Good article in "Excellence" Magazine

[blinkwatt]

Try to have a Pre Purchase Inspection. If you are not going to do that at least have a Carmax report ran on it,scan over tires to see if they are mismatched,check for manuals(all of them),ask for records/receipts,see if it has had a RMS failure before, make sure it is up to date on recalls and most importantly make you enjoy it!

[Brucelee]

Do a search here on the topic.

TONS of good posts on the subject.

A PPI and a Car Fax are MINIMUM standards in my book.

Good luck!

[Brad Roberts]

The series currently has two cars running and another 2 (that I'm aware of) being built as we type)

Contact me or see my other posts in the other form for more information.


B

[edevlin]

This was my experience buying a 2000 Boxster with 42,000 miles on it. I bought it from the local BMW dealer who took it in on trade. It had two previous owners, the last owner had the car for 2 years and the dealer swore she took excellent care of the car and did all the required service, but there was no paperwork on service done to the car. The BMW dealer also said they checked the car over and it was in great shape.

I had the carfax on the car and there were no indications of abuse, so I bought the car without first having an independent check it out because the dealer gave me a 1 month/1000 mile return on it.

I took it to the local Porsche dealer to have it checked out and found that it had likely never had any service except for the oil changed. They said it had the original cabin filter, plugs and likely, original air filter. I got what I thought was a good deal on the car, so I kept it and had the 30K service done on the car.

So, like I did not do, and others are recommending, it is a very good idea to have a pre-buy check done on the car, just my two cents,

Ed

[blinkwatt]

Originally Posted by edevlin

I took it to the local Porsche dealer to have it checked out and found that it had likely never had any service except for the oil changed. They said it had the original cabin filter, plugs and likely, original air filter. I got what I thought was a good deal on the car, so I kept it and had the 30K service done on the car.

And it ran fine with only an oil change done until 30k?

[edevlin]

As far as I can tell, the car had been getting regular oil changes, the oil was very clean when I checked it. The first owner sold the car when it had 31K on it and never did the 30K service. The second owner thought the 30K service was done, so it looks like she just did oil changes. I asked the Porsche mechanic that was checking the car over what he thought about that history, and he said he thought it would be fine. The engine was nice and dry with no leaks, no error codes and the car seems to run great. Time will tell.

It really was an education in car dealers. The BMW dealer that I bought it from said he knew the last owner, a worman, that had the car for the last two years. And even though there was no paperwork, he swore that the woman did all the regular service intervals on the car. She lived in Virginia Beach and I called the Porsche dealership there, they had never seen the car. Somehow I thought a BMW dealership would be more responsible.

Ed

[newt]

just a suggestion: If you live near Virginia Beach, take it to Stuttgart of Williamsburg, the only thing the guy does is Porsche service, for 35 years!!!, if the BMW guy was SO sure it was well taken care of, what did he base his confidence on if there are no records???,