Importing a Cayman
Discussion
What are the pros and cons of buying an imported Cayman through one of the many importers.?
Waiting list is upto about Feburary next year for Cayman S or January for Cayman and he kind of hoping to get one in the next few weeks.
How does he stand in terms of Porsches international warranties, and is resale the only time he will see his car worth less than a uk dealership car.
Also will the car recieve a british V5 document from new or will it need to be transfered across from the country the cars coming from.
thanx in advance.
Waiting list is upto about Feburary next year for Cayman S or January for Cayman and he kind of hoping to get one in the next few weeks.
How does he stand in terms of Porsches international warranties, and is resale the only time he will see his car worth less than a uk dealership car.
Also will the car recieve a british V5 document from new or will it need to be transfered across from the country the cars coming from.
thanx in advance.
qwertyford said:
What are the pros and cons of buying an imported Cayman through one of the many importers.?
Waiting list is upto about Feburary next year for Cayman S or January for Cayman and he kind of hoping to get one in the next few weeks.
How does he stand in terms of Porsches international warranties, and is resale the only time he will see his car worth less than a uk dealership car.
Also will the car recieve a british V5 document from new or will it need to be transfered across from the country the cars coming from.
thanx in advance.
Waiting list is upto about Feburary next year for Cayman S or January for Cayman and he kind of hoping to get one in the next few weeks.
How does he stand in terms of Porsches international warranties, and is resale the only time he will see his car worth less than a uk dealership car.
Also will the car recieve a british V5 document from new or will it need to be transfered across from the country the cars coming from.
thanx in advance.
Make sure it's a C16 import (UK spec - imported from the EU), if it's a C98 (non-uk spec), it'll take a serious t
tting come resale time. 
qwertyford said:
What are the pros and cons of buying an imported Cayman through one of the many importers.?
Waiting list is upto about Feburary next year for Cayman S or January for Cayman and he kind of hoping to get one in the next few weeks.
How does he stand in terms of Porsches international warranties, and is resale the only time he will see his car worth less than a uk dealership car.
Also will the car recieve a british V5 document from new or will it need to be transfered across from the country the cars coming from.
thanx in advance.
Waiting list is upto about Feburary next year for Cayman S or January for Cayman and he kind of hoping to get one in the next few weeks.
How does he stand in terms of Porsches international warranties, and is resale the only time he will see his car worth less than a uk dealership car.
Also will the car recieve a british V5 document from new or will it need to be transfered across from the country the cars coming from.
thanx in advance.
There are about 64 used Caymen S's on the Approved Pork website.
All different colours and specs.
All under 12 months old.
Might be the way to go.
I looked into doing this.
The negative points were:
- Shorter warranty: 1 year from Porsche Gmbh, 1 year "discretionary" by Porsche GB. Get it abroad and you'll only get the 1 from the factory. However is £750 for an additional year so you can account for it.
- Resale value: When you come to sell you'll take a hit for it being an import (even if UK spec'd)
- Dealer goodwill: Should things go wrong, you will wish to have some dealer goodwill rather than what you're legally entitled to under warranty. For example, lots on mine went wrong, necessitating it being with them 3 weeks in the two months BUT the dealer looked after me very well (including a host of equivilent loan cars) and I was glad for buying it from a local dealer.
If you're looking at saving cash, I would advise buying a second hand one. I'm quite sure an OPC can make the experience the same as brand new regarding preparation, warranty and goodwill.
Ben
The negative points were:
- Shorter warranty: 1 year from Porsche Gmbh, 1 year "discretionary" by Porsche GB. Get it abroad and you'll only get the 1 from the factory. However is £750 for an additional year so you can account for it.
- Resale value: When you come to sell you'll take a hit for it being an import (even if UK spec'd)
- Dealer goodwill: Should things go wrong, you will wish to have some dealer goodwill rather than what you're legally entitled to under warranty. For example, lots on mine went wrong, necessitating it being with them 3 weeks in the two months BUT the dealer looked after me very well (including a host of equivilent loan cars) and I was glad for buying it from a local dealer.
If you're looking at saving cash, I would advise buying a second hand one. I'm quite sure an OPC can make the experience the same as brand new regarding preparation, warranty and goodwill.
Ben
pikey said:
I looked into doing this.
The negative points were:
- Shorter warranty: 1 year from Porsche Gmbh, 1 year "discretionary" by Porsche GB. Get it abroad and you'll only get the 1 from the factory. However is £750 for an additional year so you can account for it.
- Resale value: When you come to sell you'll take a hit for it being an import (even if UK spec'd)
- Dealer goodwill: Should things go wrong, you will wish to have some dealer goodwill rather than what you're legally entitled to under warranty. For example, lots on mine went wrong, necessitating it being with them 3 weeks in the two months BUT the dealer looked after me very well (including a host of equivilent loan cars) and I was glad for buying it from a local dealer.
If you're looking at saving cash, I would advise buying a second hand one. I'm quite sure an OPC can make the experience the same as brand new regarding preparation, warranty and goodwill.
