thinking of buying. 1999 price check

[mhariush]

hey guys
im thinking of getting into a 99 996. dont have any experience with this model. i have found a car locally that looks like a nice candidate. it is silver with black interior, 18" turbo twist wheels, pioneer gps unit and clear front headlight/turn signals and clear side markers. very clean inside and out. scratch on rear bumper and he said it needs a new front hood latch. the car has around 130k miles, but it just had clutch and ims replaced. and something else that i cant remember right now.

he says his lowest is 14k. good deal? anything i should check, look for or ask about?

thanks

[chamilun]

confirmed maintenance history will be the deciding factor. Id say he is 2k too high

[mhariush]

Update

Waiting on WIN to check Carfax, but the owner said it will show an accident in the rear. He said he backed up into another car at a drive through and had to replace the whole bumper. Plausible? The car has a scratch on the current bumper from rolling into the garage door when he forgot to put it in gear.

Also, the car has 104K miles. He's had it a year he said and got it at 84K miles.

He has the service records from his ownership, but nothing from the Previous owner. And he bought the car at a dealership.

IMS has been replaced with the improved bearing, Rear Oil Seal done at the same time with the clutch.

Needs new tires, the current tires are bald he says.

Thanks

[chamilun]

i'd say 14k is a pretty good price for that car. Tires arent too much money. $13k would be a terrific purchase price.

good luck!

[onewhippedpuppy]

If it is otherwise immaculate and mechanically great than I would call the price ok, but not great. I would try for more in the $12k neighborhood.

[mhariush]

Here is the PPI findings

No faults in system
Over revs: Range 1 / 560 revolutions (not sure what they mean)
No airbag activity
No signs of body repaint
Oil pan seeping
Bank 1 cam cover seeping
Bank 1 spark plug tubes seeping
Bank 2 oil scavage pump seeping
Front hood latch does not open
Rear Shocks seeping

The repairs quotes on the different items aren't too bad so I think doing them myself eventually will be fairly cheap. The most expensive parts being the rear shocks. but they didn't feel too bad when i tried it. The rest of the test points were a pass.

Any advice? Sounds like a good solid car doesn't it?

[Mike80911]

How did he have an entire rear bumper replaced and there is no sign of a repaint? Who did the PPI? I have had some done in the past that was just a waste of time and money. Make sure you look the car over very thoroughly yourself. A paint meter always helps if you can get one.

[mhariush]

Mike, not sure I understand that question. The whole rear plastic bumper was replaced with another bumper, which probably was the same color.
House Automotive in Pasadena did the PPI. I did it not expecting to know everything about it but give an indication if something needed attention as I am not familiar with these cars.

[mhariush]

[LSA]

Just to expand a little on the overrev which I forgot to mention in the email. There's two types of over revs recorded in the 996's. Type 1 is at the limiter and type 2 is beyond. You can calculate the time spent at the limiter by

560 (number of ignitions) / 3 (minimum ignitions for a revolution) = 186.7

186.7 (number of revolutions at limit) / 7900 (rpm at limit) = .023 (minutes at limit) *60

1.4 seconds spent on the limiter.

Someone feel free to correct me but I think that's right. 1.4 seconds over 104 thousand miles doesn't sound too abused to me.

[onewhippedpuppy]

Doesn't sound too bad assuming that's all there is. The front hood latch has major PITA implications if your battery dies, so address that one quickly. At 104k your shocks are worn out front and rear, so seeping rear shocks are no surprise. The engine seeps are all pretty common stuff on a 996. If the price is right, I wouldn't hesitate to buy it.

[mhariush]

talked to the shop today and they said the shocks are still good, slightly wet but in good working condition. and they said not to worry about the seeping for now.
14k for the car, just had water pimp done and clutch, ros and LN engineering bearing a year ago (10k miles aprox)

[mhariush]

Picked it up on Thursday. Still getting used to it. The clutch is a bit trickier than the 944 it seems. Very touchy.

[450knotOffice]

Congrats! Nice looking car, and it seems you got it for a pretty good price. I've had my 2000 996 for almost eight years and it's been my Daily Driver. It has 157,000 miles on it right now and still runs and looks great. They are pretty easy to work on, so I do almost all of my own maintenance.

Yes, the clutch can be tricky, for sure. I've driven manual gearbox cars and trucks my whole driving life (34 years of driving), and I used to stall my 996 so often in the first six months, you'd think I'd never driven one.

The hood latch on your '99 (as it is on my 2000) is purely mechanical. It's a cable directly to the latch. The later cars went with an electric latch.

Enjoy the car.

[JavaBrewer]

With the service items (clutch, IMS, WP) completed that is a hell of a bargain!

My shocks (they were leaking) were toast at 124K miles. Lots of folks recommend the ROW 030 kit (shocks, springs, and sway). I mimicked the kit with bilstein HD and the ROW springs and it really cleaned up the ride while dropping the car ~ 1/2". Just got new pads and rotors (thanks Pelican!) and will install those in the next couple weeks.

Have fun!

[onewhippedpuppy]

Very nice, congrats!

[LSA]

Congratulations dude, looks clean and I love the turbo twists. Seems like that's the natural progressions of things 944S to 996 lol

[mhariush]

Thanks. But I managed to scruff up the rear rim a little bit on the first day, wider in the back than I thought, and the tire didn't have the lip, sigh.

[sketchers356]

Nice looking car, and good deal!

[bxtech]

Congrats! Very nice looking car and at a good price too! Looks just like my '01 with the same color combo. Somebody updated your headlights and tail lights as well with the smoke colored turn signals. A definite plus imo. Makes it look more modern.

Welcome to the 996 "family"!