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Here is what I will say, I have zero reason to doubt your story or integrity and with you being the original owner you would know if the car has had repairs done during your ownership. SO here is what we know:
Assuming a quality meter that has been benchmarked (it wouldn't hurt to benchmark your readings with another meter than has been tested) then your readings are both quite high in areas and also vary widely which is VERY unusual. So IF we assume your readings are correct, then at SOME point in the car's history somebody applied more paint than standard.
So if it wasn't you it leaves 4 possibilities: 1. during the QC process the factory identified areas that they weren't happy with and they were sent the car back thru paint, but just in certain areas. 2. The car sustained some damage prior to arriving at the US port and the Porsche repair center made the repairs prior to the car shipping to the dealer. 3. The car sustained damage enroute to the dealer and the dealer had a local shop make repairs prior to selling the car to you. 4. Sometime during your ownership when the car was out of your control, it was damaged and someone without your knowledge/authorization made repairs (highly unlikely).
In my 30 years being around these cars I have seen all of the 4 above. I worked at a Porsche dealer when these cars were new and 3-4 times per year a car would arrive with some flaw and we immediately sent them to our local repair center and never gave it a second thought. Nobody wants to buy a new Porsche with a scratch in the door from a careless truck driver, so we simply made the repair. We never told the owner as back in those times it didn't seem nor was it considered relevant. It is only in the past 15 years that people have become obsessed with original paint.
Fair or not the vast majority of people will conclude the car has had paint work. Again as I said above, most people don't want to think critically or take the time to learn/gain the skills required to actually assess the car, so a nice, even, low number makes them feel good. In fairness this is ideal if you are going to sell as nobody will question you if you present readings in the expected ranges.
Do NOT let this information or discussion affect how you feel about the car! It is the same car it has always been and we have entered a world where we are appreciating the cars more as objects of art versus a machine that we interact with that provides us joy. Go out drive and enjoy the car!
Nathan,
Thank you. The ENTIRE car is at 12 - 13.... minus those parts, sunroof panel, fuel door, side mirrors, headlight trim rings, and doors....at 6 mil.
The ONLY explanation I can figure out is an ENTIRE body respray at the factory.
The dealer or port would have never taken those parts off the car and then painted everything else. No evidence of ANY respray of ANY kind.
Have you EVER seen something like that?
One comment I’ll make is that if a car has had paintwork and it was done to a high level does it really matter assuming the paintwork wasn’t done due to severe damage?
Cosmetic wear/tear happens even if you don’t drive the car. Kids drag their bike pedal or handlebar across the paint, shopping bag swings into the door, something falls off the garage wall and hits the car. You get the picture. Those are all minor issues and a proper body shop can repair to as good as or better than new (speaking from a recent incident with my wife’s MB wagon) so why does it matter. I used to be a stickler for original paint mainly because body shops couldn’t seem to replicate the quality but that is definitely not true anymore.
I think BAT has experts drill the seller at the beginning of the auction. I don't know if BAT hires people to do this or not. If I owned the auction house, I would probably do it.
Anyway, it's all about doubt.
If you're selling a car, especially on an online auction where you can't physically touch the car, any inconsistency "exposed" by the "experts" will produce doubt.
The strange thing is, once I produced those paint numbers, both "experts" disappeared.
I believe these paint numbers are proof, beyond a shadow of doubt, that it's original paint. Think about the numbers and where they are on the car.
I think this points out one of the flaws of online auctions like BAT.
The potential purchasers or their agents cannot physically inspect the car. I am not an expert so those who are can correct me but I believe that the use of paint thickness information would only form one aspect in determining whether or not a particular car has original paint.
Lucky for me I have no doubt that my car has been repainted because of the many body mods (front fender flair, rear fender flair, rear wing, side body panel mods) done by Strosek after they received the new car from Porsche.
I do not ever anticipate selling my car but if I did I would not list online purely because of those so called internet "experts" who are making claims without actually physically inspecting the car.
I don't know. I do think you can get really good money on BAT. I sold a C63AMG-507 last year on BAT.
In the Mercedes C63 forum I was asking 75K at the time and they laughed at me. On BAT I got $81K
I just got hosed by a really strange buyer with the Porsche.
I don't know. I do think you can get really good money on BAT. I sold a C63AMG-507 last year on BAT.
