What's My S2 Worth?

Guest · Jul 19, 2006

It is with a very heavy heart that I have come to accept that I'm going to have to sell my S2, but before I put it up for sale I would like to canvass your opinions as to what you think it would realistically be worth - I may well have totally unrealistic expectations. I paid £8000 for it last year (April '05) from a dealer (Autograph in Wakefield) - since when I think that I paid over the odds for it, but that is past and gone now. Also, I think that I detect that prices have been dropping in the past 18 months.

It is:
A 1990 G-reg 944 S2 with just over 95,000 miles on the clock
FSH (not all OPC, but includes Tony Greatorex (sp?) and recently Redline Racing)
In the 15 months I've owned it I have had the following done:
belts replaced and subsequently retensioned;
discs and pads replaced all round;
full four wheel laser alignment;
both rear and one front wheel bearing replaced (wasn't sure which one was causing the noise, hence worked through them until the noise went away);
planet gears replaced on sunroof;
driver's side window mechanism replaced;
+ a few other bits and bobs.

The cruise control was working until a couple of weeks ago on a journey back up from Cambridge - is it worth me trying to get this fixed (I haven't performed any diagnostics yet, but suspect that it may be the computer that has died)?
Also, the rear tyres will need replacing very soon and the fronts were worn after a track day at Croft in such a way that there is steering vibration at 60 mph. In your collective opinion is it worth replacing all four tyres (cost ~£500?)?

Otherwise it is in reasonable condition. What are your collective thoughts?
Regards,

Graham

Guest · Jul 19, 2006

I've just put my 1992 S2 (135K miles, bridge spoiler) on Autotrader for £4750 for a quick sale, and so far no calls at all. OK, it's only been up for about a day, but I have a nasty feeling that the market is a bit depressed right now. Your car is arguably worth more than mine due to the lower mileage, but these cars are so easy to clock that this may not be worth a big premium. Faced with a similar (paintwork and tyres) potential spend, I've opted to keep the outlay down to a minimum and go for a lower sale price. I'll let you know if this turns out to be a good plan or a turkey.

Guest · Jul 19, 2006

You are right - the market does seem to be depressed right now. I spoke to the chap at the place I bought the car from this morning and currently he has seen sales drop right off - to the point that he currently has exhausted his storage space for stock - since he has been buying faster than selling. His view is that the market will pick up again, but that it may not be until September time. So the choice for those wanting to sell now is either drop the price until it does go, or hold out until the market picks up again.

Guest · Jul 19, 2006

Just for your information I have done a national search on Autotrader for 944 S2s and produced the following graph for prices of coupes.

edh · Jul 19, 2006

I'd replace the fronts - it's going to put off any buyer if the car vibrates at 60 mph - and who's going to believe your assurances that it's only the tyres?

I doubt if many people will care about the cruise control though.

Price depends so much on condition - and for an S2, the state of the cam chain /tensioner etc.. If yours haven't been checked / replaced, then that's a potentially major bill on the horizon for a prospective buyer. I wouldn't have thought it would fetch over £5k myself.

Also worth looking / advertising on pistonheads.com

mik_ok · Jul 19, 2006

ORIGINAL: GCHinton

Just for your information I have done a national search on Autotrader for 944 S2s and produced the following graph for prices of coupes.

Very good. Your fitted line isn't a very strong statistical fit though [

]

Guest · Jul 19, 2006

I put four new tyres on my S2 for £339 including fitting.
Toyo T1-R's from Mytyres.
So a new set might be cheaper than you think.

Guest · Jul 20, 2006

ORIGINAL: edh

Price depends so much on condition - and for an S2, the state of the cam chain /tensioner etc.. If yours haven't been checked / replaced, then that's a potentially major bill on the horizon for a prospective buyer. I wouldn't have thought it would fetch over £5k myself.

