What do you think is a fair price for my Boxster?

[Padawan]

You may also want to consider having the front bumper repainted, even if it's inexpensively done. Regardless of the mileage and expected wear and tear, people generally don't want to read that the "new-to-them" Porsche they'll be buying has paint flaking off the front of it. A couple of hundred dollars invested in the paint could result in a better selling price and quicker sale.

[racer_d]

1) your ad is stale.. you posted back in the summer.. 4 months ago? Folks have seen the car, again and again. Fresh pictures is a start. Re-working the ad-copy may work too.
2) locale -sure you are located on the "www", but someone still has to GET to PA to see the car
3) mileage... 100K+ miles is a hard sell for any boxster. A 2000 S with that mileage is a $15K car. for 4K more, I would swing for an S
4) buyer demographics - at $11k, you are up against "no money down" for a new car or a 7-9% car loan for a 17-22 year old. Someone in a position to pay cash for your car, is likely not attracted to a) mileage and b) "first year production" concerns, whether valid or not. PERCEPTION is more important to a buyer than reality.
The "other" buyer is one who is looking for a nice "base" for a race car.
5) As asked before - why sell? It would seem that at some price point, it is "cheaper" to keep the car than to sell it
6) Time of year.. cold weather is arriving. Heated seats? if not, that hurts too in a cooler climate. Might be better off taking it "off the road" and selling in the spring as "convertible" season comes into play

Just a few thoughts...

[nola911]

Im with the fella above. Take it off the market for winter, paint the bumper, and sell it for 14 as soon as the spring warm snaps start.

After staring at Boxsters for years on ebay, I bought mine one night after a few coctails on the beach durring the first days of warm weather.

[rick3000]

I agree,
Fresh Pic's and a great description should help. People don't want to hear about your pile of receipts or how well it was maintained. They will get interested in that once there sold on buying. And they will get sold on buying it when you sell the image, of a Porsche. It sounds cheesy but it works, sell the Porsche image and top-down lifestyle, not the car.
If you can swing it financially I would just keep it as a weekend car, or make it into the ultimate track car.

[Wonko The Sane]

Thanks to you guys, as well.

A couple of general things, first: The main reason that I'm getting rid of it is that I'm getting married in 6 months, so I have to pay for that and a honeymoon and hopefully a house shortly after. When it comes down to it, I'd rather have a house than a Boxster. While I can swing keeping it, I can't really save a whole lot while I'm still paying for the box, so that's why I'm trying to get rid of it now. It'd be worth it to me to get rid of it @ 11k now instead of keeping it until April or May and sell it for 13.

Luckily it's getting some interest at the current price, I've gotten a couple of calls this week about it, so maybe it's just taking a while to aggregate at the current price.

Good points about me probably being too descriptive in my post, I wrote it as I would like to see it, and I realize now that I'm not a typical buyer.

Thanks to your guys' inputs in this thread, I'm going to go out and do a photoshoot this weekend, and I'll write up a new description.

I think I will try to get the front resprayed if I can work it into my schedule.

Unfortunately, I don't think there's much I can do about the locale, as I still have to go to work every day here in central PA

[Cloudsurfer]

Wonko-

I was with Aaron when we flew down from Rochester to meet you 2 weeks ago. The problems I see with your car are as follows, which is exactly why Aaron didn't buy it:

Lack of service history
Typical older Boxster maintenance issues
"Interesting" audio install
Most importantly, cosmetic condition. Unfortunately, every body panel on your car has some kind of damage to it, whether it be a chip, small rust spot, scratch, scrape, or ding. Front bumper is in very poor condition. Headlamps have burn/melt marks on them and are badly pitted. Either whoever buys your car accepts it as such and isn't bothered, or they have to spray the whole car and upgrade things like lights, etc. Interior is in OK condition.

Essentially, it is a car with a somewhat questionable past, that is not in the best of condition as it sits currently.

Essentially, your car would be a perfect candidate for a 3.4 swap, if it was in cleaner condition. To get the car up to better condition would be an easy $5k, and spending $5k more on a "better" car is a better use of money, by almost all accounts.

I could be wrong, but after seeing your car, I think you will find it difficult to find a buyer.

Just my $.02

Patrick

[Wonko The Sane]

Ello Patrick! How is his hunt going for a box? Has he called about that other one on the east coast (the one that he didn't like the color of?)

Due to the way it's written, it seems a rather harsh critique, so I'll respond to each segment individually:

[i]Lack of service history [i]
Unfortunately, not too much I'm going to be able to do about this one.

