cds72911

Bill, don't forget all of your "free" labor (ignoring opportunity cost). Add in what a shop would charge, and you're up in the same ballpark. I don't think $14-15K is unfair for a well sorted rebuild/restored car, especially if it is fully up to date on all maintenance.

Mbren1979

The honest answer is that it's worth what the highest bidder will pay. Pricing is always subjective. I personally have no issue with salvage rebuilds assuming it was put back together correct. That's where the problem comes in. Not to side track this but i use to work for a BMW dealers body shop. Lets say a new car costing 100k was crashed and the repair was 40k to fix it. In most cases the car was repaired. The shop i worked at did amazing repairs and had a lot of quality control measures put in place. That being said, that same car crashed the same way 10 years later would be totaled because it now would exceed the value. Same repair would be need, just a value perspective change. Point being, any car can be repaired. The question becomes "who" repaired this one and did they do it correct. I now work as a mechanic instead of painting. We see cars come in all the time that are salvage rebuilds that need to be aligned. Some look great and when i get bored and look them over someone really really did a great shop putting it back together. Others, well, lets just say i can't believe someone at the DMV signed off on putting this thing back on the road. No matter how its repaired the value is always diminished.

I would say my answer would be that if an identical car with a clean title was offered for 20k, I would offer 15% to 20% less for a properly repaired car. One thats a little rough around the edges but still has good bones maybe 25% to 30%. The other cars would make me run as fast as i can.

While i know you were looking for a real answer i don't think you will find it here. My suggestions would be if the car looks like a good car offer 10k. I would expect him to say no if he did a good job fixing it. Then meet in the middle. If you offer 10k and he says yes, i would be concerned that he knows the car is crap and he is trying to unload it.

Mbren1979

Not to mention Bill's situation is more often the exception and not the rule. Find the right person with a roller who is frustrated and doesn't know market values and crazy deals can always be had. Just not often and usually when you don't have the funds available.

GarrettSR5

I've always used the rule of thumb that salvage/rebuilt titles are valued at 50% of clean. And regular C2$ aren't exactly 30k cars.
That being said I agree with the guy who said offer 10k. If you guys find a middle ground and you both walk away happy then there's nothing anyone here can say about it
​​​​​​Lots of insurance companies won't offer full coverage on such titled vehicles as well which is something to think of.

GarrettSR5

Even still, he's at 10k before labor. What's a shop charge to R&R a motor? $1500-2000? Assuming it's just a straight R&R.

Mbren1979

Oh, also, don't believe all the hype of "mechanic owned". My porsche gets taken care of. My daily driver Benz? not so much. Great car. But most mechanics (yupp, i'm one of them) don't have the time during the day to "maintain" their cars. Then when we get home we don't always want to work on our cars. My Benz runs and drives fantastic for 180,000 miles. Also shines like the new ones. But its needed valve covers gaskets for 40,000 miles and a wheel bearing the makes a little noise. I'll get around to it later.....

I would still have an independent take a peek under the covers

Joel987

Gaps could be off because the unibody is tweaked. It may be worthwhile to get it on an alignment rack to see if it is in spec. You'd hate to wear out tires prematurely, have handling problems, and find out it can't be fixed without getting the car on a frame machine.

Joel

808Bill

He wanted $8k and it sat for 6 mos on CL...I offered him $5 sight unseen (if what he said was true, "never tried to restart it) and then I got it out of him when we met. Yes he tried to restart it, causing more internal damage, so I offered $4K and he took it.

The bottom line is there aren't many people willing to take on a project like this or even buy a good salvage titled car...should you have to sell it down the road, what's it worth to the next guy?

My point is, this is not a great deal at $15K.

808Bill

Mine was plug and play, did the work myself.

soverystout

Who performed the IMS solution? That is a big factor. IMS is not the only mode of failure for the M96 motors. $15k is way too high. $6k is more like it. I wouldn't touch it for $6k either.

cds72911

Well, yes and no. If you have the exact same year/model engine to go back in it is a plug and play. But it is over a day worth of plug and play at whatever your shop's labor rate is ($150/hr wouldn't be unreasonable for a Porsche indy). I think it takes me about 12 hours to R&R, but a professional might do it more quickly. Then add in the ancillary labor for all the "while you're in there" work, and the parts. The last time I swapped an engine I replaced AOS, hoses, belt, filters, plugs, plug tubes, etc. I'd expect the tab to run $3-5K.

GarrettSR5

I understand that I am just saying even with paying a shop, a PnP engine swap isn't a huge expense to an already cheap investment.

T3C

I feel like I can offer some insight as the 996 I bought was somewhat similar to this situation, except for the salvage title.

My advice is to test drive it a few times. If the engine pulls strong to redline, clutch engages well, and shifts smoothly then there’s no reason not to offer like $11k to see his response. The poor paint work gives you a good bargaining chip, in my opinion. You can tell him it’ll cost you a couple grand to redo the work. $15k seems like too much, but not far off from a good deal.

As an anecdote, I ended up buying mine for like $12k (with 106k miles), and have probably put in at least $3k in parts getting it to DD status (AOS, oil, coolant flush, transmission fluid, front struts, front control arms, drive belt, idler pulleys, plugs, fuel filter, shifter cables, both regulators). Most of these items weren’t on my radar until after my first few weeks of ownership. Heck, only the suspension stuff and window regulators came up during the PPI.

Jengah

Good point. Thanks for the reminder.

Jengah

To provide context. I'm located in CA where the average 911 for $15K through a private party has around $130K on it, and 4 previous owners. Service around here costs $140-$185/hr depending on if independent or dealer. To repaint a car with factory paint would be about a $7,500 job at a minimum.

Here's how I see it... and think of it this way.... a 2 owner, dealer maintained 2001 C2 with very good interior, new clutch, IMS solution, Techart wheels, and original or new paint would go for $20K all day long. Take off 30% for salvage title (assuming it's good repair work) and you get a $14K value.

As to finding $4K rollers and $6K engines, you were very fortunate.