[chucknorrisjr]

I've spent the last several days doing a ton of research on Porsche and the 911 and Cayman. After a bunch of test drives, I've decided on a CPO 2017 or 2018 Cayman or Cayman S. (If you're interested in the backstory, it's detailed in this monster thread here: rennlist. com/forums/991/1102984-question-from-a-person-new-to-porsche-5.html

I've identified 6 cars all of which I'd be happy in. They vary a bit in options and pricing, but I am indifferent to the variation in the options and I can afford any of them, so at this point I just want whichever one I'll get the best deal on. My plan is to come up with offers prices for each and then email each dealer with the offer and see what they respond with. To come up with offer prices, I tried to make a pricing model using the depreciation data for Cayman 718s I could find through googling. I was hoping some of the experts on this board could check out my spreadsheet below to let me know if the offer prices I calculated seem reasonable? My model takes MSRP, then assuming 2019 is the current model year, applies a 1 yr residual of 81% (assuming 10,000 miles driven) for 2018 and a 2 yr residual of 69% (assuming 20,000 miles driven) for 2017. I then adjust at 22cents per mile, for the variance of actual miles on the car vs the model assumptions of 10k mile driven for 2018 and 20k miles driven for 2017, adding or subtracting to estimated value, and then subtract an additional $3k for negotiation room to arrive at my offer price for each car. Do these assumptions make sense and do my offers seem reasonable? Just wanted to check with you guys as I'm ready to start submitting these offers by email to the dealers that I've already contacted for all of these cars. Thanks!

docs.google .com/spreadsheets/d/1wC-EgO-nsO-QY1KMFD4GTQ-sVQulUcBzR54vPaYqqVc/edit?usp=sharing

PS (My post count doesn't allow sending links, so I broke up the above urls into 2, just remove the space between .com and the previous bit to get them to work.)

 

[Baka1969]

Hypothetically, if you bid on all six simultaneously and all your bids were accepted you would either have to purchase all six (which is technically what a bid represents) or choose the one you want. With that said, why not choose the one you really want and negotiate that one?

Again, hypothetically, if all six cars were at the same dealership, the dealer wouldn't allow you to negotiate all six at once. They'd have you narrow your choice down.

Here's reality, as great as the 911 and Cayman are, they are not particularly rare. If your contention is that you don't want to lose out on the opportunity of purchasing any of the six cars, I say, so what? If you try to purchase one at a time, one just might get sold before you have a shot at it. Guess what? There will be another.

Pick one or two and go from there. I didn't look at the chart nor go over your methodology. I believe you need to narrow down your options before negotiating on six cars at once. Then decide how much you are willing to pay. If that one deal doesn't work out, go on to the next one.

If it were me selling a car? When someone submits a bid, that says to me they are willing and able to immediately purchase the car if I accept their amount.

Good luck.

 

[chucknorrisjr]

Fair point. I guess I figured my bids are so far below their asking that none are likely to accept off the bat and some probably won't even respond.

If I have to pick one, I'd go for the one second down in the spreadsheet from Porsche Riverside. Any thoughts on my the offer I calculated for that one?

 

[cbarra]

I would be surprised if you could negotiate that much off any of those vehicles, but I admire your effort. I personally would first decide if you want a base or an "S". I assume you have driven both? Driving both of them back-to-back is my recommendation.

I love the wheels on your second pick! Good luck!

 

[Semitone]

You are pretty much going about it the same way I would and have, however, your residuals are different than I normally use. Obviously each car model and time period is different, so you need to be flexible.

IMO the 718 models aren’t hot sellers so you should be aggressive with your offers. Don’t be insulted, if you get insulted . Water off a ducks back. In my experience, as long as you negotiate with a smile, virtual or otherwise,, you can be pretty aggressive with dealers. It’s not personal.

Remember, it’s easier for you to go up in price, than down. Once you have made an offer you are kind of stuck unless you want to jackass about it. I usually figure I can get 5-10k off a dealers asking price. Sure they protest all the time, but they move eventually, in my experience.

Take it slow and cycle through the cars you want, one at a time and use the feedback to approach your next offer. It usually takes dealers much longer to react, than it does me. I move in minutes, they move in hours or days. I like using email because it keeps the emotional level down although I find sales people constantly are trying to get me to come in or on the phone.

Just be careful you don’t do what I do sometimes. I get excited at the last minute and my analysis goes out the window. Emotions take over and the last few bucks go out of my pocket. Actually, by then, I am just trying to put myself out of my misery and go driving in my new car.

 

[chucknorrisjr]

I would be surprised if you could negotiate that much off any of those vehicles, but I admire your effort. I personally would first decide if you want a base or an "S". I assume you have driven both? Driving both of them back-to-back is my recommendation.

