Buying a 2005 Boxster

[eslai]

Hello all,

I hope to join you all in the near future as a Porsche owner, in the meantime I'm just a newbie looking in the window!

I'm hoping to buy either a 2005 Boxster or Boxster S from the good folks at Pioneer. Unfortunately finances will probably dictate which model I end up with and that's where my next question comes in:

Having never purchased a Porsche before, I have no idea if they're sold at MSRP or if you can in any way haggle with them for a better deal. Am I pretty much stuck with whatever price is on the window sticker?

Thanks for any replies!

[paul-silver]

It's always the law of supply and demand that determines this.

When I bought my '02 Boxster S, I was able to get a substantial discount from the sticker, since Boxster sales had slowed alot.

When I bought my '03 Infiniti G35 coupe, they had just come out and had to be ordered (no stock on hand). Every dealer was charging sticker (at least Infiniti stopped them from gouging).

Porsche dealers will probably be reluctant to give deep discounts on a car that has just been released. If you wait a little while and see if sales still are a little slow, then you can probably get a decent deal. If, however, the car turns out to be a hot seller and they can't keep 'em on the lot, you'll have to pay sticker.

The one thing to keep in mind is that it never hurts to try. Do your homework, find out the invoice price of the car and all the options you want. Find out what the dealer holdback is. Now you know what the dealer is paying for the car, and can try to negotiate a fair price. But on a high demand car, forget it.

Paul

[eslai]

Thanks, so there's no absolute rule that states "we sell at MSRP only" eh? Great!

Now if only Edmunds.com was listing the 2005 Boxster right now. That's where I've typically gone to find invoice prices on vehicles.

[martinreinhardt]

The PCNA seems to allow to adapt the price on demand, in europe Porsche would shutdown that dealership without warnings for jacking up the price.

But then in the otherhand, there is no dealing nor testdriving before signing the contract over there on a new Porsche.

Make sure to go over the options that you want before you order the car, becaue it will cost you about 3-4 times the price of same option after the fact. M030 suspension per example package is a good thing to get with the car and 18" rims is nice to have.

If you are familiar with Porsche Germany or Switzerland then you will be surprised by some of the reponses from the PCNA salesguys like I was.

Example: if you want to order light weight version without A/C, without leather, without electric mirrors, RoW M030 package, no Radio then the anwers will be = N/A in the USA

[Pete Millikin]

Beware, Martin drives cars that look stock but he can't stand to sit back and leave them alone. He will have you spending any savings on go fast stuff in a big hurry.

[Denise Dente]

Eslai,

If you do purchase a car, I hope you will attend our Performance Driving School on April 9-10. See the schedule on the web... along with the registration form. It's a wonderful event and a great way to get familar with the car and other members.

Denise Dente
Co-Chief Driving Instructor

[David J Marguglio]

Or you could buy Denise's Boxster S. Hint: it was only driven on Sundays by a little girl.

[eslai]

Thanks for the invitation. I regularly take my Eclipse out to Buttonwillow and WSIR for driving events. Funny enough, I was buying the Boxster with the full, honest intention of never racing it!

But I ought to take it out to the track at least once, right? I've been living in a front-wheel drive/all-wheel drive world, after all.

And I was hoping to never, ever modify the Boxster. I'm not certain that I could afford the Porsche aftermarket! I suppose I should start putting people on my ignore list eh?

[Curt]

You're going to have to put ALL of us on your Ignore List if you don't want to talk about racing!

[eslai]

Wait, you mean you guys don't just get together for beers and Sunday drives out to Palomar???

[Kim Crosser]

Before you buy, spend some time with the Boxster drivers - come out to the Autocross this Sunday at the Qualcomm Stadium and you can meet and chat (and possibly even see what some of the options look like).

Martin is very correct about ordering some of the options from the factory - if you want the best suspension, buying the M030 option from the factory is a lot cheaper than having the dealer install it. The other side of the M030 is whether you will "clear" any dips or driveways you normally encounter, as it drops the car by a significant amount.

You should talk with a few of us and decide what you want to do with the Boxster. Is it a daily driver, with an occasional Autocross? Are you looking to move up to DE or TT events? Are you trying to get the maximum competitive configuration of the car (wheels, suspension, etc.) or just want to come out and have fun?

[eslai]

Well, that's not a bad idea--you guys run the autocrosses at the Q every weekend? I'll try to stop by this Sunday--what time do they start? I'll bring a helmet in case anyone is so far behind in points that they're looking for passengers.

So you ask what I'm looking for...

My goals for a Boxster would be to have a nice, sporty car as a more-or-less daily driver. I wouldn't expect to take it to the track, seeing that it's a roadster. I've never been into autocross.

My version of a "daily driver" is a little more extreme than others' perhaps. I have driven one 2001 Boxster S up at Hoehn Porsche last month and I was quite underwhelmed on many fronts.

Because of that, I was fairly-well resigned to just having a car that looks great, handles admirably, but would fail to impress me in the handling department.

I don't know what the M030 option is--they don't list much in the way of suspension on Porsche's online Boxster configurator. I'm assuming it's just tighter shock valving, different springs, maybe different anti-sway bars? If so it'd be nice to have I suppose. Maybe it's my naivete talking, but I wouldn't find it challenging to do that myself. Maybe it's harder to work on Porsches?

So that's where I stand today--not looking to get a Boxster for any sort of competition--as far as autosports go, I'm interested in road racing, not autocross.

[eslai]

Okay, so I just looked up the M030 option online. It sounds like something that I would definitely order.

However, I have no idea if there's a version of that for the new Boxster. I will have to find out.

[martinreinhardt]

Yes, the M030 is a factory sport suspension Shock, Springs and Sway bars, buying it after will add up to approx $3000 + $200 alignment + $200 cornerbalancing + $500 installation. Or you could simply replace the springs with are about $400.

I don't know your background, but if you want to go wheel-wheel or fender to fender then I wouln't recommend a Boxster but rather a coupe: 944-Spec Series car or a older 911 or even the real stuff an open wheel car that is.

Anyway, as Kim said the best is stop by and talk to some people.

[eslai]

I'll see you guys on Sunday then. I don't have the money at this point in life to do any real racing, I'm resigned to hot-lapping events until I make my millions.

My only racing experience so far is wrenching on cars during the Open Track Challenge and some of the border series races down in Tecate, Mexicali and Tijuana, all with friends up at Road Race Engineering in Santa Fe Springs.