so what do you guys do with parts you just cannot sell?
 

i have been mulling this over for a long time..
i have a ton..a ton of porsche parts.
mainly 944 and 924 parts .
I have had little success with selling any of it anywhere..i list it on ebay, no bids at giveaway prices...literally.
So i lose $$ to ebay. I put ads on rennlist every so often only to get "got pics?" and " those calipers are dirty" remarks(as if they would buy them anyway)
I offer to have people come route thru my barn and buy stuff cheap (like 944 hatches for $10, 944 t calipers fopr 75 each and the complete 944t brake swaps for like 300) but no one ever buys anything and hardly a reply
...yet if some of the "clique" list the same part..they get 5 times what i ask (and my stuff is as good or better?)
this is getting old as i pay rent on the barn and don't need to if i cannot get it back in selling the parts (not a profit, i keep my car/bike in there)
i have aproximately 200 porsche or vw factory wheels
so I am at a quandry.., i am tired of trying to sell this stuff and i cannot even give it away
at what point do i begin contemplating recycling all my aluminum and scrapping all the suspensions for steel..i expect that i might get $500 out of it after gas and what not.
i get tired of the whole pictures thing..i have spent literally hours taking pictures to sell nothing..spent hundereds on ebay with no sales on most(even starting at $1 no reserve).
what do i do with the interiors?
7 years ago this stuff was worth a ton, but now the cars are owned by bottom feeders like the 914's were in the 90's...
frustrated

I have noticed others who have a link at the bottom of their post with a website. Why not try that? Racerbrd comes to mind among others. I have found parts just out of curiousity, while not even looking. I didn't even know you had all this stuff.

Do your pics have "skanky hos" with lots of cleavage holding the parts...just an idea :)

only cows..i try to avoid the skanky hoes

"Bottom feders"-quote NickG. Ouch!!!!!!
Your Ebay store: http://motors.search.ebay.com/_W0QQsassZnickgiordano
Posting a web site is a good idea from Speedo959. Let us see a complete list of your prices.

John_AZ
1988 924S owner 10+ years
1987 924S owner 10+ years
1979 924 sold-owned 5+ years
1977.5 924 sold-owned 5+ years
1970 914 sold-owned 20+ years

I wish I could say something encouraging but I can't. You have always been a good source of parts and teardown advice on this forum and RL. No disrespect to any 944 owners but the problem is age and the entry level status of the 944. Many 944 owners are just out of highschool or in college owning their first sports car. Face it, students and most 944 owners are incredibly cheap. I've parted several 951's over the years but still have some great parts left over from 3 years ago. On the other hand the prices that Lart951 gets for his 951 parts are lower than I'd be willing to tear one down for anymore. The only advice I have is to set up a website and have many of your main parts listed with some photos to show how well stocked you are. I'm not sure if that's in your scope of interest but it might be worth a shot.

I hope you figure out a way to make it work, we certainly need people like you in the loop.

i just scrapped all the actal cars i had last week..2 turbos included, i could not justify the time taking them apart to not get something out of them. i will have to look into the site, i get a free site amount from my isp ...
i threw away all my 944/68 cab top parts last week in the garbage..they were in the way and i was tired of stepping across it

Porsche Swap Meets.

They have them in several parts of the country (summers).
Load up a trailer/pickup.
Most people want to see/handle/examine used parts.

suscribed

I buy old VW diesel engines, and then sell the parts on a couple VW diesel forums. I buy an engine every month or so, and then do a big sell-off a couple times a year.

I've found the only way to do it is to take lots of pictures, and have a well organized ad/posting. I usually update the original post as items are bought/sold... instead of just posting again on the thread. I try to be very conservative when describing items... point out ANY issues, even trivial ones. People have more confidence buying like that.

example:
http://vwdiesel.net/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=6767&postdays=0&postorder=asc&high light=sale&start=0

Nick, do you have a list of stuff? Or do you mind random stabs in the dark "do you have this part"?

There are actually quite a few small rinky-dink parts I've been looking for but have been unable to find. My experience as a buyer I guess is similar to yours as a seller - most of what I'm looking for is to small for people to really bother stocking and taking time to ship.

