Went car shopping today...
 

I have been thinking about it for a while, and finally decided to move out of the Boxster and into something else. I still really like it, but it just doesn't meet my current needs. So I drove the freshly washed Box to a couple of dealers to give it a whirl.

As bad as new car sales are supposed to be, it sure doesn't seem that dealers are very motivated to wheel and deal. Bottom line, no one would offer anything reasonable for the Box! One dealer offered me $10k! And no one was moving on their price very much either. I know cash is king, but c'mon...

I guess I'll hang on to the Box until spring and just sell it myself. I'd think a 2000 S 6-speed with 52k on the clock would go for at least 16k or so.

$10,000 is rape if that's all they wanted to give you lol

Think about what you just said. Why on earth would the dealer take in a car that they have difficulty getting rid of in the dead middle of winter and in a recession?

Salesman make more commission selling a new car than a used car which they'll just toss out at auctions.

He told you $10k just to send you home, not because that's how much the car's worth.

Actually, dealers make more from used cars than new ones. Besides, they were going to make money on the new sale, and they would make a little on the used transaction as well. Plus, in-stock turnover is a good thing. Also, it was 67 degrees here today, nice top-down weather. Winter is brief in SC. :cool:

All they had to do is be realistic.

You don't mention what you were looking to buy, but since you said you wanted something more practical I'll assume it wasn't another sports car. Even if the winter is short in SC (you dogs!), the used car mgr still sees a 2 seat sports car that isn't going to move well in a recession. If you're not looking to buy one of his new, slow-moving sports cars, you've lost some leverage and they can flip their finger under their nose at you. He figures he can low ball you. If you take the $10K offer, he can sell your car to one of his used lot buddies for $11K and be done with it.

Just keep looking. There have to be deals out there. In today's local paper was a story about a GM dealer who just closed yesterday after being in business for 31 yrs. They called it the perfect storm of coincidences that forced them to close. Bet they were making some sweet deals last month trying to beat the wolves from the door.

I was in Dallas over Christmas and bought an 04 PT Cruiser as a "bad weather" car from a Mercedes dealer in Fort Worth for a great price ($2K under mkt). It was a straight cash deal and made on Dec 29 so my timing was good. I'm extremely pleased. However, I've been looking for something since Sep - Jeph got me thinking about a bad weather car when he had his Probe GT listed for sale. Don't give up after 1 shot.

The hunt is as much fun as the kill. Good luck.

A dealer attempts to profit on both ends, if he can't "semi steal" your car then they won't budge, if you can go to a rural dealership you might do better. It's winter and a Box is going to do a few moths sitting, they already have stock piling up at ports, the last thing a dealer needs is a "wait & see". Finally, knowing what I do now about the M96 there is no way in hell I would buy another with said engine. Porsche sort of screwed all of us, that is especially true for the poor shlubs that bought the 04 limited edition, they should have named it the limited for now edition.

The Boxster market is very dead right now for any number of reasons. Dealers are already depressed and don't want a car they can't move.

That's life.

all of the above is true.

my dad wanted to sell his nicely optioned 2000 base. 70k miles. dealers offered him 8k.... .junk. car is VERYnice. i ended up buying it off him for MORE than that but for a very fair retail price.

before buying my dad's car I did my own search of cars and considered other boxsters instead of his - so I was constantly surfing autotrader and cars.com. i noticed most of the cars sat and sat and sat. VERY n ice cars just sat for months and didn't move. i called a few and some of the sellers were obviously distressed sellers who flat out begged me to come buy their car. offering to drop price, pay for PPI, etc etc just to get me to look at their car... i wound up buying my dad's car b/c it was a greatr deal and I knew the car's history, despite it not being an "S" which I probably would have prefered..for for my first porsche i'm in heaven.

bottom line - you will get crap from teh dealers. they know they can't sell your car and every month they keep it, they have to pay on it - their money is tied up in the car, so they have to account for advertising costs, reconditioning costs, and ultimately the cost to tie up money in it - and if they know it won't sell fast they need to account for all the carrying costs...which is why they offer you junk.

even in a good market you always get a crummy trade in offer and will always make more selling privately. i recently sold a nice high performance sedan - i got offered 15k at several dealers. i sold it privatley QUICK at what was LOW retail price and got 22k. and that was about two yehars ago before all the "crap" happened in the market....

keep it and enjoy it or sell it yourself but be patient and know that it's going to take a while to move it - or you will have to give it away. you will get more than 10k, but you won't be getting top dollar.

given how fun these cars are and how crappy the m arket is, unless you HAVE to sell it, it makes sense to keep it.

