|
I found mine on ebay but it was at a dealer in Houston that specializes in late model, low mileage cars. I called them and worked it out directly. I was able to have a friend visually inspect it locally, had a company go do a pre-purchase inspection (found them listed on ebay motors) and was going to have the local Porsche dealership inspect it, but it turned out that the car had initially come off their own lot where it was certified pre-owned. I got a fair price for exactly the car I wanted with 21k miles (this was June 2004). It was a 2000 car that went into service VERY late so it still had 6 months of warranty, so I felt safe enough. It turned out that I did have some potentially expensive transmission cable wear that was covered under warranty. That's something that no inspection would catch and I could have been stuck with the bill had there not been warranty coverage left. I wouldn't be surprised if that dealer would have helped with the repair since they do a lot of remote business and wouldn't want the quality hit, but that still would have been a bad experience.
All said, I would do it again. I would invest some $$ in a serious inspection at a Porsche dealership (a few hundred bucks up front on a car like this isn't a big deal). I don't think I would buy this way from an individual, though. I live in CA and there are too many cars out here that I could see personally. Wouldn't be worth the risk to go remote.
|