I love the wheels on your second pick! Good luck!

Yeah I like those wheels too! It's all the way in California though and I'm on the east coast. They said it'll be $2k to $2.5k to transport it which may not be worth it. And yes, I've driven the Cayman and Cayman S back to back. While the S was of course a bit more fun and faster, I also thought the base was a joy to drive as well and might be more comfortable for long road trips (I am planning a 6,000 mile road trip later this year). Overall, I liked both and didn't feel that huge of a difference. What was clear though is I thought that both the Cayman and Cayman S were more fun to drive than the 911, which surprised me. So in summary, I'd be equally happy in a Cayman or Cayman S which is why I'm bidding on both.

You are pretty much going about it the same way I would and have, however, your residuals are different than I normally use. Obviously each car model and time period is different, so you need to be flexible.

I totally agree with your philosophy. Be aggressive with the bid price but be unwaveringly nice about it. In life I really try to avoid bad vibes even in the car buying experience where emotions can easily build.

I'm curious, what residuals do you use?

So you've gotten $10k off a dealer's CPO listing price before? One of the dealers already responded and said my offer is 10% below his wholesale auction price not even factoring in the $3k in CPO cost. Wasn't sure how to respond to that.

 

[trusted]

@chucknorrisjr No offense but I think you are trying to low ball 6 very fairly priced examples. I don't see more then maybe $500-$1500 off on any of them. Also you are probably not a repeat customer. In fact one on your list was mine and I can tell you that your stated "initial offer" is $3K below what they gave me for it. Plus it's CPOd now. You are asking them to give you the car at a $6K loss? I don't think they will go for that ... Good luck though.

 

[Semitone]

I would take ANYTHING an SA says with a grain of salt. You don't really need to respond with anything other than "Thank you. That's all I can pay right now and I'll let you know if anything changes" You don't need to go down a rabbit hole of what they may or may not have paid and how they account for it.

You also don't want to go around bidding against yourself. Just take what info you get from each rejection and put it into your assessment. Eventually you will either find you are banging your head against the wall or you are not.

Sure @trusted got X dollars on his trade-in but without knowing all the pieces like what he paid for the new car vs MSRP and how it was financed, and what other fees/services may have been involved like PPF or tire insurance that is just one more incomplete data point. And even if you know everything about that deal it is just one data point on one car at a specific point in time. Things change.

No dealer is ever going to sell you a car he doesn't want to sell to you. He has ALL the information and you have very little regarding that specific car and his circumstances. You are throwing darts trying to figure out where the target is. I've had guys tell me I am not even close and then a few weeks later see the same car on their website at a price lower than what I offered ( Of course, they didn't call to let me know that the car was being listed at the price I offered. Most of the industry just isn't that well organized or efficient. )

I haven't pulled up your spreadsheet, but no doubt you have done enough work to know what is reasonable and what isn't. I wouldn't worry about low balling guys as long as you really plan on buying a car and aren't just a waste of time tire kicker.

I got my ordered 718 CGTS at 10% off list with European Delivery ( so almost 13% off with ED( EDIT: This was a deal with no trade in and no financing.)). I had multiple dealers tell me GTS' are MSRP cars, we won't deal. Others said I would be lucky to get 5% off. Well, you get what you ask for and what you negotiate. No point in me worrying about the dealer's margin and whether they are making money. That's their job. I mentioned this to somebody and they said they got a Boxster at 5% off MSRP back in the 90's when they were introduced and everybody was paying ADMs with a long waiting list. It never hurts to ask.

My benchmark is usually lease residuals, so something like 1Yr, 89%, 2YR 81%, 3 yr 73%...and then adjusted for mileage from memory. I haven't worked out numbers recently. I expect Porsches to be well below that but sometimes vehicles are hot or the market is strong. After bidding on a few cars you'll have an idea of what is reasonable and what isn't.

A while back I bought a 1 1/2 year old Boxster S with 17,000 miles/CPO at 65% of MSRP. At the time I thought that was a good deal but I also bought it on Dec 31 at about 4pm so who knows how that factored into it. Not many other guys were shopping for convertibles in CT on New Year's eve is my guess. ( I bought it online so this shows you the dangers of drinking and surfing.) I still have that car and love it.

Last year I bought a used Macan GTS when they were hot. Used car values were stupid, IMO. The car was listed for $75.9K without CPO and I ended up paying $69.5K with the CPO ( and they put new wheels/tires on it too because I didn't want the black ones it came with) So, once again it goes back to just asking. I probably got rejected by five or six dealers before I found that car.

Sure I have had guys tell me I was out of my mind but I don't think it left any scars.

