986forum is dead

[The Radium King]

this forum is dead. who killed it?

[JFP in PA]

Pelican…….

[The Radium King]

moderation really pooped the bed after the sale for sure.

[dghii]

Might be the age of the cars and fact that so much knowledge has already been shared on the site. Newby comes in and asks a question and finds that he should have searched first.
Nothing (hardly) new under the sun here.

Heck, not even any cool cars for sale on the site either.

[The Radium King]

Originally Posted by dghii

Might be the age of the cars and fact that so much knowledge has already been shared on the site. Newby comes in and asks a question and finds that he should have searched first.
Nothing (hardly) new under the sun here.

Heck, not even any cool cars for sale on the site either.

i actually think that is part of the moderation issue here. a few trolls moved in and yelled at all the newbs for asking questions. with a welcome like that a lot fewer new guys joined, and most of the old guys got tired of all the bull******************** and left. killed the forum.

[Bill Ladd]

Originally Posted by The Radium King

i actually think that is part of the moderation issue here. a few trolls moved in and yelled at all the newbs for asking questions. with a welcome like that a lot fewer new guys joined, and most of the old guys got tired of all the bull******************** and left. killed the forum.

Yep. Reason why I mostly lurk and only post when I have something to add. Surprised one of them hasn’t curmudgeoned up this thread yet. I joined my first Internet forum in 1998 and have seen guys like that try to ruin **************** ever since.

[JayG]

Might also be the censorship from Pelican where they block other website urls.
That's a cheeky thing to do

[Gjohn3707]

https://www.facebook.com/groups/954410324947064/?ref=share&mibextid=DcJ9fc

[rick3000]

I still check the new posts here almost everyday, but I haven't been driving much since I started working from home, and most of the questions are some variation of things that has been asked a dozen other times.

[10/10ths]

The Miata forum started dying after the NC had been out a few years.

When the ND launched, the forum completely died.

All the “Fast & Furious” Miata owners grew up, got married, and had kids.

The 986 has reached “Porsche Classic” status and with that, the cars have become the bottom feeders for low income Porsche and sports car perspective owners.

For lower income folks who want a Porsche, you can choose a 944, 924, or 986.

Post Covid, the 996 and even 914’s are getting too expensive.

With the 986 just bouncing along at the bottom of the market for over a decade now, all the kids have bought them and destroyed them, and left them for dead on the “Buy here, Pay here” car lots and You Tube garages of the world.

The 986’s that are left are either basket cases, or well cared for cars that the owners don’t want to part with.

Anything in that middle area is going to end up on BAT.

So this forum is dead. There aren’t any 986’s left for lower income folks to attempt to keep running.

Not without a lot of heartache, anyway.

[The Radium King]

i get the arguments about the kids moving to facebook or reddit, or that the car has run it's cycle, but i'm on other forums for things long past their due-date and they are still active. reddit and facebook are cool but impossible to search or thread properly - works for sesame street syndrome kids and that's about it. yes the 986 is an older car, but the older it gets the more it needs fixing and folks will be looking to find out how (those who thought they were getting a cheap porsche until they tried to fix it).

really this forum should be booming, teeming with muppets asking what a deviation is, or what oil to use because the flaps doesn't sell the prosche stuff.

it's gotta be moderation issue - rennline is fascist it its moderation but still going strong so it can't be a few blocked urls - every site does that to support sponsors. i think the troglodytes killed this place.

[10/10ths]

….the difference here is that you have a car with a $30,000 engine replacement cost.

I can buy a NA Miata engine for $1,000.

Poor folks can’t afford to tinker with a 986 and risk a catastrophic failure that bricks the car.

On top of that Sword of Damocles, all the other parts are freaking expensive. Everything from convertible tops to coffin arms.

Bottom feeders in the market just cannot afford these cars, even if you got a 986 as a gift for free, the care and feeding is not affordable.

It’s all about the Benjamins.

[PLP]

I think it is partially the forum owner and partially the niche 986.

[The Radium King]

Originally Posted by 10/10ths

….the difference here is that you have a car with a $30,000 engine replacement cost.

I can buy a NA Miata engine for $1,000.

Poor folks can’t afford to tinker with a 986 and risk a catastrophic failure that bricks the car.

On top of that Sword of Damocles, all the other parts are freaking expensive. Everything from convertible tops to coffin arms.

Bottom feeders in the market just cannot afford these cars, even if you got a 986 as a gift for free, the care and feeding is not affordable.

It’s all about the Benjamins.

the 986 was always an entry-level porsche. that hasn't changed. same type of owner as 5 or 10 years ago. rennline and pelican going strong. and the 911 wasn't always a $100k collector car.

[10/10ths]

….but when new, a Boxster was still $40,000 to $65,000 in 2004.

I bought my 2004 Boxster S “50 Years of the 550 Spyder Edition” in 2015.

I paid $28,000.

If my engine grenades, it’s a $30,000 bill. The car isn’t worth that much.

My 986 is THE most expensive 986 they ever built.