In the Mercedes C63 forum I was asking 75K at the time and they laughed at me. On BAT I got $81K
I just got hosed by a really strange buyer with the Porsche.
Completely unrelated - but aside from the C63 black, that 507 is the best of the breed from that era and a hoot to drive. While I'm definitely a Porsche guy, I wouldn't mind a 507 and maybe an E63 wagon and maybe a CLK black series...
Completely unrelated - but aside from the C63 black, that 507 is the best of the breed from that era and a hoot to drive. While I'm definitely a Porsche guy, I wouldn't mind a 507 and maybe an E63 wagon and maybe a CLK black series...
The C63 was a good car, but the automatic transmission really brought it down. NOW, if it had a manual transmission, THAT would be a different story !! I would probably still own it.
The C63 was a good car, but the automatic transmission really brought it down. NOW, if it had a manual transmission, THAT would be a different story !! I would probably still own it.
I SO agree. I've owned a few AMGs over the year and that stupid AMG speedtronic/speedshift box was garbage in all of them. Why they didn't work with ZF and use one of those I'll never know, but to this day, the transmission is always the weak point in an AMG car. At one point I owned both a 991 PDK and a C63 and driving those back to back really showed how awful the box in the AMG was.
But the engines, they do a lot to make up for how bad that box is.
Nathan,
Thank you. The ENTIRE car is at 12 - 13.... minus those parts, sunroof panel, fuel door, side mirrors, headlight trim rings, and doors....at 6 mil.
The ONLY explanation I can figure out is an ENTIRE body respray at the factory.
The dealer or port would have never taken those parts off the car and then painted everything else. No evidence of ANY respray of ANY kind.
Have you EVER seen something like that?
I think it might be instructive for you to do some research around the factory paint process during this time frame, this will help answer some of your questions. A few basic ideas:
The cars were painted by a two person team, by hand.
The cars were painted as nearly complete assemblies with the following exceptions: Doors were mounted BUT they used a production bracket which left the doors out 5-6" so they could paint the jambs and inner spaces, later in productions doors were fully installed. Sunroof was not in its cavity but instead they used a fixture to place it where the original windshield would be, it was then removed and installed later in production. Accessories such as mirrors, headlight trim rings, fuel door, et al was hung on wire hooks in the paint booth and other items were mounted to the chassis jig such as rockers, bumpers, etc and were painted at the same time as the car but not ON the car.
After the car was fully painted many items were removed for for other assembly steps and then reinstalled such as: hood, rear lid, doors, etc
Once the car was thru paint it went thru a Quality Control (QC) step and was inspected for color, consistency, flaw, dirt, etc. Flaws were noted on what is called a "Lackierrrei-Prufkarte" which loosely translates to Paint Quality Card. From there any defects would be sent back thru body/paint or finish.
Believe it or not, starting in the early 70s Porsche was using a paint meter as part of their QC process. Paint is both HEAVY and EXPENSIVE so they want to use enough paint to meet their quality standards but also do not want to waste paint if at all possible.
So I am 100% confident in saying this (AGAIN assuming your meter is correct, I would get a confirming readings from another known good meter):
Somewhere along the lines any panel on your car that reads higher than about ~7 was repaired at some point. Barring you obtaining access to your Prufkarte you will never definitively know why/when/by who. (and no Porsche will not give you that info!).
It is quite odd the readings are 12-13, but while it would be very odd, certainly the car could have been painted, flagged at QC as not meeting standard, certain panels were painted again, then the QC person was not happy and it was done a 3rd time....
The fact that many but not all panels read high is not hard to understand, Porsche would have only repaired panels that needed it. So for example, they were happy with the doors, sunroof, etc but not the other panels. Something as simple as one of the painters airlines could have been contaminated putting dirt, fisheyes, etc in the paint could have occured. Remember, if they had an issue they had to solve it, they couldn't scrap the car nor invest the time and $$ to completely strip it back down.
At the end of the day I know it felt bad to have people in a public venue cast shade on your car. Remember your car is not a person, you can't hurt its feelings... Sadly lots of people want to be the experts in those venues, while there are some there are also lots of "internet" experts as well. Fair or not most people are buying sight unseen so foolishly they want "numbers" to tell them it is all ok. Unfortunately for you, your car is an outlier which won't provide them than warm fuzzy feeling. I liken it to Carfax, people feel warm and fuzzy when Carfax shows no accidents and bad when it does. Yet most of us know some cars with a clean Carfax have suffered significant damage and some with damage notes have never been damaged.... Those in the know understand these can be a false sense of security at best.
