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Price for the car is one thing. Price to make it reliable and driveable is a totally different price. Not a lot of info on the 2004 S for $7500 to give you an opinion.
Here's a 2004 turbo locally for sale @ under $8K. It's been on CL for at least a couple of months that I'm aware of. It too also lacks a bunch of critical info to make an informed decision.
If you're able to do some / all of the work to make it road worthy the answer is a maybe and a 'it depends'. If you're planning to have a shop bring it up to snuff, you could easily end up spending that much just to get it running reliably. At this point, you'd be far better off buying a better example with a known history.
Last edited by Travis; 07-13-2017 at 03:05 PM.
Reason: buy a better car!
^^ Yeah been seeing that one. I bought my CTT for a price that I think was too cheap to pass up (prior owner had spent 75% of my purchase price on maintenance in the past few years). If few owners and properly maintained, there are few better cars in the price range.
Price for the car is one thing. Price to make it reliable and driveable is a totally different price.
True, but there is also a point where it is cheap enough that you can just drive it into the ground and then just write it off at the first big repair.
At $4500 I could be convinced to pick one up and then only put fluids and rubber into it until it died...
^^ Agree with gnat. Cars are way more reliable than the Fix-it-again-tony days. If you're willing to live with a CEL and other error codes, paying 4,500 or 5k for a big porsche that drives well until it really dies and donating it for an equivalent tax write off isn't the worst financial decision.
I would, however, avoid a salvage title. I'm not driving any car band-aided together by some backyard mechanic at 80mph on the highway with myself or anyone I care about in the car.
I would, however, avoid a salvage title. I'm not driving any car band-aided together by some backyard mechanic at 80mph on the highway with myself or anyone I care about in the car.
I wouldn't write one off since having to replace a Xenon headlight housing would do it on a $4500 car, but you definitely have to know what the cause for the salvage was.
When it gained it's salvage title (time and miles) is also important. If it's seen 10 years and 50k miles since the salvage, then it probably wasn't a budget patch job.
First gen Cayennes are stupid cheap. I absolutely would not call them 'exotic'. by any stretch. They're basically VWs with Porsche engines. They're easy to find and have a lot of parts commonality with Touaregs and with all early Cayennes. They're tough as hell.
True, but there is also a point where it is cheap enough that you can just drive it into the ground and then just write it off at the first big repair.
At $4500 I could be convinced to pick one up and then only put fluids and rubber into it until it died...
I'd be happy to get a year out of a car for that price, then part it out if need be.
I paid $13.5K for an '06 CTTS with 135K miles; it looks, runs and drives like new. If it pooped a motor tomorrow and was a total loss, I'd be more bummed about losing the car than losing the money, we've had it four months. Not a full time daily driver, but about every third or fourth week it moves to that slot.
Age wise and repair cost wise, I'm glad I don't have to depend on it, but love owning and driving it.
I'm closing in on 150k in my '05 base. It's my daily driver. I paid $16k for it with 80k on the clock in 2011. If the motor fell out tomorrow I'd go find another just like it, and probably pay $10k less.
I have a personal goal of getting my 2006 Base to at least 300K miles. I dug into it over the weekend and fixed a massive amount of vac leaks and what could have been a catastrophic coolant leak for a few hundred $ in parts.
If you buy a cheap one, know that the engine isn't what is going to get you. It is all the plastic bu!!**** in the engine compartment that will.
The parts in this pic mean No more CEL and no more coolant calamity ----
I am probably emotionally attached or at lease psychologically feel like I know where all the bodies are buried in this car. Maintenance has been mostly timely on it and she should go the distance. My biggest obstacle is the cracked panoramic roof but I have some get' er dones in a wrecking yard ready to take a sawzall to another one and load the entire roof plus panoramic onto a trailer for me
If my 14 year old and I weren't committed to getting his 1987 924S on the road, I would probably buy him a cheap base model because mine has been a real joy for the last 165K miles (out of 183K on the clock).
07-13-2017, 12:44 PM
How cheap is too cheap to pass up?
