Depreciation

[Gary C]

ORIGINAL: harry

ORIGINAL: Gary C

ORIGINAL: John Sims It is outrageous. My Porsche has depreciated over 40% in the time I have had it ........but then £3K over 7 years is hardly ruinous. You can't help but love 944s. [] 

How awful, mine seems to have increased from 10k to about 14k(ish) over the last 2 years, You can't help but love 3.2's []

How awful indeed, mine has gone up from 40K to over 80K! [][][]

[] But I'm poor so its all relative []

 

[lowndes]

As someone who often seems to be gathering speed down the steepest part of the depreciation curve I can see the point of view of anyone who takes the view that such behaviour is ample proof of "a fool and his money". Actually I think it is simply that one man's depreciation is another man's running costs. Probably in common with a number of people on here I started my motoring in the '60's in distinctly modest vehicles, certainly ones where depreciation was not a consideration and the bigger question was should I pay 30s (£1.50 to the younger viewer) for a 5.20x14 remould or nearly £3 for a new tyre. At that time petrol was 5 bob a gallon and still seemed dear! And of course the big ticket items of house and wife were the main drain on cash flow. Depreciation only really comes into play when and if you start buying new cars. In my case that decision was delayed by the 83p in the pound income tax introduced in the 70's by Labour which gave birth of the Company Car as a tax dodge. So whilst you might be commuting in a repmobile, at least it was free, reliable and allowed you to buy unreliable fun cars second hand on the basis you did your own maintenance and there was always the repmobile as a fall back when the p&j wouldn't start. Lotus Elan +2 130 5 speed anyone! Highest maintenance lowest reliability coefficients of any car I have owned, by some distance. So once the big ticket essentials are in place, depreciation just becomes part of the cash flow balance of priorities. Plenty of people would be happy to spend £10k on a holiday as part of the annual budget. But if you don't have a holiday but buy a new car and keep it for 3 years you are no worse off and will have had a lot more fun! And of course the saving grace of Porsche as a marque is that to the man in the street they all look the same and they are so well engineered that a 6 year old car can drive like new. I know I bought one quite recently! Cheers

 

[Rob Edwards]

Zen4590 - absolutely nothing wrong with that - Goodonyer! Perhaps the point Lowndes was trying to get over is that it might be a fool who buys new and then is surprised by the depreciation a year or so later (and then starts whingeing about it).[8|] If you enter a deal/purchase a new car knowing full well the consequences then that's just an informed process. I know that mine will lose a horrendous amount the moment I drive it off the forecourt but amortised over 5 years of planned ownership it's not so bad and for the enjoyment I intend to get out of it, so reasonable value for money in my book. If that was Lowndes' point then I guess I would concur - folk moaning about how much they've lost a year or so down the line do puzzle me - it's not as if it's anything unexpected! (unless its a 964RS or other models on the 'up').[]

 

[Rotorhead]

It's actually a feature of low inflation, and the cost of new cars coming down in 'real terms'. In 1997 a basic Boxster 2.5 was £33,500. Today, 13 years on, a better, more advanced, and higher equipped Boxster 2.9 is £34,995. (Same applies to the equivalent 911s). Compare that with salaries and house prices. When we had high inflation in the 1980s, residual values on Porsches (esp 911s) were excellent, but the cost to change reflected the intervening price rises. In fairness, supply was also much smaller in those days.

 

[unclewinks]

Who cares how much your porsches lose or gain we buy these cars to drive,admire and look after them Paul,by the way my wife and I cover roughly 1800 miles a month,NEVER GET BORED Paul

 

[lowndes]

Apologies if the section about "fools" in my post was misconstrued. It was intended to be lighthearted and tongue in cheek and really aimed at myself. For the avoidance of doubt I don't think buying new cars is foolish nor will I consider myself a fool when I am collecting a Gen 2 997 turbo from OPC Colchester on 1 March despite the fact it is specced with options on which I am unlikely to see my money back (sports chrono, PCCB, PDK,cruise, heated seats etc). Whilst I don't welcome depreciation I accept it as part of the running cost of a car and it does not feature in my decision about what to buy. Occasionally I get lucky and make a few quid, 964RS for example was sold at a nice profit and I don't expect to lose too much on the GT3 but that is not why I bought either of them. I was out in the GT3 this afternoon. Bright sunny weather, dry roads, little traffic...it's what we buy such cars for. So once again apologies to anyone who has been offended, it was not my intention. Cheers

