So, apparently 996s are $40K cars now.

ClearWaterMS said:

SivaSuryaKshatriya said:

If there's a used car you've always wanted, I say you should just bite the bullet and buy it within the next few years.

this is sage advice; you only live once.  Cars are not investments, measure the ROI in joy it brings you not in money it makes/costs you.  

That's kinda how I feel. I've got some money saved (although I want to save up more) and I just got a raise. I think I'm going to wait about a month, save up some more cash, then revisit this 911. Owning another 911 is my dream, they're my favorite cars, and this one is in fantastic shape. 

ClearWaterMS said:

Additionally for around the same price as a 997 I can get a Lotus Evora and i'm starting to wonder what is a dumber decision a Porsche with IMS/bore scoring issues or a Lotus that has a toyota engine.  

Probably considerably easier to find someone to work on a Porsche than on a Lotus. That might not be an issue for this crowd until you sell the car, though.

I've experienced first hand how even mild issues on a M96 can be a pretty wallet melting problem, so in the end the price difference between a 997.1 and a 997.2 ended up being more of a case of paying for these potential issues to go away and get a PDK for a few grand more. At least that's what I keep telling myself - the price difference for similar cars seems to be in the $20k range, and I paid more than half that for some fairly minor repairs on an M96 that necessitated stripping the engine doen to the crank cradle.

grover said:

it's a clear bubble. It's already being reported that credit card balances are rising- we've seen a historic period of personal liquidity that directly led to a car price bubble. 

While I agree with you that it feels bubbly, I somewhat disagree with the "historic period of personal liquidity". Yes, there is/was a certain part of the population that did better than usual in the last couple of years, but in most cases it wasn't people buying lake houses or collector cars with their stimulus checks.

A lot of the housing market bubbliness is because there is a lot of liquidity sloshing around with extremely wealthy individuals and especially a certain bunch of hedgies and investment companies that have directly stoked the bubble in housing prices. That may or may not be self-correcting in the medium term (depends on how they financed the purchases).

Now, the cooking model Porsche prices tend to be affected by the "wannabe well off" crowd <fx: looks in mirror, goes "oops"/>, and obviously some people in that segment have been doing pretty OK in the last 2-3 years. Also, with the lack of supply of new 911s, I think that spilled over into 991 and 992 used prices, and then rising tides did was rising tides always do.

Will this end? Definitely, but we don't if it's going to be in a few months or a few years. I don't think we've seen the last of the supply chain shocks yet, and I suspect that will keep some prices high for a few more years.

Another factor is probably that the last couple of years reminded a bunch of people of their own mortality and that may have contributed to an "if not now, when" type attitude.

BoxheadTim said:

ClearWaterMS said:

Additionally for around the same price as a 997 I can get a Lotus Evora and i'm starting to wonder what is a dumber decision a Porsche with IMS/bore scoring issues or a Lotus that has a toyota engine.  

I've experienced first hand how even mild issues on a M96 can be a pretty wallet melting problem, so in the end the price difference between a 997.1 and a 997.2 ended up being more of a case of paying for these potential issues to go away and get a PDK for a few grand more. At least that's what I keep telling myself - the price difference for similar cars seems to be in the $20k range, and I paid more than half that for some fairly minor repairs on an M96 that necessitated stripping the engine doen to the crank cradle.

what types of problems did you have?  I assume you're not talking about IMS issues so what other issues did you face that scare you away from the M96/M97 engines?

ClearWaterMS said:

BoxheadTim said:

ClearWaterMS said:

Additionally for around the same price as a 997 I can get a Lotus Evora and i'm starting to wonder what is a dumber decision a Porsche with IMS/bore scoring issues or a Lotus that has a toyota engine.  

I've experienced first hand how even mild issues on a M96 can be a pretty wallet melting problem, so in the end the price difference between a 997.1 and a 997.2 ended up being more of a case of paying for these potential issues to go away and get a PDK for a few grand more. At least that's what I keep telling myself - the price difference for similar cars seems to be in the $20k range, and I paid more than half that for some fairly minor repairs on an M96 that necessitated stripping the engine doen to the crank cradle.

what types of problems did you have?  I assume you're not talking about IMS issues so what other issues did you face that scare you away from the M96/M97 engines?

