Nervous Nelly potential buyer

rsponholtz · 08-30-2011, 10:19 AM

I need some pricing help/advice. I'm looking at a 2001 996 with 27,000 miles, and I just looked up the carfax - at least 5 owners (!) and the current owner has only had it 7 months. This makes me really nervous:

owner 1 - 1 year 8 months, 2098 miles
owner 2 - 10 months, either 2308 or 32085 miles (inconsistent according to carfax)
owner 3 - 6 months, 8285 miles
(probably another owner here for 3 years)
owner 4 - 1 year 11 months
owner 5 - 7 months

Does this seem reasonable? It is a 10 year old car.. The previous owner also said something about having a head gasket replaced (or something like that). I don't have any service history information (I'll ask for that), but was scheduling a PPI. I called the local shop for the ppi - it's where the PO takes his car. They knew the current owner's name - makes me nervous..

He wants a good (i.e. high) price based on the low mileage, but it looks to me that we should probably consider it to have around 57,000 miles or so, due to the mileage inconsistency.

Thanks for your opinions!!

Rapewta · 08-30-2011, 10:40 AM

That is a lot of owners. Maybe nothing to worry about but my advice is "pass".
Try looking at 1 or 2 owner cars with good service records.
You are getting a old car really. The original owner, if he or she drove it for 9 years or so... good chance it was well taken care of and if it has substantial miles, like 50K ... the major problems have been sorted out. Not always but the odds are in your favor.

racer · 08-30-2011, 03:26 PM

Well.. in 2006 my 2000 boxster had 4 owners. .Remember back in the late "go go"90's/ealry 2000's, short leases were quite common.. Money was cheap and easy.. not really suprised. I imagine the last few owners were trying to "make a cheap buck" by buying at "depressed" prices (remember the credit crunch of 2008?)

Downside is there is likely no real "history" to go with the car. imho, with "no history" comes lower pricing and a need to catch up on deferred maintenance.

Not sure how much faith I'd put in a carfax report as the info is culled from various databases. All it takes is someone with thick fingers to type in a wrong number once.. then its an "issue" the rest of the cars life? cmon.

Truly check to see if the vehicles condition is commesurate with its odometer. Take a PPI to the shop that isn't the owners friend, if you have a choice. Too much conflict of interest.

be sure to read up on the issues the "early" or 3.4l cars have.

09-01-2011, 06:38 AM

I'm not sure where you are located but I would consider having the PPI done at somewhere that currently doesn't service the car.

dad911 · 09-12-2011, 06:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rusty12

I'm not sure where you are located but I would consider having the PPI done at somewhere that currently doesn't service the car.

Yes, they are going to be loyal towards existing customer.

'Scarred' carfax would lower base price, not be worth more due to questionable low miles.