 

[unclewinks]

Look forward to seeing some pics of the new turbo you say losing money on options, I don't see it that way,options on these cars make them more desirable and more of a pleasure to drive Paul

 

[Peter_Bull]

For me this sort of post is what the club and its members is all about. Great to see that we can all make unintentional mistakes and not be too proud to say sorry either. Well done Nick (aka lowndes) and I like reading your posts too!

 

[lowndes]

ORIGINAL: zen4590 I apologise as I completely misunderstood your post []. You know that as Porsche owners, we all sometimes get tarred with the "More money than sense" brush even though we all know how hard we worked to get the automotive object of our desire and how much we all appreciate owning it (whether it cost £1,000 or £100,000). Being a working class Northern lad, that bit just touched a nerve []. Anyway, forget the money side....you worked for it....ENJOY IT !!! (and pls post some pictures when it arrives as I would love a GEN II in 3 yrs time [][]).

Doug Many thanks. Good of you to clear that up, certainly no offence was intended on my part. 997TT is a great car and a nice one at 3 years old is barely run in and represents terrific automotive bang for your buck. I sold an immaculate Arctic Silver/Cocoa car last September and every time I speak to the dealer he tells me how pleased the new owner is. Not sure how I'm supposed to feel about that! Can only I hope I like the Gen 2 as much. PDK is a bit of a leap in the dark and I'm not sure this old dog can learn new tricks but PDK seems to be standard Gen 2 spec and I guess until you try you'll never know. Just hope the weather is a bit better next Monday...we've got snow here this morning. Cheers Nick

 

[tscaptain]

ORIGINAL: lowndes Can only I hope I like the Gen 2 as much. PDK is a bit of a leap in the dark and I'm not sure this old dog can learn new tricks but PDK seems to be standard Gen 2 spec and I guess until you try you'll never know. Just hope the weather is a bit better next Monday...we've got snow here this morning.

You and me both Nick. Picking mine up from Cardiff next Monday too. A race to get the photos on here then!![] B*gger depreciation - I'm having my fun while I can still bend low enough to get in one and still have the faculties to drive it. Love PDK, btw!

 

[doomsday runner]

Im still fairly new to Porsche ownership, I bought my first in Dec 2008 (57 plate Cayman S) bought for £35000, then sold our BMW Z4M and bought a Boxster S Sport Edition for £35000 in June 2009, just part ex both, got £29000 for the Cayman and £28000 for the Boxter, against a March 2008 08 plate 997 Turbo with 2k on clock, managed to get them down to £72000 with 6 months tax. Now plan on keeping this for a while.

 

[lowndes]

ORIGINAL: tscaptain You and me both Nick.  Picking mine up from Cardiff next Monday too.  A race to get the photos on here then!![]  B*gger depreciation - I'm having my fun while I can still bend low enough to get in one and still have the faculties to drive it.  Love PDK, btw!

You're on! Mind you Colchester to Bucks on a Monday afternoon is likely to be pretty slow so I might have to investigate sending photos from the phone. There again I might not as I haven't the faintest idea how to do it! Whatever, we will need to put them on another thread as this one loses too much money! Cheers Nick

 

[tscaptain]

E-mail sent! []

 

[Rob Edwards]

You chaps are going to have some serious fun![] Can't wait to to see the pics! Enjoy those Turbo Monsters and to heck with the loot - it's only bits o'paper![][8D]

 

[mnk303]

After owning Porsche's and Ferrari's I can honestly say now I am back to Porsche's you get so much more useable car from Porsche than a Ferrari, with a Ferrari you are scraed to use it, because for some stupid reason the market likes low miles, where on a Porsche within reason it dont matter they are built to use. I can tell you this after 4 porsche's and 2 Ferrari's (one from new) I wont be going back to them, they really do depreciate once the initial wave of deliveries are over. Sadly Ferrari's are there to look at, often you will see 3-5 owners in one year...I really dont see that so much with a Porsche, I still love the passion of a Ferrari....but its stops there.