Chain guides IIRC?

Actually, it did also need an intermediate shaft, but the bearing was still fine.

At 110k miles it needed all of the chain tensioners and pads/guides replaced as they suddenly started disintegrating. That necessitates a complete stripdown of the engine to get at the tensioners for the IMS. The shop that did the work had seen this more than once before and pointed out that this was not untypical for a car that had been maintained following the official Porsche schedule adn the issue could've probably been prevented by changing the oil more frequently.

And by "suddenly" I mean that neither the PPI nor me and the PO found any pad material in the both the old and new oil filters (car came with a fresh oil change, the PO did the oil change with me watching and we both inspected the filter), and the car was pronounced completely healthy during the PPI. From memory it was about 2-3000 miles later and the engine was in bits.

Am I "scared" of the experience? Not necessarily, but I also chose not to by buying another M96/97 equipped car if I could help it.

Well, you have extraordinarily bad luck Tim.  The issues with your old 996 aren't all that typical, plus you didn't have access to a shop that truly knew what they were doing.  I mean, look at what happened with your MR2 and your BRZ, those are supposed to be pretty bullet proof japanese cars, yet you had pretty serious issues with both of them...

In reply to docwyte :

It's not uncommon for BRZs and WrX with FA20s to vent their blocks, so I'm not sure how bullet proof these things are.

I do have a well known inverse Midas touch when it comes to supposedly "safe" vehicles, that's true, although I'm not quite sure what you mean in reference to the shop I used for the 996. They're a pretty reputable Porsche and BMW shop in that area.

The MR2, yeah, there was a reason that shop went out of business about five minutes after handing back the car - that was a different shop than the 996. Fortunately the local Toyota dealer fixed that issue one I figured out what the problem was.

Mind you, there is a reason I've been doing more of my own work recently for good reasons, and I don't like some of the work I've found some of the pros did to our vehicles.

Just keeping track of this. 996s are still mid-30s and up, with convertibles being around $30K. The price of 944s has gone down a bit. I almost bought a nice one for $5500 a month ago, but got an E90 instead. 928s have seen a big price bump. A nice one is still $25-30K. 

I was wondering around CarMax today and a fairly used Tesla Model 3 was $57K, well above MSRP of a new one. I think that the spike is due to availability for "normal" cars. OTOH, for special/sports cars, I'm not sure what's driving the spike. Is it that people have money to spend? Do they think they'll keep appreciating? Do they think that they should grab a gas version now before everyone switches to EV? I just don't know. Regardless, now's not a great time to NEED a car. That said, and take it for what it's worth, but the CarMax guy claimed that the bubble is starting to pop. Of course that may have been prompted by the lower-than-expected quote they gave us on our used car.

In reply to infinitenexus :

996 Turbos have cooled by $10-$20K on BaT/C&B.

In reply to Javelin :

Everything has cooled, see the results of my corrado on BaT yesterday.  That said, I don't think 996 Turbos have dropped $20k in value at least not according to my friend who's a Porsche car broker...

In reply to docwyte :

Ugh, yeah, about BaT... I've had the car I want to sell "in process" there for more than a MONTH now and I'm getting annoyed. Hearing that the market is cooling isn't helping.

In reply to kb58 :

They were pretty quick with listing my corrado.  Maybe a bit over a month start to finish with them taking the pictures etc.  Market has definitely slowed in the lower price range.  I think 6 figure sports cars (Porsches, vintage BMW M cars etc) are still doing well.

I mean BaT's taken a month sitting on all my requested information (including pics) and hasn't yet sent the first draft for review. I asked last week "do you have everything from me that you need" and and was assured that it's still in process. Right, I get that. Another week has passed and I can't help but wonder if there might be some capitalistic shenanigans going on, such as moving more expensive cars ahead for higher commissions. You aren't the first to say that the BaT process went fairly quickly for them... so for now I'll sit here in the corner and pout, while wondering if I should head over to Cars and Bids.