Couple things come to mind:
left plastic headlight surround (I'm pretty sure it's the right I need - I gave up on this one so long ago I've forgotten!)
Centre console lid
Back seat floormats
Possible a washer fluid pump (mine just recently stopped working but I haven't yet tried to see what's wrong)

As a 2 P-car owner, I am admittedly a bit miserly with the 944. It's my winter car, and was a cheap car that I intend on either stripping and making a track car, or just driving into the ground. As such, I'd rather put money into the 911, as I want to get that car as nice as possible, within reason. Also, if I end up selling the 944, I'll never get out of it what I put into it, because there's just not much market for them, so it doesn't make sense to pour a ton of money into it. It's a first-generation in maybe fair condition - it'll never be a concours car, so I guess I figure what's the point?

i used to do the swaps. but they are few and far between now.
most of the more popular stuff is long gone..alot of the bulky items i threw out already
I guess my fatal error was not creating a list of part i had...now it would take days to do

My 944 is 90% track and to and from the track. So I cheap out when I can. Many people selling 944 stuff want top dollar, when it's typically throw away items due to how plentiful it is. That being said, I need some small stuff as well:

I need a few of those blanks to fill in for the sunroof (no manual) and the rear wiper (now deleted). I could also use a hinge for the arm rest. Maybe also a washer pump like Christian and a cable for the hatch release (in case I don't rip out the motor). I could use a couple of cookies (any condition) if you're tossing them. ;) Do you have a cat delete pipe for an n/a? My brother in NJ, could maybe swing by and get it.

Nick, I need an electric turbo auxillary water pump for a '87 951.

If I think about it, I could probably use quite a few parts for my '87 924S, '87 951 and '77 924 all three of which are currently being driven regularly.

PM me your phone number and I will give you a buzz some evening to discuss what all stuff you have.

The junkyards are filling/filled up with 924s and 944s, when you can get entire parts cars for $500, individual parts aren't going to be worth your time to catalog, photograph and sell.

924/944 are bottom feeders like the 914 was 10 years ago, the only difference is the 914 has made a big comeback in the past 10 years, because it easily accepts a real Porsche 911 engine, 911 suspension and brakes, and is a very simple, mid engined, air cooled car.

That is never going to happen to the 924/944. I'd toss all the junk parts and be done with it.

probaly right...
Tim, i may have the pump you need...that i will look for it.
steve, come take the suspension..free, i will also give you track bodywork.. race hood, doors and really nice qtrs i took off a 12k mile car like 20 years ago
never had any cat deletes...sorry

Probably quite a bit of truth to the above. I really like my waterpumpers as good cheap daily drivers for myself and my teen daughters, but I suffer no illusions of them being "valuable" although I intend to keep them all and I truly love the way my 951 drives. I would NEVER even think about buying "new" high dollar parts for these cars. I have been able to keep them going strong with used parts and some "cheap" wear item new parts like aftermarket mufflers, brake parts, etc.

Yeah, but you could keep an old car going - and in concours condition - with just some scotch tape, bubble gum, baling wire and a coconut.

All the old forlorn 924s and 944s sit around and dream of ending up in Hancock's garage when they die. It's their only hope.

hahaha! that is funny, i have sawed up like 50...trick is to make sure that you get the long blades for the saw and avoid any mount areas..i can saw a complete 944 up to bits that will fit the whole car body in my 2wd toyota's bed...
i kick myself for tossing all the 914 stuff out...junk is now worth something there

I wish I had known you were selling 944 parts when I was working on my VW -- rumor has it that a lot of the suspension stuff is an easy swap in. Sadly, I can't offer much encouragement. I decided to part out a 911 that I had totaled nearly 3 years ago, and I still have Porsche parts in my garage. I started out trying to make competitive prices, like I was going to make a little money. Now I'm just trying to get the stuff out of my garage, so the prices have gotten progressively lower over the years. Tragic, really.

at least it was a 911... so there is hope
i have a set of 2.2 t heads i think, but otherwise it is 944 stuff(some 924, 928 and 914)
alot of the earlier 944 stuff is VW based, i actually sold a tranny to a buddy who put it in his vw fox...

I think the main problem is, that 944 parts are pretty plentiful. Also, ive seen prices at the opposite extremes. either super low, or rediculously high. I was recently looking for a power steering pump for mine. A guy near me had one one. It was still in the car,( I had to remove it). covered with grease and mud. Wanted $200 for it. I told him to go scratch. Somebody on here offered me one for $30.
Years ago I had a garage full of Mopar parts I couldnt give away. Was tired of lookin at it. So I ended up scrapping it all. That stuff is worth a fortune now.

NICKG - what do you have in the way of early / 924S interior parts? I'm looking for a lot of things for my 924S. Got a big list, actually. I can PM it to you when I get home.

As someone else said, items need to be listed in an organized manner, with pictures. Pictures sell parts, period. It may be a PITA, but that seems to be reality. Listing your parts in a Pelican/RL post, or better yet, a website, would get you some sales. Worth your time? Only you can answer that.

What wheels do you have?? Everyone knows that I have a wheel fetish:p

I know what you mean about sorting, everytime it looks like I'm going to be able too, something comes up, on the VW, 944 rear control arms & brakes are a bolt on on 68 (IRS, the 68 auto-stick was 1st) beetles, 944 struts & front susp. don't take a lot of work to use on a Super Beetle (the 924 struts came off a super beetle:D) I have over 20 years worth Porsche stuff, and also ended up with the 20+ year collection of a few friend's who passed last year, I'm about burned out myself.

all the "junk" i couldnt sell, was really easy to give away..

i hate clutter.

