I love how I can sense the seething frustration here.

Porsche people, particularly those on the forums, seem to be some of the pickiest weenies on the internet. As much as I'd like my car to end up in the hands of a fellow enthusiast, if I ever go to sell it, I'll probably stick to the Autotrader/Cargurus/eBay avenues to avoid what you're going through.

Glad to hear a deal is brewing with someone who appreciates how special this car and mods are.

 

Beautiful example of a GTS. I followed your build through out my GTS ownership experience as a dream build. I too am moving on from my GTS and after seeing your struggles I feel a little bit better about the decision to remove the lightweight pair of seats and swap the stock exhaust back. Hope you're moving onto something with a higher redline and I can learn from your build on that platform too

 

Yeah but what's confusing is that this is supposedly a Porsche enthusiast's forum and mods from wheels, to exhaust, to lowering springs/coilovers all the way to superchargers are discussed here all time. But OEM Porsche GT2 bucket seats and $7K worth of the best quality after market forged wheels.....can't have that. Reduced to $63K now.

 

I remember when we talked last summer in regards to your car, driving impressions, and wheels. Had this car been Manual I would have begged non stop to buy it from you.

Sorry youre dealing with people. I am only selling to another Marine if I ever sell my Turbo(for someones very special 991.2 GT3 ) because they follow my Instagram, know how meticulous I am with my vehicles, and will actually drive the crap out of her.

 

 

dang it! How did I miss this? I just bought a 991. I love love love this car.

 

 

Very simple. The repair is guaranteed as "undetectable" for the life of the car. They even used the exact same brand paint as Porsche uses at the factory. Secondly, a certified auto appraiser told me that bumpers and exhaust parts among other things are considered "bolt on items" and do not affect the value of the car as long as the repair was done by a first rate shop and is indeed "undetectable" by a certified auto appraiser . Mine was done by one of the best, most reputable shops in the eastern US. They recently had a vintage Packard trucked in from Chicago for body work and paint. Some reputation when a Florida body shop gets customers from Chicago.

And here's the great irony of all the hysteria created over a replaced rear bumper. The shop owner told me Porsche bumpers are done all the time. Sometimes just repairs and resprays, sometimes replacements and paint. Probably because of what the certified auto appraiser said, these jobs rarely if ever show up on Carfax . So chances are that those who make a big deal out of this are themselves driving around in 997's or other Porsches with replaced or repaired and repainted bumpers and don't even know about it. Heck....some brand new Porsches arrive in US ports with bumper damage or worse from the shipping between Germany and the US. You think fixing that is disclosed by the dealer putting it on the showroom floor?

Bottom line is that my car looks better now than it did before the event. Got a brand new front clear bra out of it too. So again, I really don't understand the hysterics over a replaced bumper. No quarter panel damage, no frame damage, just the bumper and the Sharkwerks x-pipes which had a small bent and was replaced. To prove that I'm not bull****ting, tooting my own horn or trying to hide something, find me a 2012 997 GTS with low miles, possibly a 2015 991 GTS or a 2010 or 2011 997 turbo with one or both bumpers repaired or replaced with no other damage involved and I won't hesitate for a minute to buy it at current market price. Sorry but to me this is a ridiculous discussion. We're not talking about an original Picasso painting having been altered by some hack.

 

Not just the hassle but finding stock CL wheels and stock seats is not easy. Finally think I have two (maybe three) serious buyers who are happy with the car as configured. They also know about the bumper replacement and don't care given the way it was repaired and the references I've given them. Been through this before though and money/financing seems to be a problem for a lot of want to be buyers.

 

Thanks. It's a really cool car, set up exactly the way I want it. It's my daily driver though so I put quiet a few miles on it. 60,000 is not too hard to take but I'll be at 80,000 in a few years and I'm not sure I would like to look at that (and climbing) every day on the odometer.

As for the rear end story, it looks much worse on paper than it actually was. The only major parts that were replaced were the rear bumper and the Sharkwerks bypass pipes. No other damage to quarter panels or anything else. As I've said before, both those parts are considered "bolt on items" and according to a certified auto appraiser I have spoken with are not part of the car's structure and therefore do not affect the value of the car as long as the repair was done by a first rate shop which it was. And that's where to big price tag of $16K comes from. The shop owner is a perfectionist and found a small scratch on a panel when they removed the bumper. He insisted on painting that scratch but the only way he felt could do that properly was to remove the engine. So the car was trucked to another shop that removed the engine, then back to the body shop for that minor paint job. Then back to the other shop for the engine re-install and then back to the body shop again for finishing the job.

I think you can see how this inflated the cost of the repair fairly dramatically. Most shops would not have removed the engine to paint a small 3" scratch that could barely be seen even with the bumper removed. But he insists on all repairs being "undetectable" and to factory standards so that's how he works. Kind of surprised that AIG which was the insurer of the driver at fault approved it but they did.

The damage to the front bumper was very minor and mostly to the clear bra. There was a tiny scratch in the paint that they tried to buff out but it was just a bit too deep so the resprayed it and I got a new clear bra as part of it.

It's been almost a year now and the whole thing does not show up on Carfax. The appraiser I spoke with said that it never will. He said Carfax very consistently post the records within a month of the repairs being completed. Maybe because the parts that were replaced have no affect on the value of the car. I don't know.

You said you're not interested in a PDK car but I've attached the original build sheet and a current Carfax here. By the way, I've sold a lot of cars privately over the years but this one takes the cake in terms of weirdness. I've actually lost count now but I think I have 6 or 7 guys that's been nibbling on it now for weeks. All of them know about the bumper replacement and say they don't care and all of them say they have cash in hand are are ready to move forward. Some follow up with questions about maint. records (I have all of them going back almost 4 years) and then they go quiet. Really strange. Never saw anything like it.

 

Forgot to mention. Carfax shows three owners. I'm the second owner so I don't know where they got the third owner from. Maybe transfer from the dealer to the first owner who bought it new.

 

I am totally empathetic to Sandwedge. I get everything he's saying. It's just crazy that someone hasn't snatched this beauty. Someone buy it!

To his bumper story, I bought a CPO'd 2013 991.1S and when I went to remove the rear bumper with my body shop buddy for installation of a duck tail, we discovered it had been re-sprayed for a tiny puncture. So......Porsche will CPO cars with the "undetectable", "unreportable" bumper and minor paint correction issues. Didn't bother me, as it was done by Porsche and didn't ding a paint meter reading abnormally.

 

Thanks for the prop. Glad to see somebody gets it. As for the "bumper story", some Porsche dealers will CPO cars with far and away worse defects than just a perfectly replaced and repainted bumper. In case you haven't read this horror story, here's the beginning of it and a link to the the rest. One of the longest threads ever on RL. Almost 800 posts over 54 pages as I recall it. And the dealership in question is the second largest volume Porsche dealer in the US (Beverly Hills Porsche, CA).