Was this car in the NY / NJ area around late Oct with it's top down?
Seriously, when you start calculating the price of new parts and the labor, you can quickly end up with a totaled vehicle. Let's look at some numbers:
In my neighborhood, a 2010 Boxster w/ 47K mi and no options books out for $37K on NADA, which is considered the highest of the online value calculators. Some options like PDK and nav can add a couple thousand each but neither are listed, so I'm going bare bones.
A car will be totaled when the cost to repair approaches 75% of its retail value. That's $27K in this case. When estimating the repairs, the ins co will price out new parts -which aren't cheap on a Porsche. Since you're new to Porsche, parts for Porsches are roughly 4x the price of "normal" parts. When you consider a new leather interior, all the wiring, and all the electronics, chances are you'll come close to $20K. Add in 2 wks worth of labor and you'll have another $8-$10K, depending on where you live. You're now over that $27K total line.
You can't assume this car only needs a few items to get it back on the road. If it did, why wouldn't the current owners finish it off? It would be worth more to them if they did. And based on the numbers from above, $10K below retail is no bargain, esp when you're buying a cat in the sack. This is not a good deal.
35 yrs ago my dad and I fixed up and sold rebuilders. It was a hobby for us, so we took our time and didn't count our labor as a cost. Businesses that rebuild cars do count their labor and they have to hurry to keep costs down. So they may cut corners to save money. I've seen a lot of shodily repaired cars that are passed off as "repaired". For every 1 quality repair, there are probably 5 that aren't. Be sure you find that 1 of the 6 and you'll be OK. Stay away from the other 5.
Keep looking, you can find a better deal. You were wise to do some research first.
2001 Porsche 986 Boxster
Hybrid Mode