A lot of the early 986’s are selling for less than $10,000 today.

But how many people want to buy a $10,000 Porsche knowing that they are an IMS away from a $30,000 repair?

It scares away the shade tree mechanics

Again, a large number of these cars have been abused and passed from failed owner to failed owner over the past 25 years. Years of bottom feeding have thinned the herd.

Time marches on and the forum is dead because the market for these cars has dried up.

Porsche sells about 3,000 Boxsters a year in the USA now. The entire sports car market has collapsed. The death of this forum just reflects what is happening in the car world in general.

People just don’t buy sports cars anymore. Especially convertibles.

Pile on the internet and Uber and texting and online dating instead of drive-in movies and only 8% of the population able to drive a manual transmission, et al, and here we are.

It is what it is.

[Javi Cooper]

Moderation here sucks. New members are having a hard time joining (I think I made a post about it in here). Mods need to approve new member's requests to join and I saw in another forum a few members talking about trying to join this forum and their requests going unanswered for months.

On top of that, a forum where you can't post links to shops and businesses other than the forum owner's is going to be lacking on info and member participation. Anytime I have a question like that I post on FB (as much as I hate their format). There are always new photos, products, builds, shops, projects, events, problems, repairs, etc. to talk about so forums don't simply die after all questions have been supposedly answered. Right now I'm rebuilding my suspension and would like to talk about Glenn Yee Motorsports' excellent strut rebuilding service but I'm pretty sure the post would get censored

[DarkStar]

Originally Posted by 10/10ths

….but when new, a Boxster was still $40,000 to $65,000 in 2004. I bought my 2004 Boxster S “50 Years of the 550 Spyder Edition” in 2015. I paid $28,000.

I believe my original paperwork said my 01S with some special interior package was 68k when I got it in 2014. I paid 21[/B]

Originally Posted by 10/10ths

But how many people want to buy a $10,000 Porsche knowing that they are an IMS away from a $30,000 repair?

The whole reason I lost my interest was because of the engine and transmission. First few months of owning it, 2nd gear was completely gone. I already forgot but just to tear the trans apart was a huge bill in itself. Then the engine takes a dump 1 month after I got my title in the mail from paying it off.

Originally Posted by 10/10ths

It scares away the shade tree mechanics

No shade tree mechanic here but I legit don't want to rebuild the M96 and have trouble paying for the rebuild of the G86. I really don't want to get rid of it, and wish that my business would just take back off after the past 2-3 year BS that killed it so I could restore/rebuild mine. But that's not in the cards. Its all a money thing and not having enough.

Originally Posted by Javi Cooper

Anytime I have a question like that I post on FB (as much as I hate their format).

I personally cannot stand FB but its the only decent way to communicate with the people I know now. I always will think Forums are far superior when it comes to a thing like information sharing of a vehicle. Sure you can still "search" and go back through posts on FB. But its not as easy or forward about it. Forum, as long as its active, its a easy to navigate full blown memory bank. And with how old these cars are, I bet any question I could have, possibly has been asked and is readily available for me to read people talk about it, debate it etc.

[maytag]

I'm a little disheartened, reading this thread. I'm "casually" back in the market for a 986. I'm shocked at the market, though.
5 or 6 years ago when I bought my first 986, it was an '03 S, 6-spd. 120kish miles, iirc. Paid under $7k. The same car today is more than double that. And there just aren't many of them out there, as there once were. This leads me back here, naturally. But I see that the traffic is far less than it used to be.

I won't do the Facebook thing for car groups. That format lends itself far too easily to the trolls, and it's not great for searching. In a forum like this one, a guy can usually read the last several posts and find a consensus, or at least somebody correcting any wrong information. Not so on fb.

Anyway. I'm back. Kinda.
At least for a bit.

Sent from my SM-S918U using Tapatalk

[Starter986]

Originally Posted by maytag

I'm a little disheartened, reading this thread. I'm "casually" back in the market for a 986. I'm shocked at the market, though.
5 or 6 years ago when I bought my first 986, it was an '03 S, 6-spd. 120kish miles, iirc. Paid under $7k. The same car today is more than double that. And there just aren't many of them out there, as there once were. This leads me back here, naturally. But I see that the traffic is far less than it used to be.

I won't do the Facebook thing for car groups. That format lends itself far too easily to the trolls, and it's not great for searching. In a forum like this one, a guy can usually read the last several posts and find a consensus, or at least somebody correcting any wrong information. Not so on fb.

Anyway. I'm back. Kinda.
At least for a bit.

Sent from my SM-S918U using Tapatalk

Good morning.

[ike84]

I think everyone here has pretty good points. The forum will never get new blood if they can't post, or their first posts are met with criticism.

For me though I think the issue is what dghii said - the cars are played out. Options for stock customization are extremely limited, and there just aren't that many guys who are willing out even want to do serious tinkering. I can remember one of my first motivations to get involved with the forum was to learn "what else can this car do". I feel like there used to be a lot of that, not so much at all now though

Sent from my SM-N975U using Tapatalk