For many of us, our GT4s are about a year away from the expiration of the original 4-year factory warranty. I plan on buying mine at end of lease next month, so I'm looking into options for extending the warranty when it expires next year. What are my fellow GT4 owners considering--purchasing an extended warranty such as the Porsche Vehicle Service Protection extended warranty (drivetrain only or the more extensive "Platinum"), or having the car CPO'd instead, which would add 2 years to the original warranty?

 

I'd go CPO. Never had an issue with a repair.

 

CPO will be my choice.....Phil

 

 

How did you do on the lease residual versus your best estimate of current value? If that's too personal, disregard.

I heard anecdotally when I bought mine in January this year that leasing has become more and more disfavored due to increasing rates. I did not delve deeply into it but the days of the great Porsche lease rates seem to be long over (I once leased a 991.1 C2S Cab with 5k miles on odometer for a hair over $1k a month, no buydown).

 

Not confident that you can CPO the car without the dealership purchasing the car from you, performing the inspection/work necessary to get it up to CPO standards, and then "re-sell" back to you. May want to check with them on that.

 

Definitely interested in this topic as well.

 

That's my understanding as well...

 

This. CPO is a marketing tool that has been developed and tuned to increase used car sales, Porsche has no incentive to give a certification to a car they've already sold.

 

Actually, it makes sense. Why would Porsche guarantee a car that they have no clue the condition of? Warranty of a transmission/engine/drivability concerns especially...the expensive components. By requiring the dealer to oversee the process and secure that warranty, it helps protect their rear. On average, the CPO warranties cost $2500+. With it not being capped on mileage now, it is the best bang for your buck.

 

I'd wait & see what they're going to offer regarding transmission recall/replace possibly on your car.

 

Actually, quite well. Lease payments were a bit over $1600/mo with no money down, but that means the buyout price at end of lease is $56k + tax. Considering that these cars are still valued at $80k +, it's one of the rare situations where the buyout price at end of lease is much, much less than the value of the car. But as of now, I plan to keep it. Love the car. That's why I'm looking into extended warranties.

Interesting. That would make sense. I'll have to inquire.

Transmission already replaced under warranty at 8k miles when third gear went kerplow.

 

That's excellent, wish I could say the same about my car! Still on the original currently. I would still be cautious though as it's my understanding there were multiple iterations of the transmission replacements. For example, I know of one GT4 owner who just had his transmission replaced for the third time (heard this second hand). I was in the car as a passenger with him when it went out for the second time, that was years ago though so likely that wasn't the final iteration of the replacement. I feel like the recall will likely propagate to the U.S. anyway so maybe not an issue but I would keep this in mind until it does.

My current plan is to do some kind of extended warranty (or CPO if that's an option), just don't want to spend $5k for it.

 

I went through a similar process at the end of a BMW lease but the financials were reversed. The BMW was worth less than the residual after lease. I really like the car and nothing else was interesting to replace it so I decided to pursue buying it out. A couple months before lease end, I emailed the VIN to several local dealers and asked them to provide a price to do a buyout with CPO. I believe that the finance company, BMWFS in this case, may sell the car to dealers at a lower price than the buyout depending on market conditions at the time. The best offer was 10% below the contract residual. I took the deal and it worked out well.

For a dealer this is basically an instant sale. They never have to put the car on a lot so their costs are low and they can translate that into a low sell price. I am assuming that dealers also secretly expect to make some money on the CPO process itself outside of the set transaction terms. When they CPO a car there are certain criteria like brake pad wear, tire wear, ect. that they need to comply with. During this process if my car had wear beyond the standards, I would have to pay for that for them to CPO the car. So in these transactions there are a lot of potential charges they can add at high margin, like a brake job or new tires. I did the research and made sure my car would meet those prior to dropping it off.

I would suggest to try a similar approach. Contact several dealers and see what kind of deal they can offer. With the low GT4 depreciation I would guess there will not be any good deals out there but it does not hurt to ask. If there are no deals, then stop thinking about CPO and investigate extended warranties.

 

Is there a prefered extended warranty underwriter that anyone has. What's the ballpark a extended warranty should cost?