Typical older Boxster maintenance issues
I feel this is sort of implied with the 1997

"Interesting" audio install
Meh, it's rear speakers installed into the worthless leather pouch, can be undone with $20 (for a used worthless leather pouch) and unclipping the audio connector to them and the amplifier.

Most importantly, cosmetic condition. Unfortunately, every body panel on your car has some kind of damage to it, whether it be a chip, small rust spot, scratch, scrape, or ding. Front bumper is in very poor condition. Headlamps have burn/melt marks on them and are badly pitted. Either whoever buys your car accepts it as such and isn't bothered, or they have to spray the whole car and upgrade things like lights, etc. Interior is in OK condition.
I really don't think there's anything uncharacteristic of a 10 year old, 100k+ car. Most of the dings (with the exception of two) are the typical door-ding variety that measure less than 1/4" thick and 1" long, or minor pits/hits from rocks on the road. I'm not sure how a car is going to be actually driven for 100k and not aquire them, honestly. The headlights are definitely discolored though, as shown in the pictures. Aaron did mention the bumper, too, I'm honestly not sure what more he expecting of a car with a description of "due to a previous poor paint job, the front bumper is pitted and peeling"

Essentially, it is a car with a somewhat questionable past, that is not in the best of condition as it sits currently.
As I talked about above, most of Aarons' concerns were of the minor rock chips and stuff (that I'd consider normal for a 10 year old, 100k car), but he was talking about taking it on the track shortly... that kinda confused me. As far as the questionable past, I don't know how to extract history from nothing, so I only have the history as far back as I've owned the car. I work with what I have

Essentially, your car would be a perfect candidate for a 3.4 swap, if it was in cleaner condition. To get the car up to better condition would be an easy $5k, and spending $5k more on a "better" car is a better use of money, by almost all accounts.
I could be wrong, but after seeing your car, I think you will find it difficult to find a buyer.
Just my $.02
Patrick
I actually think the perfect candidate for the car is one of two people: Someone who wants a nice condition car that they can actually drive without worrying about it incessantly, or someone who is looking for a cheap track-sled to beat up and not worry about rock chips. This car is not meant to compete against the $15-16k cars on the market right now, if simply due to age and mileage alone. If I really thought it was worth the $14-15k that the other boxsters on cars.com are going for, I would have priced it there and held firm.

Obviously, my target audience is not a car collector or someone who is going to want a perfectly mint show-piece. Unfortunately for them, I don't think that they're going to find that in the sub-$12,000 range for a Porsche.

I wish Aaron luck with his hunt, but unless he gets lucky this winter sometime, I don't think he's going to find his dream mint-condition car for less than 12k Tell him I said Hi, though.

Thanks for the input, Patrick!

~Aaron

Edited due to annoying size caused by using the quote function

[racer_d]

While I know it is beyond the scope here.. you mention paying for a wedding, honeymoon and house. Having done all 3, if "you" as a couple are serious about saving for a house, then you would bag the big wedding and honeymoon. Sacrifice now for enjoyment later. That already sounds like "house money" right there. Also, you didn't mention if the Boxster was paid for or if you still owe money on it. Also, how will you and the wife get around? have 1-2 other cars for that? Just trying to picture how "expedable" the boxster is. Maybe selling one of the other cars, if their is one, would make more sense, financially.

Good luck on ALL the endevours!

[Wonko The Sane]

We've actually got the wedding and honeymoon mostly paid for already, the real issue is the money that I'm paying on the box (I still owe on it) vs. the enjoyment that I get out of it, and the fact that we live too far apart. We are spending approx $100 a week in gas to see each other as well as additional expenses associated with traveling that much. This means that we're basically spending a boxster payment a month on just travelling to see each other, in addition to the wedding, honeymoon and trying to save for a house.

The additional money I'm spending on the box would help make a nicer down payment for house while allowing everything else to happen easier.

The wedding itself is actually pretty small (although i consider anything larger than going to the JP and a party afterwards extravagant ) and the honeymoon isn't anything ridiculous either, they're still a fairly pricey proposition if you have a large family (like we both do). Ideally, I'd like to be able to save up enough money to put down on a house immediately after the wedding, which selling the box would allow me to do. It's more an issue of what I can afford to do for the wedding/honeymoon/house than if I can do it at this point, but I'd still like to be able to contribute more towards a better house and (secondary) honeymoon.

As far as the car situation: She has a car, and I just got a different car with the intention of selling the Box... I wasn't expecting it to take this long I'm not going to get rid of the other car, so the box has to go.

[pteam]

Man 11 grand for a porsche convertible in great shape, what a steal.