986 Forum - The Community for Porsche Boxster & Cayman Owners - View Single Post

mikefocke · 11-14-2009, 01:44 PM

"Then why do so few M96s make it to that point?? I agree that there are exceptions, but I rarely get calls from anyone with more than 85K"

Maybe the reason you don't hear from high mileage owners with problems is because your prices are so high that they are just swapping in engines from wrecks as the only economically reasonable alternative to junking the car without investigating you beyond a quick internet price search. When the car is worth $10k running perfectly as many 986s are, it is hard to pay up to double that for an engine. It isn't like these will be collectibles and the emotional attachment of the owner may not be as high as we saw with 914s and 911s. Plus lots of 986 owners have a very different economic profile from the 914/911 owners. (Not disputing the worth of your work or the value received for the money you charge...just that it is high relative to the value of the car's value and so the sample you get is very selective. If my engine blows, I'll ship you my car but it wouldn't make economic sense as I could replace the car for 50-75% of the replacement engine cost. I'll do it for emotional reasons and because I can and not everyone is in that position.)

And I don't understand your wording that "so few M96s make it to that point". You don't hear from 85k+ Boxster owners who aren't having trouble so how can you compare failures to success numbers and say "so few"?

11-14-2009, 01:44 PM	#5
mikefocke Registered User Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: Sanford NC Posts: 2,583	So few? "Then why do so few M96s make it to that point?? I agree that there are exceptions, but I rarely get calls from anyone with more than 85K" Maybe the reason you don't hear from high mileage owners with problems is because your prices are so high that they are just swapping in engines from wrecks as the only economically reasonable alternative to junking the car without investigating you beyond a quick internet price search. When the car is worth $10k running perfectly as many 986s are, it is hard to pay up to double that for an engine. It isn't like these will be collectibles and the emotional attachment of the owner may not be as high as we saw with 914s and 911s. Plus lots of 986 owners have a very different economic profile from the 914/911 owners. (Not disputing the worth of your work or the value received for the money you charge...just that it is high relative to the value of the car's value and so the sample you get is very selective. If my engine blows, I'll ship you my car but it wouldn't make economic sense as I could replace the car for 50-75% of the replacement engine cost. I'll do it for emotional reasons and because I can and not everyone is in that position.) And I don't understand your wording that "so few M96s make it to that point". You don't hear from 85k+ Boxster owners who aren't having trouble so how can you compare failures to success numbers and say "so few"?