Value of a high Experian score
 

Greetings. I've posted a couple of things recently related to my search for a late 80's 911. I have been using the AutoCheck / Experian VIN lookup service. For those of you who haven't used it, it reviews accident history, # owners, whether the car was ever leased, and one or two other factors to come up with a single numerical score. It doesn't attempt to put a value on the car, but the score gives you another method of comparing cars. For these cars, scores of 39 - 62 are considered 'in range' and acceptable.

I'm closing in on one of two cars. They're outwardly very similar except that one car is an '87 with about 125.000 miles and the other is an '88 with about 110,000. However, the Experian scores are very different. The '87 scores a 42 while the '88 scores a 92. The only thing I can tell is that Experian sees is that the '88 has had only one owner in the last 20 years, whereas the '87 has had 6 owners. The '88 has been inspected and the mechanic claims it's in the top 5% of the cars he sees. The '87 hasn't been inspected yet. The bottom line is that the '88 is 7.5% more expensive.

Do you think the Experian score has much merit? Thanks.

Steve

No. How on earth do you translate that number to $$$?

I think an old Porsche is far too complex an item to be summarized in an algorithmic scorecard type of thing. One car might have pristine original paint, and another a crappy back-alley overspray, and Experian (ie. Autocheck) would have no notion of it. Or a cracked dash vs a clean one, clean sport seats vs busted non-period correct ones, etc.

Or put it this way: I'd rather have a six-owner, high mileage, otherwise excellent car than a two-owner, low mileage, but put away wet and left to rot in the garage one, even though probably the latter would score higher on paper.

wtf happened to i like the color and i think i might like driving the car, and it might be fun to own a 911. must be a joke

Sounds like getting a Zillo estimate on a home - Zillo never knows if the house has 100k worth of interior improvements vs the one that just sold down the street...

Yeah no. There are some things you can't put a score on, and when a company that puts a score on people starts putting scores on cars they no nothing about, it doesn't translate well. I wouldn't even take the Experian score with a grain of salt. I wouldn't even take it. If the one car has had 6 caring owners, why should that knock anything off at all? It should add more. Since when does ownership history ding a car? What a joke.

Much merit? How about zero merit.