Reefbreak

Promised myself I'd get serious about a P-car purchase once I was back back on my feet financially after 4 years of unemployment.

Anyway, I've been amongst the "employed" again for two years now and even though Oahu is not the optimal locale to buy, nor drive, a sports car, I can't help but check out the limited options that occasionally pop up on da Island.

The 2008 997 below has been on the market for about two months at a Ford dealership that recently dropped the price by about $9k. Plenty of good info on Rennlist about how to check out the vehicle (much appreciated), but why would an owner badge a "Non-S" as an "S"? Tried a search but did not find any related posts. Might not be a big deal, but just curious and wanted to see if anyone had any thoughts. Any thoughts on the car would be a bonus.

Aloha...and thanks in advance.

http://honolulu.craigslist.org/oah/ctd/4898793056.html

Linnm

Badge engineering or "wanna be" perhaps

extanker

why do they....put racing add ons....like racing motor mounts,racing floor mats,pedal,fire extinguisher ,racing belts/seats blah blah blah? on a cars that wont see a racetrack parking lot or will get smacked down by 20 year old corvettes ?

SpeedyD

If ford dealer dropped price by 9k perhaps the answer is the seller was able to pass it off as a Carrera S to the ford dealer ;-)

Little Green

I don't know why anyone would do that but an 08 base with 35K miles for 35K is a really good deal. It has some nice options like PASM, illuminated door sills, power seats etc.
Get a PPI done by someone and if it all checks out buy it and remove the S badge. Go get a 911 badge in matte black and replace your current badge. See now you won't be a poser and you get to drive a 911 for Camry money

LexVan

Gotta ask a BMW or Mercedes owner this question. They have much more experience in these matters.

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Dennis C

I think it's ridiculous. Not sure why people do this...

Little Green

It's funny but a coworker bought a used mercedes C300 last week. The badge on the back CLS300

thinklabinc

Agree with getting the proper PPI, that will tell you more about what you need to know. The previous owner of my 4S went the opposite way and had placed his order with the Porsche delete model designation.

Tcc1999

This would be my guess too.

Aesthetically, it looks like an S (not that there is a lot of difference between a Base and S), particularly the exhaust tips. Stock, the "S" has round quad and the the Base has dual rectangular exhaust tips. And it even appears as if the cutouts for the quad tips are correct (hard to tell from pic). And if you go to this extreme you might also disguise the engine cowl/covering that may say "3.6" (Base) versus "3.8" (S). Being a Ford dealer though, maybe they just were not aware that all they need to do is check the VIN. In two seconds they would have noted the 5th letter is an "A" that designates the car a 997 Base, versus a "B" that would indicate that it is an "S" model.

SpeedyD

Never know, right? Someone could have done a trade-in for a new car, and the person assessing the amount they'd pay just looked at mileage, quick once-over, the badge and then checked fair prices and voila!

Wouldn't absolutely shock me that this could happen. That is a huge price cut on a car as a percentage of the price... and seems almost exactly in line with a "whoops" moment where some more astute customer pointed out they could be liable if they list it as a "S" model...

Who knows... again, pure speculation and I barely looked at the listing.

997_Toronto

This car sounds like a deal.

Spinout

Running the VIN through CarFax or Autochek will tell you whether it's a base or S model. The PO forgot to paint his calipers red as they are on the s models.

robh75

Silly Ford dealer. I wonder if the PO is now liable to return the 9k or whatever.

Macster

Hard to believe a dealer could be taken in like that. While there could be an exception somebody at the dealer would have run the VIN, done some research, and would have known the badge was nonsense. Really, no car dealer worthy of the name is going to go by badges when working out a trade in deal.

I hate to say it but even if this happened some dealers would just leave the badge alone and while it might have dropped the price some I doubt it would drop it that much.

A big price drop is just not the way a dealer makes its money. This drop is probably just an attempt to move a car at a profit, albeit a small one, before the dealers turns the car over to an auction to unload. Trouble is in Hawaii the Porsche auction business is probably very small and the dealer is probably facing taking a bath on the car.

Thus my opinion is, that is my suspicion is besides the badge issue the car has other issues.