Price for CPO 2005 Boxster S?

(Kelly Blue book) kbb says: Excellent $30,150

[RandallNeighbour]

The CPO costs the dealer around $3k as I recall.

You need a third party pre purchase inspection (PPI). Find a good indy or take it to another dealership not owned by the same group as the selling dealership.

Arming yourself with a PPI will help you negotiate a better price if they find something.

Know that boxster prices are literally all over the place, and there's piles of them for sale all over the country. Don't fall in love with just the one you're looking at right now... you may find one with more options, a year or two younger, and for the same price in California... which is worth a drive or the $1000 to ship it to you.

The 07 S's have a 3.4 in them vs. the 3.2... you may want to at least drive one before you settle on the 05S.

The options are perfect though... exactly what I would go for anyway!

Do post pics of whatever you buy. These shopping days are fun. Savor the moments!

[mikefocke]

My standard is to go to www.cars.com and do an advanced search for the entire US of the model year I'm looking at. For '05 S models I see two clusters. Some around $36k and some around $28k. Next I consider that those are asking prices so I discount them 5-10%.

All this tells me I would pay no more than $29k for a very good condition car and the CPO would add no more than $2k to that (dealer cost IIRC is $1900 plus inspection cost plus fixes costs). I bought both my Boxsters for $4k each under what the online estimators said should be the price...in each case looking for a motivated seller.

Maybe your area of the country is higher. Of course since the car may be under water by now.....

[John Y]

Thanks all, please keep the good advice coming.

I have been looking for about 45 days and have been relying on porsche.com, autotrader, cars.com and even e-bay to see what's out there. The websites of a couple of dealers I have experience with as well, just in case their inventory wasn't making it onto those nationwide sites. I just took a look at Cars.com again based on Mike's advice - the one that really jumped out at me was a newly-listed CPO at Hennessy Porsche in ATL where the price is right and the miles OK; unfortunately, the Cocoa interior, lack of Xenons and presence of power seats combine to make it a no-go for me, in that order. There are alot of Autos in that group too so that thins it down, and I do not want a black car as I already lease a black GTI. Yellow's out, too.

I am certainly willing to travel, in fact it would be fun - already checked out a base 07 CPO at porsche of Reno when I was in Tahoe to ski at the beginning of the month, but that car had a slipping clutch, at 9K miles I suppose the complication is that I would need to fly out to drive and decide if it's a car I want to buy; no way I am doing it sight unseen, so there is always the potential for a long trip home empty-handed, or extra half plane ticket, etc. I would like to keep it to within about 500 miles for that reason.

KBB's numbers are the lowest, Edmunds is the middle ground, and NADA Guides says a CPO 05 S with those miles in excellent condition is worth 33.8, which is right there.

Randall, I'd love a 3.4 and had driven a few before I bought my first Boxster, but the prices aren't quite there yet, for the most part, except for a couple of cars with 40 or 50K on them. I could wait another year and I think there would be a number of 07s doable in my sub-$35K sweet spot then, but I don't want to! I am cool with the 3.2's performance anyway - I found the 2.7l 245 hp 07 base model I had to be more than acceptably-powered, once you learn how to get the most out of it.

I am looking at a couple of others as well, including base 06 cars with 10K miles or less that may be doable for sub $30-k, with CPO.

Also, another question: A PPI on a CPO car from a Porsche dealer - really? I never knew that? I thought that was something only done on private sales, or cars from non-Porsche dealers. Good to know...
Finally, can someone point me to a link on how to read/interpret the DME rev-counter printout that I will ask for?

Thanks!

[Boxtaboy]

There was a guy in the PPBB.com forum trying to sell his low mile Seal Grey 05S not long ago. He was asking for $32k. I met the guy years back at a LI Concours event (pic below with his car to the right of mine). It's got a tan full leather interior and has the factory NAV unit. He services it only at the dealer, and is the original owner. Go on PPBB.com and send him a PM. Maybe he still has it for sale. His handle on ppbb is porscheguy.

[John Y]

Thanks for the tip! I sent him a PM...

[Boxtaboy]

No problem. I know he's not had any problems with his car, and no accidents, so I think it would be a nice example if you pick it up. He's just worried about all these stories of IMS failure, even though he's never had any mechanical issues on the car. Good luck!