What the heck? Boxster residuals?
 

Why are boxster residuals so low? Checked with a dealer yesterday about residuals on a boxster, 36 mths, 15K miles per yr, 56% for base box, 54% for S model.

Holy crap! I bought a BMW M3 for $51K had it for 6 months and sold it "wholesale" to an independent dealer for $44K. If I had wanted to take the time to sell it myself I coulda got $47-49K for it!

You need to compare the residuals over comparable time periods. 6 months for your M3 vs 3 years for a Boxster is not apples to apples.

You lost 14% on your M3 in 6 months, or 28% for the first year if you annualize the number. Compare that to the 44% loss on a base Boxster after 3 years, and the Boxster sounds pretty good. Also, 15K miles per year for a Porsche is A LOT of miles. I've been looking for a 2000 or 2001 Boxster S, and most of them have less than 50K miles, which is about 10K miles per year.

What's the M3 residual after 3 years? Just curious, if you know.

Don't know what it is for 2006. For a 2004 it was something over 60% for 3 yrs, 15K per.

My point is you can lease an accord, civic, BMW 330 and several other cars where the residual is at least 6-10 pts higher.

By "6-10 points higher," do you mean 6-10% higher than 54-56% for a Boxster? If so, I think you may want to check some actual residual values for the cars you mentioned. The Black Book shows 3 year residuals, 15K miles, in the mid 40 to mid 50% for the car brands you mentioned. For a real world data point, a colleague just leased a 330i, 3 year lease, 15K miles with a residual of 55%. The Boxster and 911 numbers, as a percentage, are pretty much in line with BMW numbers. Now, if you use absolute dollars, then there is a big difference because Porsches generally cost more.

Overall, BMW holds its value better than Porsche, esp Boxster.

This is one way that BMW cuts such nice lease deals on its new cars.

A lot of those residuals are subsidized as well. When it's the car manufacturer's doing the lease they can set the residual wherever they want it to make the financing work.

If you want to talk depreciation take a look at my 2004 Volvo V70R. $44,000 MSRP, wholesale today is about $23,000, that's after 24 months. My 36 month residual is $24K :eek: Volvo's gonna take it in the a** when I turn this in a year from now, somewhere to the tune of $5K but that's not my problem.

Isnt the key to keeping value on a car the options? I know the guy I bought my car from(private) didnt add a penny for the $10k in options it had,and he based his asking price off the base price of the car.

Viewed differently, there are some pretty sweet deals out there for those who buy at the 3-4 year/coming off lease point. My '01 listed for $51 and some change, I bought it 3 1/2 years old for $28 with 13,000 miles on it, essentially a new car, carefully broken in by a meticulous first owner. A 45% discount off of MSRP without having to haggle with a saleman.
Having said that, my next one will be P-certified. The extra few grand on front end price to get dealer coverage seems to be a good investment, as opposed to the aftermarket extended warranties that have an air of uncertainty around them. Some of them work fine, as posters have stated, but others don't and my luck is generally bad.
I'm really looking forward to a 2003-2004 S in a couple of years. It's sitting, lightly used, in someone's garage right now. I just hope it's yellow ;)

I think part of the issue with Boxter residuals can be found on another thread here: RMS issues. A perceived reputation of chronic maintenance issues directly effects the resale market. The risk is priced into the market value of the vehicle. While it can be argued that cars coming off lease can be certified and aftermarket warranties can be purchased, at some point in the product life cycle the vehicle is out of warranty, and the risk must be priced into the resale value, which in turn effects all resale prices along the product life cycle.

To an extent, a certain excessive amount of perceived ownership expense adds to the aura and exclusiveness of a marque. If everyone could afford one, everyone would have one. While a lot of scheduled maintenance by well trained technicians might be understandable in order to keep a complex, technologically advanced, vehicle in perfect working order, oil leaks, on the other hand, are not generally a sign of a well designed, technically advanced, vehicle. Having said that, I'm looking for a 2004 S.