I'll be unpopular for my suggestions, but I can speak from personal experience. My father (dec) bought his first Porsche in 1958 and was an authorised service agent by 1962. He kept EVERY damned part for over 40 years - I kid you not. We had a cache of parts spanning models from pre A right through.

Two years ago we took four months off. Closed the workshop for that period and started to sort out what we had. Everything was measured, labelled etc. Even in that time we couldn't actually put a comprehensive list together as there was so much of everything. Mike spent over a week just measuring 356 pistons and cylinders. We culled (sold, gave away, threw out) a fair amount of stuff then...

Now we have just moved the workshop for the first time in 18 years. This time we looked SERIOUSLY at all the stock. Space costs money, moving the stuff costs money and looking after it all is a PITA if it's not really valuable.

We got very friendly with the scrap metal guys. Instead of keeping say 20 sporto boxes, we kept 2. Same with 356 crankcases, TM housings etc. Stuff that had been sitting for years and we had multiples of, we kept only the very best and chucked the rest. It all takes up so much space and takes a lot to look after. As it is part of our business I have to insure the damned stuff too. We still have a large stock holding, but at least I now know what we have we will either use through the workshop or has a saleable value.

Keep only the very best of what you have - and dice the rest. We did and it would have to be one of the most liberating things I have done. What we have kept is the stuff we want; not the stuff we just accumulated.

My 0.02c worth...

BUMP for early 944 interior parts? Got any?

what specific parts dids you want? the thing is that most all of the fast sellers are long gone

Parts I cannot sell go to the scrapyard, landfill, or crusher.

In 1989, I tried to sell my Dodge Challengers. A '70 RT, a '71 TA, and (2) '72s. They were rough but restorable cars that I was asking a couple hundred each for. After 4 months of no offers, I decided to send them to the salvage yard. One guy approached me and had the audacity to say that he would just pick them up from the salvage yard for pennies per pound, rather than buy them from me. So I took the acetylene torch and sectioned them, melted the data plates, burned the titles, then let the scrapyard send a truck to pick up the steel. (I kept the big-block engines, which did eventually sell.)

Around 1996 I got out of the MoPar hobby, sold my big-block '67 Barracuda, and sent everything left over to the scrapyard.

In 2000/2001, I restored an old Harley. When I was done, I had some leftover items. I was able to sell only a few items on ebay, and I lost money on all if you count both the ebay fees and the time it took for me to list them, package them, and ship them. The parts that did not sell, including some NOS stuff that was still in original packages, went to the landfill and/or scrapyard.

Just last year I tried to sell a 72E and everybody seemed to act like it was worthless. I let a salvage guy buy it cheap, and everything that was left over went to the landfill - targa frames, seats, steering wheels, struts... all of it.


As much as I enjoy the car hobby, there are a lot of people out there that want you to believe your stuff is worthless unless it's free.

ultimately that is what is gonna happen i think. It is winter so i am not gonna do it till spring..then it all goes.

Very true, until you need it!!!
Like the NOS rear 930 grill I have posted, I offered it to a guy at less than what the dealer dealer charges, but there are none in the USA, and maybe 7 in Germany. Well, he said he didn't want to pay the cost. Where else you gonna find it??

This is a good threaadd started by Wayne.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/porsche-911-technical-forum/386929-porsche-crisis-coming-soon.html

Some of these are parts that people wind up tossing out. All are for a 924S... should be the same as an early 944 I think. I've been trying to work with someone in IL who was parting out an '88 924S, but we both were busy over the holidays and I haven't heard from him in a while. If I hear back from him I'll let you know what items he has. I really appreciate your help! It's been a problem finding some of these things because they wind up in the trash can so quickly.

- Map pockets
- center console carpet (the piece around the shifter and the two on the side (any condition is ok)
- Shift knob / boot if it fits the stock shift lever and not torn up
- rear wiper switch, wiring from the switch to the nearest plug, and the bracket that attaches the motor to the hatch. Even if the car didn't have a rear wiper the wiring should still be there in the console
- side mirror selector switch in console if it's in one piece
- Long screws that attach the center armrest to the car
- The metal receptacle in the console the lighter plugs into
- 924S Oil pressure gauge and tach w/ mpg meter
- rear hatch latch pin cradle (left side if they're different)
- Electrical switch under the carpet on the e-brake handle
- rear view mirror if it still toggles back and forth and the mirror silver isn't going bad
- - the small bracket/lever and c-clip that attaches the cruise control cable to the accelerator pedal (see: below)
http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c5...cruise_del.jpg

I'm also looking for an early dash that's cracked, but not warped at the oval section the main gauge cluster sits in. It's for a crack repair experiment I want to give a try.