[Subanez]

Okay, here's a horror story for you, urging you to be careful. Most people on this board have heard this story before, but here goes:

In June, I saw a 2000 Boxster with 50K miles on it for sale on Ebay, complete with traction control and 18 inch wheels. It was for sale for $22,000, and looked to be a pretty good deal.

I hired a guy down in Texas to look over the car for me, a third party business that does only that. He looked the car over, gave it a "120 point" inspection, and said that the car looked great, ran well, and all that jazz. I was psyched.

Since I'm in the Air Force and was one week away from a 2 month tour in Africa, I asked if the car could be delivered when I got back from Africa in August of this year. The seller said "sure" and that was that. I left for Tunisia thinking that the Boxster would be home waiting for me when I got there.

Oh boy.

While I was in Africa, the email from the seller became scarce if non-existant, and it was all I could do to let him know that I wanted reassurance that the car was still in good shape, and that we were still on for an August delivery. I bougtht the car from Texas, and I lived in New York at the time.

I get back from Africa, and there's no car in sight. So I tried to call this dealership, and got no answer. I sent a few emails. No reply. One week later, and still no Boxster, meanwhile my check for $22,000 had been cashed two months prior.

So I call the local Texas police. They tell me to call the FBI. I call lawyers. I called Ebay. Nobody could help me, really. So finally, after doing some investigation work, I called a dealership that MAPQUEST said was across the street from where I bought the car.

The gist of the conversation:

Me:"Hi there, I'm curious if you can tell me any information about the dealership across the street, C+L Motors."

Guy at dealership: "C+L Motors? Man, they had a huge raid about a month ago, the police came and took all the cars, and they've been out of business ever since, nobody ever goes over there...why do you ask?"

You can imagine my near heart-failure.

So I find out that they bought my porsche (as well as about 40 other cars) from an auction on borrowed money, but never paid the auction people the money once they had the cars! And to make matters worse, they never paid back the money that they borrowed to buy the cars from the auction! So they owed double the money on cars that they never should have owned, including the Boxster that they "sold" to me.

Deep Breath.

So about a week after THAT, I get a call from a car carrier, saying he had a porsche on the back with my name on it, and wondering when I could meet him on the highway to pick it up.

I thought that my problems had been solved! Hooray, the car was in NY afterall!

Except that the dealer never paid for the shipping like we had agreed on, and I couldn't just pay $750 up front right then.

Except that the engine almost didn't start, and ran so poorly that I had to have it towed to the dealership, where they did $3,000 worth of repairs to get it running and to pass inspection.

Except that there was infinite more body damage and dings and scratched than the pictures I had seen 3 months prior.

And now for the kicker: Except that there was no title or legal documents of any sort with the car.

Back to the lawyers and the police...after another month of legal battles, I finally won the right to the title, since I was a "good faith purchaser" and bought the vehicle without knowing that it was a part of illegal operations and a lawsuit, and it was almost 4 months after I bought the car that I could drive it with my plates on it, with the title in my name.

Even now, though, there's some problems with the car...I just got a lexis nexus report, stating that there have been over 15 warranty maintenance issues in the last 3 years...and there was an $8K accident that was never reported to the police, explaining why it seemed to me like the doors, bonnet and boot were all replaced and repainted (and poorly, at that).

So...a dream Boxster that seemed perfect to me, even having it checked out, ended up being a disaster which I am still recovering from. There's still an issue with what could be the Idle Air Control Valve, and it is time for the 60K service, all of which I have to wait until after Christmas to solve, since I've spent roughly $7,000 on maintenance since I had the car in my possession in late August. That's more than $2,000 per month so far that I've owned it. Oh, and the top needs to be replaced, and is temporarily fixed right now with Duct Tape. Real classy.


All this isn't meant to scare you off, its only meant to urge you PLEASE to do the research necessary, even more than you think is required. Sometimes a great deal is too good to be true, as I found out. And remember: carfax doesn't tell you nearly everything. Find a friend with Lexis Nexus ( a lawyer probably), and get it CHECKED OUT BY PORSCHE CERTIFIED MECHANICS.

Okay, enough of my ranting and raving...good luck, and let us know how it goes!

-Kevin