Buying on Ebay

[Perfectlap]

Ebay would not be my first choice unless you find that the seller (not a dealer) lives in a town where Porsches are not common. Your first goal in shopping for a Porsche is to find one that is selling below the market rate because:

the owner doesn't need the cash and wants to get rid of it.
the owner needs to sell it quickly to buy something more expensive.
the owner doesn't want the hassle of people kicking tires and wants a quick sale

There are *ALWAYS* sellers like these. The best place to find all of the above are on the Porsche forums first or to check with an independent Porsche specialist in your area for any leads. The whole point is to first look in the community before you go witht the mainstream stuff.

When you go on Ebay, you're doing just the opposite. You're looking at cars that the whole world is looking at, it's wide open for highest bidder. It's good to check but a car that's priced to go sells quickly, a matter of days. The bulk of the cars sold on Ebay sit there. Usually becaue they're high mileage, have deffered maintenance ($$$$) that will be costly and the seller (usually a used car dealer) needs you to pay for his profit on the flip. Why is all this important? Because there are a crap ton of Boxsters, Caymans and Carreras for sale online. In fact in all of Porsche's history there have never been more used Porsches for sale (that are running). And why do you want to go after the good deal Porsche's first? Because repairs for these used cars are very, very expensive unless you're doing all your own work and even that's not as cheap as it sounds because the big expense is the parts and not really the labor. A full suspension overhaul and wheel bearings at an independent Porsche shop can easily cost $6,000. A dealer would charge more than the car cost you to buy in the first place. Getting the car below market gives you some cushion on these 'major maintenance' items that seem to come up sooner on cars driven where there is extreme heat or extreme cold weather and rough city roads. But the best is to find a car with low miles even if you have to pay a bit more for it up front. But be careful with cars that have the kind of the mileage that indicate the car just sat for months at a time. With these engines, the car owner needs to keep the habit of frequently runing the car on the road for at least 30 minutes to an hour to burn off all the build up.