Why can't I sell my S2 ?

[babyjack]

My car's been on sale for about a month or so now.
It's got a great spec ;koni adj, 968 ARB's, promax chip,ESS backbox. Full leather,99,000 miles & FSH.
Initially I put the car on for 6.5k hoping that I'd get around 6ish, I had no one interested in the car. So I reduced it to £ 5995, Still no interest.
I then removed the reserve on eBay( bidding to start at 5k). I had over 30 people watching but no bids. I then started to get emails from people claiming to be "porsche enthusiasts" offering me as little as £1000 without even seeing the car. I then started to recieve scam emails from Ireland, at which point I removed the car from sale.
But I've got a plan. I'll let the sills rot, Throw the service history in the bin,slash the bolsters & remove the mods. Someone can buy it for 3k then put a post on this forum entitled "newbie needs help, my car won't work"
It seems to me that people are only interested in a car if it's flawed, then they can get a bargain( but we all know there's no such thing)
sorry, I just don't get it!

 

[alberto]

post some piccies on here mate, you might just get it sold to a "real" enthusiast.

 

[ukmastiff]

I can totally see why you are frustrated but of course sadly the true value of any item is what folk are willing to pay in a given market. This is for any item not just cars , but houses are a classic example. Many many folk are being made redundent and selling their cars, they dont say that in their ads but it is a sad fact that they are including many professinal folk in and around my village. There are for example thousands of good Boxsters for sale pushing down the prices to a joke level and absolute bargain for such machinary. I could hardly resist one but the having no rear seats has just stopped me ( so far)

Maybe you have two maybe choices , drop the price or keep the car until the economy improves. Or maybe it will sell soon and I'm postig for nothing [&:] but its an interesting point you raise for sure.

I just dont think many S2's are fetching 6,000. I really like a nice S2 and kind of wish I had bought one and not a turbo, if your car is a real good one then I hope you can afford to keep it and get the price it truly deserves but maybe in a years time ?

Have you seen the two 'track prepared' ones RPM have , lord they look like they have had some cash put in to them but they certainly arent selling so far.

Best of luck with your sale Mas

 

[sixappeal]

ORIGINAL: babyjack

But I've got a plan. I'll let the sills rot, Throw the service history in the bin,slash the bolsters & remove the mods. Someone can buy it for 3k then put a post on this forum entitled "newbie needs help, my car won't work"
It seems to me that people are only interested in a car if it's flawed, then they can get a bargain( but we all know there's no such thing)
sorry, I just don't get it!

opps! I think I might be seen to enter into this category []

I've had fun of selling modified cars before and have experienced similar problems. IMO it going to be hard work to sell, especially at the moment. Financial climate, time of year etc are all against you.

There will be someone out there who's looking for your car. It might take a little time to find them, but don't despair! Good luck.

 

[Frenchy]

Having this problem with my Alpina B3 3.3 at the moment the car is stunning and you could eat you dinner of it including underneath, never tharashed or abused and geuinely immaculate (has won a few car show awards).
Shit loads of history and the real deal, just need someone at the door and they will absolutely, definately buy it......................it is that good !
But i will hang on because i know it is right and we are not starving yet.

 

[andrew_churcher]

Hi Mate - all I can say is the car sounds like great value for money and I just paid close to £6k for one a few weeks ago..admittedly its the exact car i wanted, very good condition and its completely stock. Its a shame more people dont realise how much fun these cars are and not to mention how well they are built.

I have a mate who may be looking. You should send the ebay link through.

