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Originally Posted by Perfectlap
^ sure there are pitfalls with owning the 996/986 engine, but there have been engine pitfalls with virtually every Porsche! Choose your poison $6K crate water cooled or $14-$20K air cooled rebuild (I'm guessing those rates have DOWN recently). It's always buyer beware with Porsche yet there is still a decent pool of enthusisasts for all the Porsche's 928, 944, 911, 993. You could well argue that the 986 and 996 are probably the lowest cost of ownership of any 'enthusiast' owned Porsche. Personally speaking my BoxsterS, believe it or not, has been the most trouble free 50K miles of any car I or any relative in my family has ever owned. Yes the Boxster!! The 2000 and newer evolution of Porsche reliability has been ground-breaking. Of course the engine design flawes are still a source of anxiety.
As for as performance.... Well there are a few cars out there that could give a Boxster a run for the money, certainly on a dollar basis. But I'll tell you what, if you sold my BoxsterS at current market values and I told you that you had to buy another car with an equal level of fun factor/excitement, classic styling, brand prestiege and performance--ALL these things not just a few-- You couldn't come back with a better car without spending more.
Well put it this way, park a second hand:
Porsche BoxsterS,
BMW Z3,
BMW Z4,
Honda S2000,
Mazda Miata Turbo,
Mercedes Benz SLK
Pontinac Solstice,
Saturn Sky
all parked next to each other (wow there are not many roadsters!), all with terrific maintenance and records, A+ condition, all with at least 50K miles, from different years-- to bring them all down to the same second hand price point let's say $12K....Which car is going to get the most buyers?
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No Arguement here... what I said is that they are plagued with a: "not so sterling
reputation for dependability, high ownership costs and also performance".
You're defending a position which was never mentioned. I simply replied to your question of depreciation with what I'm seeing out there. The car has issues with it's reputation in the gen'l. public, some well deserved. Like the Edsel, which was actually a very good, dependable car, it's just that no one wanted it - there was no niche for it in Ford's marketing scheme, but it was a fine car nonetheless. It's reputation for quality/dependability was born of the fact that no one bought it, not that it had actual issues.
Sure, if you can convince the gen'l public that it isn't all that expensive (i doubt that), and that it really does outperform the vette, Mitzu's, Subu's, 'Stangs, etc. (subjective and not likely to convince a stoplight racer (or equally important, his friends and girlfriend), etc.) ... and that this superior performance is worth all the other factors of ownership, then you'd see the prices rise and buyers aplenty.