+996

 

Kevin, did you check with Passport, Reliable or Exotic? I Don't think they bid out, but they're usually a lil' more expensive. But, these companies are bonded, insured & top notch. Like the old sayin' you get what you pay for.

 

I'm going to call all three today. I know reliable is mostly covered transport, hadn't decided if I'm going open trailer or enclosed.

Thanks for the recommendations!

 

Thanks for all the replies. I received the report back from the inspection. The dealer said the car was very clean, no visible issues and verified most of the recent maintenance.

I received a copy of the DME report- 2002 996 41K miles
Range 1= Number of ignitions= 6781 also has a value that says 1158H on same line
Range 2= Number of ignitions=10 also has a value that says 622.4H on same line
Total Engine hours = 1190

Any input on these numbers?

 

The DME looks fine to me. Not super clean but not too bad. I think the range 1 shows something like 10s of hitting the rev limiter. There are very few range 2 (mechanical over revs) and they happened almost half its life ago so if there was going to be an issue it would have surfaced by now.

 

The good news is that your first two criteria (silver over black) describes a **** ton of 996 inventory - almost all of the lease configurations were silver over black.

Unfortunately, your match rate starts to decline from there - many lease vehicles were tip cabs rather than manual coupes - but silver over black is still going to be the most common configuration you'll run into.

Those range 2 over-revs are the ones to be terrified of - those are downshifts where the driver either blew a shift and did something like a 4-1 or 5-2 downshift or just stuffed it into the next lower gear and popped the clutch without slowing down sufficiently, winding the engine up beyond redline. The good news is that they happened a long time ago, and the count is very low. The range 1 ignitions are the number of ignitions that occurred with the car at redline - so one of the previous owners bounced the car off the limiter a few times, which is less concerning...

 

Thanks, I was not sure hot to read. The dealer doing the inspection did not seem that knowledgeable as it relates to the DEM report.

Thanks for the response. I am finding that there are a ton of cabs, and a decent amount of cars with tips. Many searches I have done pull up very little inventory for a well maintained, clean serviced car that falls into my price range.

I have seen a few locally, the only issue is many of the people do not know the true value of these cars. Two or three I found locally are asking for low 30's 2002,or 2003 model year with 60-80K miles. Some of them have good history, but few have documentation of water pump, IMS etc.

 

This isn't that surprising, since forum jockeys are the people who consider the water pump and IMS to be maintenance items rather than parts to replace when the old one breaks. Although 996's and 986's are fairly common, there are still indies out there who don't do much work on the M96 and don't know some of the stuff that we (for better or for worse) take for granted.

 

So based on the facts thinking of pulling the trigger. The DME report should not scare me away?

 

10 range-2 over revs and some enthusiastic time spent bouncing off the rev limiter wouldn't dissuade me. Those are 10 ignitions - i.e. cylinders sparking - not revolutions.

Range-2 over revs would have eliminated this car from being a candidate for being CPO - so obviously Porsche considers them to be a bad thing - but if the car is still running perfectly this many hours later, those 10 ignitions wouldn't be a deal breaker. The range-2 ignitions happened half the life of the engine ago...

 

Here is the DME of the C2 I just bought. The 65535 range 1 is the max counter as someone pointed out so there is no telling what the actual is. This has been a dedicated track car so the DME wasn't unexpected and I'm cognizant of the risks involved. I merely post it so you can see an example of a DME that you would want to run like hell from.

 

^ Type-2 over-revs 12 operating hours ago on a street car translates to "f**ked up a shift...still runs but makes weird noises now. Flushed the coolant to get rid of the oil...hope it stays clean until after the sucker - er, next owner - takes delivery."

The 65K red-line ignitions is an impressive number...is the tranny stock, or have the gears been adjusted? With that much time @ redline, you have to wonder if GBox was involved with some shorter gearing...

 

Tranny is stock on the outside and, except for the Quiafe, no mention of changes on the inside. It still shifts very smooth.

With 8,000 track miles I figure I will get a chance to rebuild the engine at some point. But it runs strong and isn't shedding metal or plastic. So I'm going to pamper it in the garage, drive it at limits on the track, and enjoy it at all times. Well, once I get the new subframe installed that is.

 

Thanks, I have been doing my research and based on some of the things I've seen it looks like this car wasn't beat on too hard. Only has 41k miles and RMS, IMS, water pump and clutch all done very recently.

Only thing stopping me is buying the car sight unseen, they want 25k for the car... Which considering recent service I all major issues on these cars seems fair.. Thoughts?

 

Looks like a really nice car. You are paying a bit of a premium but the mileage and maintenance are probably worth it.