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Wow. I called on this car yesterday but was turned off as it appeared to be heavily tracked and there were no detailed records. Napelton porsche did sell this car in 14 per the car fax. The current dealer took it on trade couple days ago.
A good dealer would buy it back on agreed selling price. At one time, I bought a car with a resprayed bumper and they said there was no paint work. When I received the car, I know due to overspray. GM bought the car back.
Now, most dealers should give you a disclaimer that a car would not have any repairs costing more that $1500, did you get one? I just bought again a used BMW from a small used car dealership in NC, and they sent me the letter.
If a car had $50000 of repairs and they knew about it, they should have told you about it.
Also, some of the questions I asked dealership even before I start to be interested in a car are a few questions,
-any respray?
-any accidents?
-is the title clean?
I think its the police report and not the insurance claim, that get reported to the Carfax? Can someone confirm this?
My neighbor owns an insurance agency and I talked with him about this in the past; the real answer is "it depends".
Carfax method is purchasing as much information as they can from whoever is willing to sell it to them. They sign contracts to purchase bulk data on autos, then internally sort out what is relevant/need to add to the report. Regarding insurance companies, some companies have non-disclosure clause in your insuring contract, and those companies will not give any data, but other companies will sell to them so if your insurer won't, but the other person you were in an accident has a company that will....
They also set up contracts to buy info from motor vehicle licensing departments, police, fire, repair shops, auction houses, dealers, etc etc. Not every department in every place is signed on, but they have a pretty massive network
Guessing that the accident that occurred several years ago was on track, and probably not covered by insurance. So, rather than report it to insurance and get dinged for un-covered track use, the owner probably paid out of pocket for repairs. Same deal as paying for minor cosmetic repairs out of pocket and not having a Carfax record, just on a larger scale.
Guessing that the accident that occurred several years ago was on track, and probably not covered by insurance. So, rather than report it to insurance and get dinged for un-covered track use, the owner probably paid out of pocket for repairs. Same deal as paying for minor cosmetic repairs out of pocket and not having a Carfax record, just on a larger scale.
Hence the lack of Carfax records of the repair.
Ding. Yes I have the dealership receipts that were emailed to me when I was considering the purchase. There is a $50k receipt from Napleton for the repairs. Hence I didn't buy that car
Ding. Yes I have the dealership receipts that were emailed to me when I was considering the purchase. There is a $50k receipt from Napleton for the repairs. Hence I didn't buy that car
Change thread title to: BUYER BEWARE - Cobalt Blue 997 GT3 $50 K damage @ Pelican Parts
Well...this sucks. I'm actually spending the night in Huntsville last minute because the financing wasn't working on this car hoping to have it resolved in the morning. Was trading my GT4 in... Drove 3 hours from Atlanta. Definitely heavily tracked. Clean car fax as mentioned above. Huntsville took it in as a trade straight up or so they say for a Cayenne Turbo.
Is there anyone that has the damage PDFs that could send them to me?
Man I feel so duped...
The only thing I can think of is maybe shame them down to track car only money.
The car needs paint correction badly but it is definitely salvageable on that front. Shifter seemed awful (super super notchy, no grinding)...thought maybe it was due to mods. Lots of vibration in the shifter and sounded like a box of rocks in the transmission at idle. I thought maybe flywheel but it is pretty rough sounding. Pulls fine and drives straight. I have not driven another 997 GT3 before so I have no basis for comparison.
They showed me service records indicating a transmission rebuild with 3,4,5,6 gear replacements and "86% lockup" diff at 10k miles in 2011. "Race" alignment, etc. also at some point a clutch job it appears...maybe with the flywheel.
Last edited by Accel Junky; 01-24-2017 at 04:36 PM.
OK, I have a big update for this car in case anyone is looking in the future.
Porsche of Huntsville was not aware of the damage. Evidently they took it in on trade at an amount that would severely screw them so I doubt they knew about it.
I reviewed all of the car's dealer service records back to the beginning. Forgive me but the car was a track **** for the 2nd owner. Multiple times per month over the course of about 2011-2014 the car was in and out of Napelton for all kinds of track maintenance, prep, etc... They even transported the car frequently for the owner and provided trackside assistance at a cost. Many installs of Hoosiers. He would have them swap out the stock wheels to the "race" wheels back and forth. Basically looks like he did not touch his own car, cost no object.
The records were specific enough to indicate which tracks the car was being prepped/teched for etc...
This car has absolutely been pillaged on the track and I could tell when I drove it that it had seen a hard life...similar to a Nurburgring/Spa Exige rental I had that had been in service for years of track only use.
I ended up staying over night in Huntsville with a fellow that I sold one of my old NSXs so that we could work out the financing and the GT4 trade in the morning. Fortunately this gave me a chance to stumble upon this thread since the VIN is not listed here. I don't know if there is a policy against that or something, otherwise I would post it.
I went into the dealer in the morning and laid everything out for them. They seemed pretty shocked, so I believe Huntsville had no idea of the previous track damage and the extend to which it has seen track use. Unfortunately i did not want the car for a 1 for 1 trade with the GT4 but I told them I would be willing to pay rebuilt salvage price for the car (like $50-60k ish) because I would be eating the money if I ever sold it and of course disclosed this info (which is easy to find now if you just google "cobalt blue GT3). They would be so upside down on it if they did this so naturally I bailed but they are now aware of the car so I'm not sure how they are going to unload it without duping someone otherwise I would think they would've taken my offer and had my GT4 to flip to boot.
Final item...the owner that traded it in clearly knew about the track damage from this thread as I can see his posts. It's pretty damn shameful that he traded that car in knowing this so a person like me could take 2 unpaid days off work and waste my f***ing time, money, ire of my wife and child, and additional miles on my GT4 which is going to be sold/traded so those are precious at this time. I know you got screwed yourself, but the appropriate thing to do would've been take legal action against the original dealer to recover and then disclose the sale of the car this time around. I bought a car like this before...an NSX...found it it was wrecked/ill repaired later but I fixed it to the best of my ability and fully disclosed when I got rid of it. I was told you were an army officer (I'm a Marine myself)...that's pretty beneath such a respected position to hide such a monumental fact (again if that is your position it is only what I was told, but for any decent human regardless).
At least the ending for you was a relatively happy one, considering the circumstances. You managed to dodge what likely would have been a huge bullet down the road.
I'm local to that car and it was offered to me last year .. the owner wanted mid 90ies for it .. i did not do an inspection on it, as i skipped out of the deal and found a 2010 GT3 instead which i ended up buying .. it's nice to see that our community works well and not everyone is out for profit only .. rather to help
01-14-2017, 11:35 AM
