Please Help: Advice on Purchasing

[trogdor]

I'm hardly an expert (I just bought my first Porsche, a 2000 Boxster S, 48 hours ago!) but I decided to for once do some research on buying cars before I drove by a dealer with my wife and go OHHH lets get that one!!!

I know I've been screwed in the past but I felt better after doing a lot of research on the web, starting with :

http://www.carbuyingtips.com/

Theres a LOT to read there and many references to other sites to figure out what cars are worth, how to negotiate, not dealing with MSRP and making an offer based on what options you get, etc. Not sure how much applies to the more luxury oriented market but I found it all a good read.

As for the seat, I drove probably 10 cars before I settled on the perfect one and in that time learned so much about operating all the equipment... it took 5 cars to figure out the seats!! I'm 6 foot too and found the car really cramped at first but I finally got the manual seats to go all the way down and it was so much better... are you sure you have the older models all adjusted right? Just a thought.

Good luck

[MikenOH]

which dealer in OH was that?

[deliriousga]

Given the choice, I'd go with an '06 too. Since the '05 is an 80% new model, the '06 will have several "bug fixes" incorporated after reports from the '05 being on the road under general public abuse.

[fefyfo]

TVC15. Im a buyer for a fleet company. 80% of what I purchase are for executives in large corporations. From what I know, they are desperately trying to get rid of all the 05's to make room for the 06's that are coming. That relates to large amounts of savings for the consumer. I bought a 05' boxster for the company and received 2% mark up. The normal consumer should be able to get 4% w/o a sweat. I would've advised to get the vehicle before the end of last month and to shoot for 3% mark up. You can get an idea of what the invoice price is from Edmunds. Not sure if Porsche dealership will actually show the invoice sheet. Best of luck to ya.

[TVC15]

Thanks guys, for the responses so far.

Trogdor, thanks for the link to Car Buying Tips--it's great!

It's amazing how complicated new car buying is. (My current car, a '71 MBZ 280SL, I bought used).

Maybe i should consider going through my local Auto Club (AAA) which offers a no-haggle fleet purchase service. Anyone tried this?

Keep the suggestions coming!

[longislander1]

Originally Posted by MikenOH

which dealer in OH was that?

I had a good e-mail correspondence with Tim Brookhart at White-Allen in Dayton. Back in July, I was getting very frustrated with the delays in delivering my car ordered in March. I started to look around and sent e-mail requests on a number of cars. Tim had a nice one that stickered at $64.2K and in three successive e-mails, he brought the price down to $57.3K. He said someone would pick me up at the airport and I could then have a great 700-mile ride home. I didn't negotiate seriously because I still had a contract to take the ordered car through the end of July (which I did on 7/22). I had a better rapport with Tim than my actual salesman here on Long Island. I've never met the guy, but if he's anything like his e-mails, I'd contact him. He really sounded like someone willing to deal.

I'm pretty flexible on options and colors. If I knew then what I know now, I would have waited until the summer and scored a much better deal on an '05. I honestly never expected to see so many still in stock. When you read one favorable review after the other, you expect a car to be harder to get. I guess not everyone has the bucks these days. One salesman said it's due to the fact that the lease rates aren't as good as they used to be.

Good luck in your search and bargain hard!