I just read a report on retail sales for the month of December. Luxury items are hardest hit, sales are down a minimum of 37%. Some categories are down more than 50%. Look at the closed auctions on eBay. Cars are very hard hit and the higher the brand the harder it is hit. I have been looking at 968's and out of the 10 closed auctions I looked at only 1 sold and they were all well below 20K and all pretty decent mileage. Boxsters are getting killed. There is no way I would sell mine now. I think I saw a '02 go for 12K tonight. I was going to trade up to a newer Boxster originally but decided to add on instead. Decent mileage 03 Cayenne S's are selling for close to 20K now and a good '04 can be had for under 25K.

My wife and I have been watching Porsche prices decline for much of the past 8 months or so, while we shopped. Finially pulled the trigger a little over a month ago, may not have bottom ticked the market, but we're pretty happy with our purchase thus far. At the moment, it seams that the pleasure of driving your mid engined German roadster is your ROI, enjoy!

Just to give you guys an idea of how bad the car market is.....

We just purchased a Brand New Lexus LS460L. Sticker price of the car was $89k. We walked out of the dealership with a total OUT THE DOOR price of $75.5k

This was on December 12, 2008.

If your looking to buy, know what you want and exactly how much you want to pay for it.

I'm not in a position where I *have* to do a deal, so it's no problem for me. I was just surprised that the Boxster market is so bad, and that some dealers still aren't willing to budge.

It's like I told my wife, "Oh well... I guess I'll have to drive the Boxster a while longer." :D

Just a thought, when you spoke to the dealer, how serious were you about buying THAT DAY? Did you make an agressive offer and he turned you down? I only ask because I've had much the same response as you did, but I wasn't ready to buy, and just trying to test the waters. It's probably not hard for them to "read" a prospective buyer, and determine if they're serious or not.
Steve

Curious what you mean about the 04 LE? I bought one used (2mos old, 190 miles on it) for $48k, so I got a great deal, but what makes you feel sorrier for us than for other 986 buyers?

27k miles with no problems so far.

Car salesmen are like strippers - they may not be the brightest people in the room, but they can smell you from 10 miles away whether or not you have money to spend that day/night.

Plus, guess how many people drive to the dealer thinking "Oh, the market is so bad these days, I wonder how much they'll give me for my car and give me 50% off sticker price for this vehicle..."

This is just the beginning of a downhill rollercoaster ride... anybody start taking chinese lessons yet? :D

Car dealers just don't want trades right now. They only want your cash cause they don't have any.

They knew that I was willing to buy that day. The salesman was a friend of a friend, and was very straight with me. He pointed out that they would not be keeping the Boxster, and he said he would tell me how much they would get from the phone call they were making to their wholesaler. Once the offer came back so low, we were simply too far apart to keep going.

On another stop at the Audi dealer, I got a much better offer. Only problem was, I didn't like the A4 I was interested in, not enough power (turbo 4) and the back seat is almost useless. They also had an S4 (340 hp 6 speed) that I went to look at, but it was a smoker's car and and the dash was partially apart looking like they were chasing an electrical gremlin. No thanks.

Yup, that neatly sums it up. I knew the new car market was bad, I just didn't know the used market was taking such a beating as well.

If I walked in ready to write a check, I could have gotten a good deal. But then I'd have too many cars.

What I think he meant was that Porsche did a Limited Edition too soon after the 2004. They did it with the Orange SE/LE in 2007 and again with the SE/LE RS 60 Boxster.

Ohhh... well, if that's what he meant, who cares? My car was old news by the time I bought it (Feb 05) because the 987 was already out. I don't think subsequent LEs made any difference. If you want an LE that's a 986, then this is still your only choice. If you want a 987, then all the "limited edition" dressing in the world isn't going to turn a 986 into one. I wanted a 986 so that's what I got. And how do they get off calling a run of 1954 identical cars "limited" anyway? :D

Matt