 

[trusted]

Jeez that sounds like a stressful experience. Obviously there are different approaches to buying cars and I'm of little help here. I prefer the relationship win-win approach. Not every dealer is the same. Believe it or not but many dealer price their cars right on the money. I have a good friend who still brags about buying a car and leaving the dealer only $100 over invoice after 2 weeks of negotiating. Not anything I'd get satisfaction from... But to each their own.

And like I said : good luck.

 

[Haneyrm]

I can’t open the attachment for some reason but are you saying that you’re offering 69% of sticker for a 2017 CPO car and then taking a further adjustment for miles over 20k? If so, I think you’re in the ballpark for a non-CPO car and probably about $2k low on a CPO car. I just did this exact same thing on every CPO pre-owned 2017 718 that met my needs in the US and could not find one that would sell at 70% with CPO. Most all were closer to 80% with very little wiggle room. Most also wanted to add $800 or so in dealer fees.

I ended up paying $51.9k for a 2017 which had a $70.2k sticker and no dealer fee was added. I had to give up CPO to get this price but the car only has 13k miles on it so it still has some warranty left. I also wanted a certain color and there were only a few for sale at the time in the entire country.

 

[Haneyrm]

Interestingly, I could not find a single dealer in the US willing to sell a 2017 base pre-owned PDK Cayman for under $50k regardless of sticker. Even some with stickers well under $60k were still being listed for 90%+ of sticker. Options seem to almost not matter when buying pre-owned or at least matter very little.

I did find several private sales in this range but nothing from a dealer. Our dealer told us that Porsche uses an algorithm to calculate expected pricing on cars to keep resale high and pricing consistent amongst dealers. Dealers can override this and sell for whatever they want but the intent is to maintain consistency and keep values elevated across the brand.

 

[timlaw]

I'm from the UK - what is a CPO car?

is it what we call an OPC car? ie bought from the Porsche network of dealers - an Official Porsche Centre car?

 

[trusted]

Options seem to almost not matter when buying pre-owned or at least matter very little.

This is correct. Dealerships (should) price their cars according to current auction prices. At auction most options depreciate to zero. To get an easy estimate if you are paying around fair market value or are getting a fair trade in offer use this site:
Black Book Weekly Values Lite

I'm from the UK - what is a CPO car?

Certified Pre Owned
Adds 2 years/unlimited miles additional warranty after the 4 year new car warranty expires. Porsche charges the dealer approx. $3K fee for that.

 

[timlaw]

sounds a better deal than we get here in the UK- if you buy a pre owned car through the Porsche network you get a 2 year warranty at most - which is OK if the car is say 4 years old and therefore out of the THREE year warranty we get on a new car


but if you buy a car that is say 6 months old like I did with my CGTS you get the balance of new car warranty of 2.5 years and that's it


if you want more Porsche warranty after that you have to pay for it at about £1000 pa

 

[timlaw]

I agree that a lot of options do often add little value 2nd hand but I think our Porsche centre prices do reflect the value of extras quite a lot especially on the newer cars


especially stuff that should be standard anyway - here we get stung for £1000 for parking sensors both ends with a rear camera


the ones that retain value tend to be stuff like wheels and maybe carbon brakes - ie ones that it is obvious to anyone looking that you have added to your car


a very well specced car may sell second hand car will sell a lot quicker than a bare car but not for the $15k of extras you have added to the car

 

[chucknorrisjr]

I can’t open the attachment for some reason but are you saying that you’re offering 69% of sticker for a 2017 CPO car and then taking a further adjustment for miles over 20k? If so, I think you’re in the ballpark for a non-CPO car and probably about $2k low on a CPO car. I just did this exact same thing on every CPO pre-owned 2017 718 that met my needs in the US and could not find one that would sell at 70% with CPO. Most all were closer to 80% with very little wiggle room. Most also wanted to add $800 or so in dealer fees.

I ended up paying $51.9k for a 2017 which had a $70.2k sticker and no dealer fee was added. I had to give up CPO to get this price but the car only has 13k miles on it so it still has some warranty left. I also wanted a certain color and there were only a few for sale at the time in the entire country.

That's correct. 69% of MSRP for a 2017 CPO, plus adding back dollars for any miles below 20k at 22 cents a mile. And yes I'm finding so far that dealers aren't budging much from their ask, but per what Semitone said, maybe it'll just take time. I didn't factor in the $3k CPO value add, so I probably have to add $3k to my offers to be closer to the ballpark.

Now you said most dealers were closer to 80% with little wiggle room, but I calculate your purchase at 73.9%. I guess the 80% you cited is with CPO and yours is without CPO so that's part of the difference? With CPO, assuming $3k in added value, you'd be at $54.9k/$70.2k= 78.2% I figure.

So this is very helpful info as since you tried every Porsche in the country that met your specs (wow haha), and the closest you got was 78%, then I'll shoot for around that and save myself some grief.

