This thread reminds me of selling my 2001 Boxster a few years back. I was criticized on this forum for selling to a more suitable buyer rather than the first one that offered me my asking price. It had a known defect which I disclosed(code reading reset) after a cel and a camshaft deviation out of limits. The successful buyer knew what he was getting in to.

Conversely the previous buyer of my 1999 Miata a middle aged woman(her boyfriend helped with the purchase) complained about a CEL a few hours after she bought it. I had never had a CEL in its previous four years of ownership. Her conversation followed like this - "is there anything more I should know about this car?"

Selling a used car privately is not for the faint of heart. In addition to their driving style such as going over the speed limit. And we know who gets the ticket with an auto radar trap. Fred you are the victim of a customer who behaves nicely as long as you jump through his hoops. He went in with eyes wide open and it is not your job to keep his used car running for nothing. Most of us know that Porsche brand is not a cheap brand to keep running especially if you don't do your own maintenance.

Does not appear Fred is talking about a complaining buyer but more so that a car well known to him that started acting out after he sold it.

Had a 75' TR7 do the same thing to me. Was second owner, original owner was my CEO who had the car in his warehouse for years so it had something ridiculous like 25K on the clock in 95'.

Car did not get much use, it was for my mother to sue when she visited from FL so I decide to sell it.

Find an out of state buyer and the water pump decides to bite the dust. Tell prospective buyer and he is still in. Find him the local Brit Car specialty shop and he pays them to do the work. I pick the car up and as I'm driving it home it spits a plug out. Super experienced Brit Car guy stripped the hole so rather than let him touch it again I dig in, tear top end apart and do a helicoil to fix it properly.

Have the car in my driveway with a cover on it. It rains overnight. I go out and remove the cover and the pristine paint now has ghosting in it. Take pics, send to buyer and he is still in.

I lived on LI and he lived in Connecticut. We arrange for him to take the ferry over and I was going to leave the car in a friends driveway near the terminal.

Day comes to drop the car off an I have it in my driveway all nice and clean. Looking at the wiper blades, hmm, I should stick some new ones on for the guy so off to the auto parts store I go.

Come back to put them on and son of a ***** there is a crack starting in the windshield that was not there 15 minutes ago.

I swap the blades and figure let me get rid of this thing before it spontaneously combusts.

I get my neighbor to follow me the 30 minutes out to the ferry and about 5 miles before the destination the clutch starts to slip.

**** me **** me **** me.

I leave the car and we head back home fully expecting to cut this guy a check for some money back on the car.

A week goes by and I don't hear from him and assume he is super pissed off. So I figure screw it and call him.

"Hey Jim, it's Scott. Never heard from you. Did you pick up the car?"

Oh hey sorry. Yeah, I sent my nephew down to get it and I'm sorry I did not call but honestly we've been having so much fun with the car I just forgot.

"Sooooo, you're OK with it?"

Oh yeah. This is like the 5th one of these I've bought and it's pretty much perfect. Way way better than I ever imagined. My wife loves it. Thanks for everything.

"Well, OK, then we are good?"

We are awesome.

I hang up thinking, damn I let it go too cheap. LOL.

Small world! I had one for a number of years. Mine was an '80. Did a bunch of work on it and accumulated a ton of spare parts over the years. I got so good at replacing the head gasket it almost was like a NASCAR pit stop!

When it was running good......it was a fun little car!

I let it go along with all the parts for about $1,500 IIRC.....never heard from the buyer again. :p

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1491088842.jpg

OK quick story.....I drove her from SW Florida up to Virginia to visit my older brother once (this was in the early 90's). About 1 hour away from the NC/Va state line the gearbox went out. Called my brother who came down and we towed it back to his place. I called my buddy back home who broke into my garage, got my spare gearbox, and shipped it to my brother's house. I changed it out in his driveway and drove her back home a few days later. With these English cars...having spare parts ahead of time is one of the keys to successful ownership. :)

I used to have to turn on the defogger to get the drivers side head lamp to pop up.

Odd little cars.

Ha ha....mine never had that option. :)

One thing I remember is they had a little bracket built in to hold the upper timing gear for you when removing the head. Thought that was very intuitive by the British engineers....:p