It looks to be a GREAT car, go drive and enjoy it and put all the mental arm twisting in the rearview mirror.
I think it might be instructive for you to do some research around the factory paint process during this time frame, this will help answer some of your questions. A few basic ideas:
The cars were painted by a two person team, by hand.
The cars were painted as nearly complete assemblies with the following exceptions: Doors were mounted BUT they used a production bracket which left the doors out 5-6" so they could paint the jambs and inner spaces, later in productions doors were fully installed. Sunroof was not in its cavity but instead they used a fixture to place it where the original windshield would be, it was then removed and installed later in production. Accessories such as mirrors, headlight trim rings, fuel door, et al was hung on wire hooks in the paint booth and other items were mounted to the chassis jig such as rockers, bumpers, etc and were painted at the same time as the car but not ON the car.
After the car was fully painted many items were removed for for other assembly steps and then reinstalled such as: hood, rear lid, doors, etc
Once the car was thru paint it went thru a Quality Control (QC) step and was inspected for color, consistency, flaw, dirt, etc. Flaws were noted on what is called a "Lackierrrei-Prufkarte" which loosely translates to Paint Quality Card. From there any defects would be sent back thru body/paint or finish.
Believe it or not, starting in the early 70s Porsche was using a paint meter as part of their QC process. Paint is both HEAVY and EXPENSIVE so they want to use enough paint to meet their quality standards but also do not want to waste paint if at all possible.
So I am 100% confident in saying this (AGAIN assuming your meter is correct, I would get a confirming readings from another known good meter):
Somewhere along the lines any panel on your car that reads higher than about ~7 was repaired at some point. Barring you obtaining access to your Prufkarte you will never definitively know why/when/by who. (and no Porsche will not give you that info!).
It is quite odd the readings are 12-13, but while it would be very odd, certainly the car could have been painted, flagged at QC as not meeting standard, certain panels were painted again, then the QC person was not happy and it was done a 3rd time....
The fact that many but not all panels read high is not hard to understand, Porsche would have only repaired panels that needed it. So for example, they were happy with the doors, sunroof, etc but not the other panels. Something as simple as one of the painters airlines could have been contaminated putting dirt, fisheyes, etc in the paint could have occured. Remember, if they had an issue they had to solve it, they couldn't scrap the car nor invest the time and $$ to completely strip it back down.
At the end of the day I know it felt bad to have people in a public venue cast shade on your car. Remember your car is not a person, you can't hurt its feelings... Sadly lots of people want to be the experts in those venues, while there are some there are also lots of "internet" experts as well. Fair or not most people are buying sight unseen so foolishly they want "numbers" to tell them it is all ok. Unfortunately for you, your car is an outlier which won't provide them than warm fuzzy feeling. I liken it to Carfax, people feel warm and fuzzy when Carfax shows no accidents and bad when it does. Yet most of us know some cars with a clean Carfax have suffered significant damage and some with damage notes have never been damaged.... Those in the know understand these can be a false sense of security at best.
It looks to be a GREAT car, go drive and enjoy it and put all the mental arm twisting in the rearview mirror.
Nathan,
Thank you so much for your time on this. Very much appreciated !!
Makes perfect sense.
The C63 was a good car, but the automatic transmission really brought it down. NOW, if it had a manual transmission, THAT would be a different story !! I would probably still own it.
Nice choice in cars. I love the Mercedes 6.2L V8 and have a 2009 SL63 as a summer car.
