How important are options on a Boxster do you think?

eidolon

eidolon

eidolon

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I've been considering going back to open top motoring and after my last thread I think I'm gonna go for a Boxster 3.2s

I've found one which sounds perfect. It's the right colour, immaculate condition, decent price however it's got zero options and I mean nothing! No xenons, no heated seats, no sat nav, no 19" alloys, not even the wind deflector!

Now if it was another Elise I was buying then fair enough, but what sort of person bought a £40k car and was too stingy to pay another £200 for a wind deflector?

I know Porsche are notoriously expensive when it comes to options but do you reckon it'll affect resale when the time comes?
 
You'll have to let me know how your hunt and eventual purchase goes, I've decided to go for something fun regardless of issue and a I always wanted a Porsche and I can't afford a full fat version :(

Gonna be spend around 14k and hoping I can fit in one.
 
Given the price difference between a car with no options and a car loaded up its usually best to find one with lots of options and pay a relatively small amount extra, problem being is it takes longer to find such a car.
 
I would go for one that was as fully loaded as possible. The second hand values dont differ much at all and it will help resale in the future. Plus I would want xenons, heated seats etc.
 
its a bit of an iffy area, there is a school of thought that the fully loaded one suggests the buyer isn't going to cheap out on the upkeep and visa-versa however equally if its a really decent car and you don't need/want the extras it might be a good haggling point :)

whats the retrofit costs like on the bits you'd want?
 
Retrofitting the wind deflector is easy enough, costs about £200.
The xenons are a bit iffy, sometimes they work, sometimes they don't (and I'm loathed to fit cheap Ebay xenons to a Porsche).
The stereo could easily be replaced, and to be honest I'd pretty much do that on any car regardless so that's not an issue.
Heated seats can be retrofitted, but the hassle and cost just isn't worth it so I wouldn't bother.

I've just emailed the dealers and asked if I could get a service thrown in and a bit knocked off the price, will see what they come back with. If they go for it then I'll definitely consider it. If not then I'll quite happily wait for something else to come along.
 
If you dont mind that the options are missing, then go for it, but only at a very good price. I wouldn't bother myself as the differential on price usually isnt enough to justify missing all of those things.
 
Porsches are very poor without the options, especially the boxster.

The newer ones are better but the older ones had horrid interiors for a premium car.

Put it this way - the old man spend nearly £15k on options on his 911...
 
OllyM said:
Haven't you only recently bought an Audi TT?! :p

I would walk away from that car if it's really that 'basic' too.
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Yeah, but I'm missing my open top driving. The TT is great and I'd be quite happy to keep it but I'm just hankering after a soft top again.

Whilst the car is basic in relation to other prestige brands, it's hardly poverty spec with plastic seats and wheeltrims. It still has leather, 18" alloys and all that sorta stuff, it just doesn't have some of the nice extras that can be added on (for considerable cost to the original owner.....)
 
Yep, just posted on Boxa but there only seem to be about 5 people on there so I thought I'd ask here too.

Just found out that the original owner was Lex Vehicle Finance so I'm guessing that it was a fleet car (and most likely driven with zero mechanical sympathy) so I think I'll just keep looking, there's no hurry really.
 
I missed this thread but here is my view. Options are subjective, if you want them then buy a car with them and if not then don't. The advantage of options is it will make the car more attractive and easier to sell on as most people want as many options as they can, even if half of them may not be of much use to them. Porsche's are about the options and if you ask an OPC they will of course tell you more is better when buying and trading in, but that they don't matter at all when they are trying to sell a car with few or no options. Odd that...

Personally I wouldn't be interested in a car from a lease company but thats just me and I would seek some solid options such as wheel upgrades, xeon lights, speaker upgrades, sat nav and a few other odds and sods. Not that up on the Boxster options actually but I would aim for one with a few choice options as I think this will serve you much better come resale time.
 
But more research has shown that it's been a PCP car so on the plus side that means it's been serviced properly and on time and nothing should've been scrimped on.

I guess a lot of people buy cars like this on PCP so I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing.
 
eidolon said:
But more research has shown that it's been a PCP car so on the plus side that means it's been serviced properly and on time and nothing should've been scrimped on.

I guess a lot of people buy cars like this on PCP so I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing.
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Never lose sleep over the car you didn't buy, as a better one is always just around the corner.
 
I've had 3 Boxsters from Lex Vehicle Leasing (LVL) - all were cancelled orders and all were pretty much as you describe. LVL usually have a cancelled order Boxster every 2-3 months on a 6-10K/year non-maintenance contract for £399-£499/month.

The only important options on a Boxster according to LVL are metallic paint (preferably silver) and leather.

Just because it's been a lease car does not mean it has been looked after - quite the opposite usually as LVL won't let the dealers do anything that is not warranty or basic servicing, tyres are left until the wear-bars disappear and most keepers are company car drivers who won't put their hand in their own pocket for stone-chips or kerbed alloys.

As for buying a car and retrofitting options, that's crazy - never build a car you can buy.

There are thousands of used Boxsters and they've never been cheaper.

Oh, and now is the worst time to buy. The sun is shining and it's coming into the summer. Wait until the autumn if you don't want to get ripped off.
 
Well the garage that it's at seem to be very good, they pretty much only deal in Porsches (apart from the Ferrari they've got in) so I'd hope that they wouldn't be selling a duff car.

(here's the text from their site)

At RSJ we sell Porsches and nothing else making us a true specialist for over 10 years and in that time we have built up a wealth of knowledge on Porsche which means we buy only the best cars.Many claim it but few do it.
We have factory trained technicians with over 40 years combined experience (right up to 997,Cayman & 987 models) who inspect our cars in our service centre before we buy them.
All RSJ cars are checked and guaranteed to be accident free.
We only buy them if they are accident free and turn away many cars.
Our cars are fully prepared cosmetically and mechanically and then given a full Zymol treatment.
We are so confident of our preparation procedure that we give an in house warranty covering EVERYTHING on the car with no claim limit or excess.
Our fully equipped service centre offers you full ongoing support in your ownership of a Porsche.
We offer excellent in house finance packages and take all cars in part exchange.
Come and visit our 6000 sq foot indoor showroom and see an independent selling cars at main dealer level standards at very independent prices.
 
RSJ is an excellent garage with a very solid history. I know several people who have bought from them and without exception they have bought a good car, with good backup and have been happy with RSJ. I would not agree that now is a bad time to buy, there are plenty of cheap Boxster's in the system (outside OPC's) due to the climate which currently outweighs the Summer/Soft Top thingy I'd suggest.
 
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