Good luck

 

[babyjack]

Thanks all,
Andrew, I saw your car In PW(v.nice) & was going ask you if you had paid the asking price( could you tell me how much you paid? not on this post,you can PM me)

Anyway,I've decided to remove the chip & exhaust & return the car back to stock( I'll stick them on my other S2)
I'll then put the car back on sale for less

thanks again

 

[Suffolk944]

Sadly at present and in the current market £6000 from a private seller is probably too much for an S2, however good its condition. If you dont have to sell my advice for its worth would be to hang on to the car unless you are willing to sell her for less than your current target. The market may pick up a bit but with cheap early Boxsters in plentiful supply I would guess it will only be by a marginal amount for our cars( into the forseeable future at least.)[&:]

 

[Alpine]

ORIGINAL: babyjack

Anyway,I've decided to remove the chip & exhaust & return the car back to stock( I'll stick them on my other S2)
I'll then put the car back on sale for less

I agree that is probably the best way to get rid of it at the best price - there are probably more people out there looked for unmolested S2.

 

[babyjack]

I agree, I was optimistic with my original price of 6k. However, i've since had the car on for 5k,surely that's a good price?
I've seen cars that have been cat C & D advertised for up to 4k and they have sold.

As for the Boxsters, i don't think we can compare their resale values to a 944.
There's so many on the roads, hence the depreciation.I haven't been out much today but I've seen at least 10 of them

 

[pauljmcnulty]

It's a nightmare, as you've put it very well. There are very few buyers out there at the moment, and that just means that you are selling a 944. Never mind that it's an S2, or that it's in better than average condition from your description, you are selling a 944 which can be easily bought on e-bay for £500.

All I can suggest is that you advertise on Pistonheads and in the Porsche magazines, free in the Porsche Post. You need to reach the people who've already done the research.

The other thing I'd suggest would be that you're advertising it as a modified S2. People who want modified cars tend to go for turbos, S2s tend to be pretty much unchanged from original. I know that's stereotyping, but it's a fact that you can't avoid when selling a modified S2. I'd focus more on what people want, as in bodywork, interior, history ( particularly belts and chain) and service items like clutch, fule lines, tyres etc.

 

[mik_ok]

I think you need to be prepared to wait longer than a month to sell a decent 944 now ~ it's a fairly specialised buy now. Whilst you need to be realistic, don't start dropping your price too quickly from where you want it to be.

 

[Suffolk944]

ORIGINAL: babyjack

I agree, I was optimistic with my original price of 6k. However, i've since had the car on for 5k,surely that's a good price?
I've seen cars that have been cat C & D advertised for up to 4k and they have sold.

As for the Boxsters, i don't think we can compare their resale values to a 944.
There's so many on the roads, hence the depreciation.I haven't been out much today but I've seen at least 10 of them

Yes I would agree that £5k is a good price, but there would probably still be a need to be patient until someone comes along who realises that spending that bit extra for a top car is better than going for the bargain bucket variety.

As for Boxsters, I think average Joe public who is looking to get his first Porsche will look at them as newer cars for not much more money than a 944/968 and naturally gravitate towards them. All us 944 officianados know they are crazy to do so of course, but sadly I dont think thats going to change any time soon.

 

[ChasR]

Variety of factors.

First is that the market has affected all cars. I bought my S2 for just below half what yours cost. Yes the engine is iffy, and the front has a couple of stone chips (it's 20 years old now mind you) but besides that it's a fine car which came with Konis all round, and an owner who had owned it for 8 years with desirable extras. When Kevin Eacock drove it, he thought it was a good car (but he also thought I got a good deal too... but we'll see).

In the same notion, I sold my Peugeot 306 GTi-6 for relatively near nothing. Whilst it had 117k it completely betrayed the miles. Gearbox was very tight (and noise free (It was possibly rebuilt), clutch was light (amazing in a GTi-6) and bit right, interior was mint (no rips in the seats, good steering wheel etc.) and the exterior was very tidy lacking stonechips or dents (again considering 306s are made of tinfoil, amazing (maybe a full respray was the cause of this). With new tyres, all new suspension and a cambelt change (makes a 944's change look like child's play) and working AC how much did I get? £1.9k. A year before the same car would have walked off my drive for at least £3.5k and even a specialist thought it was one the better examples he saw (and he sells similar cars for £3k with similar condition (some having 120k, some having 40k). This wasn't helped by people saying they sold 'minters' for £1.5k (read riddled with dents and torn interiors, non working AC which they called 'normal' (something the guy commented on when he bought it since he saw others). It took me 4 months to sell that and even today I wonder if I should have (I was jobless mind you []). The guy who has bought it has had no problems with it and has loved driving it (no doubt he'll lose no money on it assuming he keeps it in fine fettle).