I would agree with Nathan. I have been around these cars for over 45 years. I help restore and maintain them and have done countless PPI's over the years. IMO from my experience the more probable answer is something happened after it left the factory. Why and what was done may be an unsolvable mystery. I have a good friend who is well known in PCA and is their paint expert who has been doing this far longer than I have. I purchased a 928GTS sold to me as all original paint and when I received the car it metered 9's across all the panels. We went over the car in detail and as we always do looked for that smoking gun. We couldn't find anything and as my friend said if it looks factory, shows no signs of damage or paintwork and the experts can't tell the difference does it really matter? To some it might but I have been enjoying the car for close to 20 years now and still enjoying it. I have won countless near perfect scores at many local and zone concours with the car and it is what it is. I was told by a former employee at Holbert Motors who initially sold the car that he recalls one GTS that had clear coat issues and they had to have the car wet sanded and re cleared. If it was mine or not is not certain. These things happen all the time and depending on the shop used to fix the panels anything is possible. To this day cars come in and pass through the ports with factory paint issues. I have seen brand new Porsche's come though with dirt in the clear and to this day it is repaired before being sold and not disclosed. I purchased 2 new BMW's and my father a new MB that had paintwork before delivery we didn't learn about till much later.
I wouldn't discount any possibility but still a good looking example and in todays waters fishing is slim for nice examples.
BTW this is an old photo of a 964 followed by a 928 being painted back in the day.
I think @cobalt nailed it, but I'll just go a bit further and say that you wont solve the mystery.
Too many people are focused on the wrong things with many of these cars. Especially when it comes to paint. They are looking for a smoking gun to "prove" that the car had damage and that it wasn't disclosed and that as a seller you are a scammer or dishonest person. I bet there are tons of collectors who think they have original paint cars which aren't. As was mentioned above, anything can happen to require paint work. Heck I dropped a pair of pliers on my rear quarter panel and I can imagine how much they'd have to paint to correct that. In your case, maybe it was something like Anthony said - clear coat issues, but who knows.
@UMP you mentioned in your first post that the car is no longer for sale now. Are you keeping it? I saw on the BaT auction when I followed it you had pictures of your son with it. It's always sad to see a great car leave the family. I'm still mad at my dad for selling his Jaguar XK150 when I was 4 years old that he had for over 20 years from new, but he had his reasons and they were sound at the time. 40+ years later I Iocated the car; it's fully restored and it's still being enjoyed. For that, at least, I am thankful.
I think @cobalt nailed it, but I'll just go a bit further and say that you wont solve the mystery.
Too many people are focused on the wrong things with many of these cars. Especially when it comes to paint. They are looking for a smoking gun to "prove" that the car had damage and that it wasn't disclosed and that as a seller you are a scammer or dishonest person. I bet there are tons of collectors who think they have original paint cars which aren't. As was mentioned above, anything can happen to require paint work. Heck I dropped a pair of pliers on my rear quarter panel and I can imagine how much they'd have to paint to correct that. In your case, maybe it was something like Anthony said - clear coat issues, but who knows.
@UMP you mentioned in your first post that the car is no longer for sale now. Are you keeping it? I saw on the BaT auction when I followed it you had pictures of your son with it. It's always sad to see a great car leave the family. I'm still mad at my dad for selling his Jaguar XK150 when I was 4 years old that he had for over 20 years from new, but he had his reasons and they were sound at the time. 40+ years later I Iocated the car; it's fully restored and it's still being enjoyed. For that, at least, I am thankful.
I was so ticked off at the high bidder that I was determined to keep the car.
Then another bidder at the auction somehow found out that the high bidder was not paying me. We got connected and he is buying the car. I also have another guy from this thread wanting the car if my current guy backs out.
ALL of them are from Canada! What's up with that? A shortage of 964's ?
I spent $15K weeks before the auction getting the car all set up with a new suspension, etc. etc. The car needs and wants to be driven. If I'm honest with myself, I just don't have the time or desire, frankly.
Things change. I had a massive heart attack several years ago and just don't process things the way I used to. I am slowing down. Instead of trying to take the kink at Road America flat out with my old B modified E36M3 race car, I would rather hit a nice 250 yard drive down the middle of a fairway, play 18 holes, and then go home and take a nap.
Glad to hear it is working out for you. Sorry about the health issues. I have several friends these days that prefer Golf over Porsche's after years of racing and owning them. Do what best suits your needs. Hope you get your asking and yes many Canadian's buying up 964's these days.
Glad to hear it is working out for you. Sorry about the health issues. I have several friends these days that prefer Golf over Porsche's after years of racing and owning them. Do what best suits your needs. Hope you get your asking and yes many Canadian's buying up 964's these days.
Canadian here and there are very few 964's up here.
10-04-2023, 10:43 AM