 

[blueSL]

Look through the Porsche options list and you can easily identify options which, at best, will depreciate to 0 and at worst actually make the car more difficult to sell. My dealer told me of one car which stuck on the forecourt until they removed the horrendous "Carrera" or "Sport" stickers. I can look through my options list and see a significant handful of options which will do nothing come resale time. Starting from the top: illuminated door sills, embossed headrests, coloured centre console/door handles, leather PDK shift surround, silver seat belts, CD Changer and so on. They are truly throw-away money. OTOH, I wouldn't touch a car without a rear wiper which is an NCO. Sport Chrono is a must-have in spite of the dashboard wart and PDK, VTS and Paddles may add value, though still incurring heavy depreciation. I doubt the RS Spyders will do anything and may even be seen as a liability because of the replacement cost. Go fishing in the carbon fibre and wood sections or choose an iffy colour combo and you will certainly end up hurting. I'm stuck with a silver SL55 with red interior. In my defence, it seemed a good idea at the time.

 

[tscaptain]

That's all true Mark but, as I'm sure has been pointed out before, when you spend £115k+ on a new car you might as well have the car that YOU want rather than having an eye (or half an eye even) on the resale value, especially when the intention is to hang on to it for some while. Judging from your list of "trinkets", which looks remarkable similar to mine(![]) that's just what we have done anyway. Oh, I can add leather sun visors and colour coded seat belt exits.........[]

 

[garyw]

I found that the dealers were all to ready to spec your car up to a spec that was easy for them to resell! I bought the car for me, not the next owner or the dealer profit when reselling. Yes that does means losses in some places, but I'm having hell of a time with it [] I was also thinking how the housing market has changed the perception of our cars... I can still remember the amount of people whos houses were cheaper than my car at purchase.. not so much now..[&:] garyw

 

[mnk303]

Well guys brought it, found that Tip Cars were going fast, in fact also slightly higher prices as well, wont collect until next week, but drove nice as expected, the most important thing was the advice you chaps gave me, I got the adaptive seats and found they were excellent, I just could not get happy in a manual, call it my old age or whatever, but my knees just found that it was at a 15% degree angle all the time against the tunnel, where in the Tip the Gearbox tunnel is narrower, I did not expect that. It was lovely to be back in a Porsche, I could of got a slightly less mileage car for the money by really shopping hard, but to buy locally with a 12 month warranty, 11K miles and not having to travel half way round the country has a benefit, also the car has all the options I wanted, right colours, so now I hope to keep her until the GEN 3 Turbo arrives and then I will treat myself to a new pdk. Thank you all for all your assistance, I hope to meet you all soon, I have paid my fees to join the club. Opps realised should of posted this else where, sorry

 

[okellyt]

ORIGINAL: mnk303 Well guys brought it, found that Tip Cars were going fast, in fact also slightly higher prices as well, wont collect until next week, but drove nice as expected, the most important thing was the advice you chaps gave me, I got the adaptive seats and found they were excellent, I just could not get happy in a manual, call it my old age or whatever, but my knees just found that it was at a 15% degree angle all the time against the tunnel, where in the Tip the Gearbox tunnel is narrower, I did not expect that. It was lovely to be back in a Porsche, I could of got a slightly less mileage car for the money by really shopping hard, but to buy locally with a 12 month warranty, 11K miles and not having to travel half way round the country has a benefit, also the car has all the options I wanted, right colours, so now I hope to keep her until the GEN 3 Turbo arrives and then I will treat myself to a new pdk. Thank you all for all your assistance, I hope to meet you all soon, I have paid my fees to join the club. Opps realised should of posted this else where, sorry

Well done that man, hope to see you and new toy at a 997 event soon. It is customary to post pictures and a spec of your new toy in the 997 register area, so we can all drool over it......