sbarbour

Year: 2020
Make: Volkswagen
Model: Beetle
Mileage (numbers only please): 911
Color: All of them
Price (no $ sign please): $0
Private or Dealer Listing: Private Listing
Location (Region): West
Body Style: Coupe
Transmission Type: Manual - 6 speed
2 or 4 Wheel Drive?: 4 Wheel Drive
Engine Type: Other
Stereo System: None

One year ago, lying in bed with 25 tabs open on my iPad, each with different sites listing Porsches for sale, I thought to myself, “There has to be a better way to do this.” Thus began my quest (obsession?) to create the most powerful Porsche search engine on the internet.

PCAR FINDER (pcarfinder.com) essentially does two things:

• Aggregate Porsche listings from across the web
  
• Augment those listings with additional information, such as the factory buildsheet content

Sidenote: If all you want is a buildsheet for a particular VIN, feel free to grab it using pcarbuildsheet.com. <-- this won't work for every VIN, but you might get lucky!

With the extra information stored on the vehicle record, it is then possible to search for vehicles using terms not found on the original listing. For example:

• A search for ‘993’ will return 911s with model years between 1993 and 1998, even if the listing itself doesn’t indicate the vehicle is a 993.
  
• A search for ‘P11’ (one option code for carbon bucket seats) will return listings whose build sheet contains the option code P11. Of course you could also search for the option code text if you prefer. The possibilities are many.

Another use for the site is to see the previous listings of a particular vehicle. Doing a search using the VIN is the best way to do this, as listings are consolidated into a single PCAR ID if the VIN is identical. The previous listings may contain interesting information, such as mileage, mods, and listing price. Listings can be seen by clicking on the dates on the left side of a vehicle record.



Sources

As of this writing, PCAR FINDER collects listings from the following sites:

• Craigslist (all USA sites)
  
• Porsche Dealerships (all 187 USA dealerships)
  
• eBay
  
• CarMax
  
• AutoTrader (private party only)
  
• Rennlist
  
• Hemmings
  
• Porsche Club of America (PCA)
  
• Bring A Trailer
  
• Edit: Classic Cars

I hope you enjoy the site! Welcome any/all feedback.

Scott

Edit: Advanced Features:
Results Grid Customization



Swipe for next/previous PCAR (super-handy on mobile and tablet)


Use quotation marks in any text field for an exact match


Buildsheet download from a listing


Buildsheet download from pcarbuildsheet.com

Dom991.1

CGT77

STG

https://rennlist.com/forums/991/1088...iously-22.html

The moderators have shut down the most viewed thread on Rennlist.

Rennlist doesn't want enthusiasts helping each other out.

This whole classifieds post will be deleted shortly as well ..

badabing

This seems like an awesome tool. I've got open tabs looking for cars on every device I own.

Thank you for creating this.

Was wondering why Autotrader is limited to private party only? Just curious.

Any plans to include Pelican or 6speedonline classifieds?

Looking forward to using it.

sbarbour

Great ideas, folks. Yes - I have a long list of additional sources to be added. As with anything, it's all about priority - but your votes on which are most important sure do help.

As for Rennlist moderators, I cleared this post with one of them prior to be sure I wasn't in violation of any rules. The mods here have been great, in my experience. I've been chatting with one for the entire year that this site has been in various stages of development.

catpat8000

I agree with the others, this is an excellent tool! And thanks very much for doing something so pro-active and useful.

I do have one suggestion to improve the tool. Currently the Porsche USA site has a lot of old, obsolete listings - CPO cars which have been sold - so your tool shows them as viable cars.
An example is the GBM 2018 911 GTS at an LA-area Porsche dealer - it has been sold for two weeks yet still shows up on the Porsche USA site and on your tool.

Maybe, a since you have all 187 dealers tracked, you could check each search results with the dealer before displaying?

Anyway, thanks again.

sbarbour

Yeah, if it's still up on the dealership's site, I'm considering it as a "Current" (active) listing. Curious how I would double-check with the dealership on each listing..?

Also, if you have questions on a specific vehicle on PCAR FINDER, feel free to reference the PCAR ID - this is a unique identifier on each vehicle. Each PCAR ID, of course, can have multiple listings on it. This ID is found in the PCAR DATA section on the detail page, or in the URL. 6 alphanumeric digits.

Appreciate your feedback/idea!

JB 911

Pulls some double listings but they are fairly easy to spot. Found a few cars no longer for sale dead links. 2 from CL (no big surprise) one from AT (unusual) But all in all a useful tool. Really like the history feature. Good job.

sbarbour

Glad you found it useful! I'll send you a PM to collect details on the items mentioned. If a listing gets taken down before PCAR FINDER goes to check it again, then it'll appear dead, but shouldn't stay as "Current" on PCAR FINDER for long. Dupes definitely shouldn't occur if there's a VIN, since those are automatically merged. There's some other logic to automatically merge listings which have identical descriptions too but without a VIN (happens a lot on Craigslist when someone posts on multiple CL sites). If there's a way to catch more duplicate listings, would certainly like to do that.

GT3junkie

Great tools! Thank you. I've bookmarked them.

catpat8000

Sorry I may not have been very clear. I found several examples of cars on the Porsche USA site which are not on the specific dealer sites any longer because they have been sold. The Porsche USA site seems to take weeks to update CPO inventory sometimes. So the check I am proposing is to compare every CPO listing that you are going to display against the dealer's site that is selling it. If the listing is not present on the dealer site, then don't display.

catpat8000

For example,
PCAR ID: 77F000

Thanks again

audipwr1

Awesome Scott love the updated version

FlyinTomato

Nice Idea. I recently developed a similar site for Porsche community with the same intention, To help ease the pain of finding a good car. It's listing site for Porsche and indy shops. So owners and potential buyers can find the resources in a single location.

Listing is free for all. and map based. Feel free to add my site as your source.
https://rennlist.com