Anyway, sorry for the threadjack, I'll sit down now.

I've been window shopping for a 996 (for my two year goal) and the pricing drastically varies. What exactly is going on with the market for these cars now?

Probably a more extreme case of what happens with most of the porsche market. The low prices are people that pay attention to the market and actually want to sell their cars in a reasonable time frame. The high prices are people who are wildly out of touch with reality and/or are happy to sit on the car for a year until either the market changes or the right idiot comes along.

kb58 said:

I mean BaT's taken a month sitting on all my requested information (including pics) and hasn't yet sent the first draft for review. I asked last week "do you have everything from me that you need" and and was assured that it's still in process. Right, I get that. Another week has passed and I can't help but wonder if there might be some capitalistic shenanigans going on, such as moving more expensive cars ahead for higher commissions. You aren't the first to say that the BaT process went fairly quickly for them... so for now I'll sit here in the corner and pout, while wondering if I should head over to Cars and Bids.

Anyway, sorry for the threadjack, I'll sit down now.

The first time I sold on BaT it was almost magical.  I sold my 996 on there about 2 years ago now, and it was anything but magical.  They aren't as good as they used to be.  They've just gotten a lot bigger and I'm apparently also no longer their target audience. 

dps214 said:

Probably a more extreme case of what happens with most of the porsche market. The low prices are people that pay attention to the market and actually want to sell their cars in a reasonable time frame. The high prices are people who are wildly out of touch with reality and/or are happy to sit on the car for a year until either the market changes or the right idiot comes along.

I see. My main thing is...what exactly ends up determining the price? Does mileage even matter anymore? I know people seem to want the big three done (AOS, RMS, IMS). I'm a recent 996 window shopper so I'm trying to see what the deal is here. I'm about two years out anyway so I can wait and be patient...but still.

RyanGreener (Forum Supporter) said:

I've been window shopping for a 996 (for my two year goal) and the pricing drastically varies. What exactly is going on with the market for these cars now?

I can't provide evidence, but the following is my observation based on watching 996 and 986 cars fairly closely.

At the height of pandemic pricing about 9-18 months ago the absolut bottom price for 996's with clean titles and less than 120K miles was $30K, but for that you would be finding a base 996 convertable with tiptonic (traditional auto) trans.  If you look at Haggerty, Excellence etc. theoretical pricing hastn' really changed much.  But looking today it's fairly easy to find decent coupes with manual trans back below $30K.  Prices are still $10-15K higher than their low point about four years ago, but they seem resonable for the quality of cars out there.  Cosmetically these cars are resosonably hard wearing, so pics in ads can be very deceiving.  

The above is brought to you with zero statistical correlation.  

I'd say price is more dependent on condition, maintenance, options and color.  As sad as I am to say, since my car is silver, that's the most common and thus the "cheapest" color to buy....

docwyte said:

I'd say price is more dependent on condition, maintenance, options and color.  As sad as I am to say, since my car is silver, that's the most common and thus the "cheapest" color to buy....

This is what I figured....so basically mileage is irrelevant if everything checks out.

In reply to RyanGreener (Forum Supporter) :

Sort of.  Lower mileage = higher asking price in general.  Just because a car with 100k miles has a good maintenance history won't make it worth as much as one with 30k miles but a more spotty history

I would never pay that much for a 996. I was offered one as a straight swap for my FD, I'd rather have the FD than egglights

mr2peak said:

I would never pay that much for a 996. I was offered one as a straight swap for my FD, I'd rather have the FD than egglights

I might be in that camp too, honestly. I even made a post in the nostalgia thread....as much as I want a lot of the old stuff I can't pay the nostalgia tax because I've got plenty of other things going on in life. Here's to hoping they don't rise anymore! I mean, I have a well sorted NB1 Miata and I may get my hands on a mint E90 3 Series so I don't really know if I can justify a 996 if the prices go up. At this point I might as well try to justify owning another P-Crest vehicle (like an old-ish Panamera) because it has practical use.