car is just a used car.

Now if during and after the test ride/drive the CEL remains off then unless the tech doing the spark plugs spots something amiss that his experience indicates will have the coils misfiring in X number of miles, the coils can be skipped.

Absent any signs (misfires) the coils are acting up the seller will be unlikely to want to offer any adjustment on the car's price so you can start out with new plugs and new coils.

Or ixnay for now the new plugs. Just negotiate the price down to account for the fact the car is due for plugs and then buy the car and when you have the plugs done then you can have the coils done.

Don't be rushed into buying the car. You want to be as sure as you can be the car's worth owning.

Remember: There's always another car!

Sincerely,

Macster.

Spokane5150

You should be able to tackle those plugs and cabin filter yourself for 150 bucks. The horn blower is odd. I understand that the spark plugs are dueable but time consuming because of the tight area. Is there DIY for the plugs? I couldn't find one. What's the book say....4 years or 75k miles?

Just bought some Super Sport Michelins (love em) at Discount tire and they were $1750 and I think the alignment would be $250. The car is suppose to have good tires. Maybe they'll take another $1000 to $1500 off. Do the plugs yourself and run those tires for the rest of this summer.

RollingArt

IIRC, you're preaching to the choir.

The OP IS a car salesman.

Spokane5150

I've had great experience and my Nashville Porsche Service. I'm keeping my mouth shut about the sales floor.

Macster

Then why the wonder about no response from the manager or salesman?

Anyhow, as car salesman he ought to steal that thing!

Sincerely,

Macster.

USMC_DS1

Here you go: https://rennlist.com/forums/997-foru...placement.html

Macster

There are exceptions.

I bought my '96 Mustang GT from a car salesman leaning against the far corner of rthe dealership's show room. He was like he was hiding out.

In a way he was. I found out he was new to the business and I think he was having second thoughts about his line of work. (I think he had been an accountant before.)

While I'm sure he played a minor role in the sale I did end up with a real good deal.

I'm sorry to say -- though it was probably for the best -- this salesman was not long at that dealer.

Sincerely,

Macster.

USMC_DS1

My best sales rep was the #1 volume mover at a Lexus dealership in Dallas. 5 text messages over a day and we closed/agreed on the price... $9K less than the local dealer here in Austin. I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop when we drove up to Dallas to close on the paper work... but it was 1st class all the way. Now I try to figure out from the sales manager who is their #1 volume mover upfront and work with that sales rep. Minimizes all the junior level stuff and we can just get down to business.

Spokane5150

Got it! Good write up. My car is almost 4 years old and 32k miles. Think I should change them? Are the coils recommended?