53 replies to this topic

[happysails2you]

hehehehehehehe! Great story, Darth!!! Love hearing that sometimes things work out for us little guys. And I'm glad you love the mats, I'm sure they look sharp in the car. Your story is too funny...thanks for the entertainment tonight.

[chris]

Great find darth, but come on. You have to tell us the price!

What would be the negative to little old telling us?

[rhudeboye]

Sometimes the clutch was a bit "soft", and the Manager had listened to someone who had complained about that, BUT had never checked it out for himself!!!

[sguy]

We all know that you can never, never believe anything a car sales person tells you. It's great when you can work that to an advantage

Cheers, Stephen

[prj24149]

I looked on autotrader, cars.com, and ebay within a 500mile radius for about a year before I found mine.
I had to wait till the money was available and fortunately when it was there was a midnight blue with beige interior just what I was looking for in Richmond,VA, I live near Raleigh, NC.
The car was on ebay but hadn't sold, so I called the guy up, made and offer and we settled on a price.
I drove up the next weekend to pick it up.
I didn't do a PPI but a Post PI was done. Not too bad and I am very happy with this car.
I have put some cash into it, but who hasn't.
It is my daily driver and the commute to work is so much more fun.

There is what looks to be a very nice red one here in Raleigh for sale here:
http://www.motorcarinvestments.com/

Attached Files

•  Red_968.jpg   57.08KB   18 downloads

[opua]

What a story Darth. Best time to be looking is when you're not looking.

[unknown4u]

I found mine at www.autoscout.be. Normally there are 75 968 for sale in europe most of them in Germany and the southern countries.

I also know that there is a garage in Great Britan that has more than 10 968 on stock for sale.
I will post the website later.

[S_Cal968]

After reading some of these posts, I feel I was fairly lucky. I'm about 90 minutes up the coast from L.A. so there's quite a selection. I wanted low mileage car with an unusual colour combo so it took several months to find my car. At the time I was also considering a Nissan 300zx,a 97 Z28 or a Vette.
I kept an eye on the usual classifieds and then suddenly on cars.com, 2 came up. One was at a used car dealer, it was charcoal gray with fewer options and high mileage and the second [FS by owner] was aventurine green with only 54k and several options. This was an easy decision, I went with the low mileage car. And, it was less than an hour away in the Pacific Palisades area. The car had been sitting for some time and seemingly wasn't exposed to too much abuse. My first time driving it was along the coast on PCH with the sun setting, it was so enjoyable, i 'll never forget it...

At that time I thought with this caliber of car I would've made it to 100K without any major repairs, unfortunately that hasn't been the case. As another poster mentioned, I've also put close to $4K just in working out the gremlins. I've only driven 25K in 4 years so it's become the most expensive from a maintenance standpoint then any other car I've owned and I've owned many. It's one thing to spend $$ on performance goodies, but it's another if you're paying for a factory defect or a design issue.
Don't let this discourage you, after the gremlins are worked out, these cars are fairly reliable. As others have mentioned do some research so you'll know what to look for. I'm kind of fanatic when it comes to keeping a service log book and all my receipts and look for that when I search for a car.
Good Luck...

[Fox944]

I found my car on Ebay. Exchanged a few emails with the owner. Spoke on the phone...told him if the car is exactly as described i will buy it tonight and to remove it from ebay. He assured me that it is. Went over, checked the car out, had it PPI'd...car was exactly as described. I bought it.

[FRporscheman]

Sorry if this is digging up an old thread. I bought mine from Bill Patton in San Ramon CA, who at the time owned 6 968s. 2 of them were CS replicas, one white cab with red graphics, and one horz blue coupe with black graphics. He was trying to sell the blue one on ebay a while back...

Anyway he had this red one, and said he had to sell it because his wife didn't like red. I was like, wait, you're married? How do you have 6 968s? Does your wife have a (much younger) sister? The car had 155k miles, was nearly in mint condition inside and out, and he wanted $10k but I talked him down a little

Someone on here in the midwest bought a white car from him. They were going to transplant the guts from a totalled turbo 968 into it. Was that Miles?

[Maritime68coupe]

Well I'll dig up this old thread as well....some people on here probably remember reading/seeing info about my car on .net. That was before I ran into this site.....

I purchased the Maritime blue coupe that was on Ebay on 9/06 and 12/06. I had been looking for a really nice Cobalt blue or Iris blue car. I saw this color, and the "impulse struck." I called the owner in NJ to discuss the car, maintenance, etc. He gave me the shop information where he had it serviced....I don't even remember the name. I called up there, and they assured me that the owner took great care of the car and it only had 68XXX on the clock. So, I decided to buy it sight unseen (living in TX).

After getting everything completed, the car arrived in Dallas when it was cold and rainy from its trek. I immediately brought it in to Zim's in Bedford. He found some $3,000 worth of problems that needed to be immediately addressed. Knowing it was a used Porsche, I said, not too big of a deal (after owning 3 Audi's, I know all about the money pits). Overall, I was not impressed with Zim's.....poor communication and customer service, not to mention, not addressing all the problems.

About 2 weeks later, I ordered new rims for the car, and brought it in to my local shop that works on my other cars, and found another $4,000 that Zim's didn't catch. Some of which was a need for a completely new A/C system and steering rack. So, I get all that worked up, and the car is operating great.

Then, I contact the seller in NJ about some of the issues, of which he would have known about if he drove the car on a regular basis. He denies everything in multiple emails. I know he reads these forums (or at least did, Hi Mike). I was especially irritated when he wrote an extremely nasty email back to me, after I had been extremely courteous with all my communication to him. I tried to go through Ebay, and after multiple attempts, they never even got back to me.

So, it's all said and done now, and I'm still irritated mostly with Ebay for not helping out with this guy who could have been a bit more reasonable, but life is too short. I don't know if I would ever buy another car sight unseen, especially off Ebay. I know it's a good source, but if you're looking for a car, just be cautious, or you'll be in the hole some serious cash with these machines

Anyways, I love the car, and working to get it to tip top shape...can't wait for bonus time

Alan

[jeff968]

It sure is a looker in that great color.

[Maritime68coupe]

Thanks Jeff...I love the mint green as well. I saw a 911 turbo listed on Autotrader in that color. So sharp!

[RPM]

Sorry it was such an ordeal but looks like you now have a very nice car in a very cool color. Still, hard to imagine the car needed over $7k in immediate repairs!

This story reinforces the oldest axiom in Porsche-purchase lore:

There is no substitute for a thorough PPI done by an independent shop. It seems like you did all of the reasonable things when buying this car. But I just think you must approach this process with a jaundiced eye - and trust no one that is not on your payroll.

And this is where a site like this or R.L. can be such a great help. I found my car in NJ and Damian DeBlis graciously took a Saturday afternoon to look the car over for me. Priceless feedback you could not get even from a good mechanic.