With the same pinch of salt the S2's values are condemned for now. Horror stories of the camchain snapping, Brembos suffering plate lift and being irrepairable, Group 20 insurance category etc. etc. has IMO driven the value down on S2s with people suggesting to go for either of the two other models (Luxes (in 2.5 or 2.7 flavour)) or the Turbos). You would think from the horror stories that S2s shouldn't be driven anywhere since they will go wrong from the way some people vehemently slate them. Parts prices for an S2 don't help matters either (although I don't think all of them are silly). That and the fact that because the 944 has come to that age where ok cars are considered to be normal (such as torn bolsters, backlash in the gearbox etc.). Every car at some point suffers from this fate bar a few (Japanese cars apparently never go wrong hence hold their value and that is not strictly true.).

I'm willing to hedge my bets on there being less than 400 running S2s in the country (apparently they sold 1.5k coupes in Britain (or at least some stats said). I've seen quite a few 2.5s near me, but not another S2 (bar a white Cabrio which lives not far from me).

Look at the Dolly Sprint. 2 years ago a mint example would have set you back £2k without difficulty with people again preaching that every one of them would snap its cam chain, the HG would go pop and that the car would dissolve into nothing (my mate's has never seen a welder or had a cam chain snap etc....). Now a good running example will cost at least that with minters fetching £5-6k. Every car goes through this cycle where it's old enough to be a banger but not quite old enough to be a classic. It is simply the 944's turn with as with any car, some of them circumventing the cycle (951s (but it seems they're not quite immune), Jaguar XJR-s's, Porsche 911s etc.).

Like anything, it's down to supply and demand, with perceptions and time playing a heavier role here than most people think.

 

[Fat Albert]

A couple of years ago there were 928s everywhere for under £3k, now you can't get a good one for under £5k, even with the price of petrol going up!

Sadly for you 968 prices have softened a bit, so someone with £6k to spend on a good front-engined Porsche will naturally head in that direction to get a slightly more modern look and 19 BHP more.

When I bought my 951 the guy had been trying to sell it for over 2 months and ended up dropping the price 38% during that period

 

[pauljmcnulty]

You would think from the horror stories that S2s shouldn't be driven anywhere since they will go wrong from the way some people vehemently slate them.

I'm hoping that the upcoming feature in Classics Monthly will reverse that perception. It'll be very nice if the S2 is seen to be better than it's rivals on the day. []

 

[cococola]

If you look on Ebay and Auto Trader type web site the prices will be lower than on Pistonheads or Porsche post as the proper enthusiast who has a better idea of correct values/ good history knows what they are looking for,rather than buying a cheapie followed by lots of repair bills afterwards.[]

 

[Hilux]

Initially I put the car on for 6.5k hoping that I'd get around 6ish

£6k is a psychological barrier for most 944 buyers. You can get a decent turbo for that. Remember that early Boxsters are sub £10K now.

 

[pauljmcnulty]

£6k is a psychological barrier for most 944 buyers.

Very true. In fact, there is a real £2K barrier for 8-valve cars, and a £3K ceiling for the S2s. It's always hard to sell a car that's worth, in peoples eyes, twice what many others are advertised for. Regardless of the fact that it's a relatively small amount to pay for a lot more car and potentially much lower running expenses over a few years.

 

[944 man]

You can get reasonable early Boxsters for £5,000-odd now and this is bound to depress 944 values, even for the good cars. The 986 is a superior car too, in every respect.