Unfortunately, looks like I missed a great deal here: nationalpreownedporsche .com/inventory/certified/Porsche+718+Cayman+S+Cary+North+Carolina+2017+GT+Silver+Metallic+2062005 (remove space between .com and previous part of url after copy pasting to get link to work)

Dealer's ask already was only 74% of MSRP. Called and it was already sold : (

 

[Third]

I have a couple of thoughts to add.

1)I have found it to be relatively straightforward to determine or learn the dealer's cost to CPO the car. It's made up of the cost to inspect the car (labor), plus the cost of the additional warranty, plus the cost of any repairs (parts and labor) if any are necessary. The cars in this list have so few miles they shouldn't need or have needed repairs. I might worry about any that did. So you're really just buying an extended warranty. The '17 with 12k miles may need (have needed) tires, but I would guess that's it. In the end, like any other option, CPO will have some value to you above or below its cost. And like other other individual option, dealers are not trying to make money on it/them in my experience. Negotiate it in or out.

2)Like others have noted on this and similar sites, you can negotiate something like 8-9% off MSRP on a new 718. That being the case, the 2018 on the list could've been bought for 81K plus or minus a few dollars. That would be my starting point to begin to discount for it being used, wear and tear, etc., and I think very low 70's would be a reasonable price.

3)Caymans sell to a niche market. There simply aren't that many people to sell to. It seems to me dealers will take any reasonable offer. It's simply not the case that if they don't sell to you, someone else will come through the door right behind you.

 

[Semitone]

@chucknorrisjr- I don't think your numbers are crazy far off. Maybe a bit lower than I would pay if I was really looking to buy a car and wanted to get something done. I think what you will find though, is that any car near your numbers will sell fast. It may sell at your number, you just may not be the person who gets it. So you either need to have a lot of irons in the fire to be foremost on a dealers mind or pay up a little if you want to get something more quickly.

Waiting for the cheapest, absolute best deal ( or maybe what you perceive as fair but somebody else may think 3% more is fair also.) will take time. If you wait long enough, the market will come to you because of depreciation, in which case your price will probably be higher than your formulae but you just didn't adjust fast enough...or maybe you just got buyer's fatigue and paid what you had to to get the deal done.

In the end, if you want to get a car in the top decile of great deals then you need to be really patient or really lucky. Sometimes I'm happy to pay a little bit more just to get it done, today. Then there is also that one car that you like just a bit more than others..it has some feature that you want like the right color, Miami blue or full leather interior. In theory it may not be worth any more than the cheaper car that just sold but in the end the dealer might just be willing to hold out for a couple months to see what happens and who comes along for the 3K difference.

I bought my 718 new. I haven't bought a new car in decades because I think CPO used cars are such better value. ( I still do) but I decided I wanted MY color, with MY options and an extra few thousand just didn't matter as much at the time. Still have never seen a car with my configuration almost a year later. ( Yeah, I know..it's never going to sell if I need to move it

 

[trusted]

if you want more Porsche warranty after that you have to pay for it at about £1000 pa

That would be nice. Porsche doesn't do warranty extensions beyond the CPO here. I'd gladly pay $1000/year for a Porsche OEM factory warranty.

Is there a limit on how many years you can do the additional warranty in the UK? Unlimited miles?

 

[Third]

@chucknorrisjr- I don't think your numbers are crazy far off. Maybe a bit lower than I would pay if I was really looking to buy a car and wanted to get something done. I think what you will find though, is that any car near your numbers will sell fast. It may sell at your number, you just may not be the person who gets it. So you either need to have a lot of irons in the fire to be foremost on a dealers mind or pay up a little if you want to get something more quickly.

Waiting for the cheapest, absolute best deal ( or maybe what you perceive as fair but somebody else may think 3% more is fair also.) will take time. If you wait long enough, the market will come to you because of depreciation, in which case your price will probably be higher than your formulae but you just didn't adjust fast enough...or maybe you just got buyer's fatigue and paid what you had to to get the deal done.

In the end, if you want to get a car in the top decile of great deals then you need to be really patient or really lucky. Sometimes I'm happy to pay a little bit more just to get it done, today. Then there is also that one car that you like just a bit more than others..it has some feature that you want like the right color, Miami blue or full leather interior. In theory it may not be worth any more than the cheaper car that just sold but in the end the dealer might just be willing to hold out for a couple months to see what happens and who comes along for the 3K difference.

I bought my 718 new. I haven't bought a new car in decades because I think CPO used cars are such better value. ( I still do) but I decided I wanted MY color, with MY options and an extra few thousand just didn't matter as much at the time. Still have never seen a car with my configuration almost a year later. ( Yeah, I know..it's never going to sell if I need to move it

I emphatically agree with everything Semitone just said!