My Porsche History

[MacanArif]

I thought I'd share my experiences on Porsche ownership and depreciation after I had a conversation with someone that had bought a prestige marque recently and was looking at a potential loss of 30k after 18months ownership! Ouch!

I keep telling people driving a Porsche could be much more cost efficient than some of the other prestige manufacturers. Many of you know how many Porsches I have had over the last two years but here is my history and some thoughts on how it worked.

Macan SD (demo car) - bought March 15 for list price of 55k, sold June 15 for 55k
Macan Turbo (new) - bought July 15 for - 72k, handed back to dealership September 15 for 72k as it had a few problems
Macan Turbo (new) - bought October 15 - 73k, sold December 15 - 71.5k
991.1 C4GTS (demo car) - bought December 15 92.5k, sold June 16 - 90k
996 C4S (used) - bought July 16 for 21k, sold Sep 16 for 17k
Macan Turbo (new) bought Sep 16 for 72k, sold Nov 16 for 72k
991.2 C4GTS (new) bought Mar 17 for 105.5k, sold June 17 for 105.5k

So that makes a total of 8k depreciation over 2 years and 16,000 miles. As you can see half the depreciation (4k) was on a 14year old 996 that only cost 21k to purchase - just didn't like the tiptronic box on the car - very slow and dimwitted compared to the newer PDK. The other 4k depreciation was on cars totally a value of 470k.

My top 5 tips on driving a Porsche on the cheap and minimising depreciation:

1. Obvious tip - pick out a low volume, longish waiting list model e.g. any Macan in it's early days held pretty solidly. 991.2 GTS has longish waiting times and 991.1 GTS was the last of the Naturally Aspirated 911 GTS models.
2. Pick out a trim that has things as standard e.g. GTS has things like Sports Exhaust and nicer wheels included in the price. Turbo has Xenons and PASM as standard etc
3. Don't go mad with the options keep to Base +10k. On a GTS you can reduce that to Base +6k. Don't spec silly things from the trim options - you won't get any of that money back
4. Make sure the options you put on the car are the right ones - nicer wheels, PASM, Sports Chrono/Sports Exhaust on petrol models. Pan roof on Macans.
5. As with any business dealings - develop a long term relationship with one dealership - that's how you get cars earlier from them.

Now if you are buying a Porsche to keep longer term then you can pretty much ignore most of my advice, although I would still recommend people spend the extra dough on the GTS model and not buy the 2.0 model as even after 5 years and 50,000 miles the GTS will command a significant residual.

Hope that helps anyone new to Porsche.

[Old Timer]

MacanArif, this is an astonishing history. Would you like to take over the Brexit negotiations on behalf of the UK?

[Ian.g]

Interesting read. Thanks for posting. Where have you sold your cars? Have they all been back to the dealer or somewhere else? And what did you drive in the gap? Was that the i3? Did that depreciate much?

[MacanArif]

Thanks Ian.g and Old Timer,

the selling process has been an interesting one and a varied one:

Macan SD & 1 x Macan Turbo sold to private buyers via Autotrader
991.1 C4GTS advertised on Autotrader but picked up by Porsche Bristol
996 C4S - sold via wewantanycar.com (note the biggest loss)

The other Macan Turbo & 991.2 C4GTS I sold to Porsche Leeds as I've got to know their buyer.

To be honest I thought selling high value cars would be difficult but to be honest it's been a fairly straightforward and easy process. I've had far more hassle trying to sell more mainstream models like Audi, BMW and Merc.

In answer to your question about what I did between cars - I always have other cars. I have a 5 year old VW T5 Caravelle bus that serves as our family car and commuter when required. I also have two other lease cars - the BMW i3 and Golf R Estate. Both of which I picked up on mega cheap lease deals.

BMW i3 - 2 year private lease (8,000 miles) - £833 up front payment then £277 per month for 23 months
Golf R Estate - 2 year private lease (8,000 miles) - £2400 up front payment then £239 per month for 23 months

As they are private leases they don't have any tax implications.

Hand back at end of term and start again.

There are always some great lease deals out there for your daily runner.

Arif

[Col Lamb]

So that make running the i3 £7204 over two years or £3702 per year.

The Golf R £7897 over wo years or £3948.0 per year.

That is cheap motoring.

We are idiots driving around in our Macans having paid full wack for them.

[MacanArif]

Hi Col,

Absolutely, if you want cheap motoring and not bothered about owning the vehicle then leasing is the way to go.

However, it isn't a Porsche and you won't be able to find a cheap lease deal on a Porsche. That's why I mix and match.

Leases work when you buy the base model and don't add too many extras as they recover all the extras over the 2 year of the lease.

Arif

[Hawkeye]

Who do you tend to use for leasing Arif? Have you had any difficulties at the end of the lease with return standards?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Wing Commander]

Interesting post, Arif.

Any idea yet of what you'll order next? And as a cautionary tale, can you share any more details of the person who lost £30k in 18 months?

(P.S. It wasn't me, for those who might have been wondering! )

[MacanArif]

Hawkeye,

What I tend to do is look out for deals on the internet - usually look at Central Vehicle Leasing, Select Car leasing. Once I've found a deal I like, I then go directly to the local garage. As I've built up a relationship with the local VW dealer - they just price match the lease deal and it avoids all the hassle of a broker and also the £250 broker fee. I will only go down the route of a broker if I can't find a dealer willing to do the deal. My brother has a XC90 and and Audi S5 both of which he got directly from a dealer that price matched the broker figures, although he had to go further than the local dealer. Absolutely no problems returning the cars - no charges experienced thus far.

Simon - I'm not sure, was toying with the idea of a targa gts but several things have put me off. Obviously the ideal next step would be a GT3 but those are fairly hard to come by!

The 30k loss in 18months was I believe on an Audi SQ5! He may have included the finance costs in that price, but still fairly eye watering!

[MCDK]

Something wrong with loosing £30k on an SQ5??? Mine lost less than 10k in two years and try are selling for near £30k upwards this being from new prices of £45k plus options. Yes that £30k is selling price but trade isn't that far below.