I didn't think that there was a cam chain, rather a cambelt/timing belt and that has been replaced in the course of the past year, and subsequently retensioned - however, I am prepared to be corrected (as ever). I would be inclined to agree with you on the subject of the cruise control.

ORIGINAL: mik_ok
Very good. Your fitted line isn't a very strong statistical fit though []

I know - I tried an exponential fit and that was worse, but for people like me who are statistical nerds, it is more interesting than doing work for 15 minutes! I think what throws off the fit is the cheap, low mileage LHD model and the expensive high mileage example.
Cheers,

Graham

mik_ok · Jul 20, 2006

There is most certainly a cam chain on the S2 (belt drives one cam - which drives the other via the chain).

It's one of the "watch for" items on an S2 as it's not on the OPC service schedule, but they do fail and it's expensive (!) 968 (with variocam) seem to be a little worse for this. General concensus seems to be 100K miles for attention.

Some good images in THIS THREAD. My Indy wants approx £300 inc labour for a chain & tensioner replacement.

PS - yeah there are a few outliers that are probably driving the poor fit. Since you have the data you can test the theory..... { /end geek mode }

mik_ok · Jul 20, 2006

Another excellent chain article over 'ere guv

This one is 968, but it's the same principal and the cam images are scary (at the end of the article)

Guest · Jul 21, 2006

ORIGINAL: mik_ok

There is most certainly a cam chain on the S2 (belt drives one cam - which drives the other via the chain).

It's one of the "watch for" items on an S2 as it's not on the OPC service schedule, but they do fail and it's expensive (!) 968 (with variocam) seem to be a little worse for this. General concensus seems to be 100K miles for attention.

Some good images in THIS THREAD. My Indy wants approx £300 inc labour for a chain & tensioner replacement.

PS - yeah there are a few outliers that are probably driving the poor fit. Since you have the data you can test the theory..... { /end geek mode }

i fear their is a requirment for more data before a definative answer could be drawin.

Its really simple supply and demand, but the cost of repairing every little problem is NEVER recoverd when selling FACT. (I know to my own cost, and not just with the 944, being of the anal variety i like to keep my cars in good order, almost without cost in the eqn)

Tyres should at least be road legal i.e the car should be able to pass an MOT, it wont if there is a bad vibration.

Make sure the car is very clean, inside and out.

Might be worth getting a diganostic on the cruise, if its less than £100 to fix might be worth it.

Think of fixing things as part of the marketing process, it will help sell the car but you will not gain much money wise.

Pistonhead, local autotrader, and a A4 advert in the rer window are the best places.

IMHO if someone offerd you £5.5k bite their had off.

Guest · Jul 21, 2006

OK mik_ok, the evidence is fairly overwhelming - I guess that I'll have to accept that there is a cam chain and associated tensioners. Indeed these haven't been done and therefore this should impact the value accordingly. By the sounds of it though we are talking a few hundred pounds not four figures though - which is what I feared when edh talked about a potentially major bill on the horizon for future owners - unless of course it lets go - then we are talking big bills.

ORIGINAL: bob944
If you are going to loose so much why not consider keeping it? What were you going to replace it with?

The reason I'm having to sell it is something of a domestic financial crisis, owing in part to the money I've spent on maintenance (£3000+) + fuel over the past year or so. Therefore, I don't think keeping it is really an option, since I am of the view I either keep it and service it properly, or sell it to someone else who can. Unfortunate really. We haven't really worked out figures yet, but in the meantime the picture below shows what I'll be replacing it with at least temporarily!
24 gears,
no roof, so wind in the hair (what's left of it),
naturally aspirated (excessively perspirated when going up the hill on the ride home from work)
a bit of a drop in power from 211 hp to ??

I guess from the above I might advertise at an optomistic £5750, or £5500 and see what happens from there.

What are people's experience of ebay? I tried to sell my 3-series there and got a derisory offer, which was less than the p/x price, so I'm not sure if it is worth it or not.

Cheers,

Graham