Ben
The negative points were:
- Shorter warranty: 1 year from Porsche Gmbh, 1 year "discretionary" by Porsche GB. Get it abroad and you'll only get the 1 from the factory. However is £750 for an additional year so you can account for it.
- Resale value: When you come to sell you'll take a hit for it being an import (even if UK spec'd)
- Dealer goodwill: Should things go wrong, you will wish to have some dealer goodwill rather than what you're legally entitled to under warranty. For example, lots on mine went wrong, necessitating it being with them 3 weeks in the two months BUT the dealer looked after me very well (including a host of equivilent loan cars) and I was glad for buying it from a local dealer.
If you're looking at saving cash, I would advise buying a second hand one. I'm quite sure an OPC can make the experience the same as brand new regarding preparation, warranty and goodwill.
Ben
I p/ex'd my Boxster S which was I ordered from a German OPC and it made no difference to the price I got from the UK OPC. As long as it's C16 it's a UK car (which also have C16 code). Thw aiting time for me was much shorter for a UK car from a Germany OPC than from a UK OPC and the service was much, much better.
pikey said:
I looked into doing this.
The negative points were:
- Shorter warranty: 1 year from Porsche Gmbh, 1 year "discretionary" by Porsche GB. Get it abroad and you'll only get the 1 from the factory. However is £750 for an additional year so you can account for it.
- Resale value: When you come to sell you'll take a hit for it being an import (even if UK spec'd)
- Dealer goodwill: Should things go wrong, you will wish to have some dealer goodwill rather than what you're legally entitled to under warranty. For example, lots on mine went wrong, necessitating it being with them 3 weeks in the two months BUT the dealer looked after me very well (including a host of equivilent loan cars) and I was glad for buying it from a local dealer.
If you're looking at saving cash, I would advise buying a second hand one. I'm quite sure an OPC can make the experience the same as brand new regarding preparation, warranty and goodwill.
Ben
The negative points were:
- Shorter warranty: 1 year from Porsche Gmbh, 1 year "discretionary" by Porsche GB. Get it abroad and you'll only get the 1 from the factory. However is £750 for an additional year so you can account for it.
- Resale value: When you come to sell you'll take a hit for it being an import (even if UK spec'd)
- Dealer goodwill: Should things go wrong, you will wish to have some dealer goodwill rather than what you're legally entitled to under warranty. For example, lots on mine went wrong, necessitating it being with them 3 weeks in the two months BUT the dealer looked after me very well (including a host of equivilent loan cars) and I was glad for buying it from a local dealer.
If you're looking at saving cash, I would advise buying a second hand one. I'm quite sure an OPC can make the experience the same as brand new regarding preparation, warranty and goodwill.
Ben
Thinking about warranty definitively makes sense. Here in Switzerland, the Porsche dealers have an explicit goodwill fund for issues that pop up just after factory warranty ended. Of course, these funds are used for their own customers only. Heard of a 996tt whose engine got bust just a month after warranty finished. The dealer replaced it using the goodwill fund. You might want to check how things are in the UK with this.
I ran a Boxster for three years. It was an import for Cyprus.
Luckily it was a company car on contract hire so I had no trousering from the OPC when coming to sell it on..
However, what I can say is that the car was always OPC serviced and I never had any problems whatsoever with warranty claims.
It had one RMS change towards the end of year two and another in year three after the manu warranty had expired. I was expecting a bun fight to get the second seal replaced FOC but to my surprise they didnt even quibble - all done without any hassle at all.
That said, if it was my own car I wouldn't want to take the financial risk....
Luckily it was a company car on contract hire so I had no trousering from the OPC when coming to sell it on..
However, what I can say is that the car was always OPC serviced and I never had any problems whatsoever with warranty claims.
It had one RMS change towards the end of year two and another in year three after the manu warranty had expired. I was expecting a bun fight to get the second seal replaced FOC but to my surprise they didnt even quibble - all done without any hassle at all.
That said, if it was my own car I wouldn't want to take the financial risk....
Wasn't keen on the waiting list myself. Got a 3K miler Cayman S from the local OPC for a good saving on list with lots of toys that I like but wouldn't have specced for reasons for cost. Indistinguisable from new and a headstart saving on depreciation too. Cost less, got it immediately and got a mega-spec too. Recommended.
The cars for my uncle who now lives in Hong Kong. He travels back for a few weeks at a time throughout the year to check up on business's etc so he wants to have a car he can use when hes back. The plan is to keep the car for three years, then to export it back to Hong Kong where he lives, because the import tax on new cars is supposed to be stupid there. Even though its one of the cheapest places to buy a Merc, factor in the cost of tax etc and the final price is a lot higher.
Went to the Porsche dealership and the cheapest cayman s they had cost 47k. They said they were getting a demonstrator cayman in which he could buy in December for list price but I think it'll be a highly specced one.
Then just been searching around on the net and found you can get a brand new import cayman in less than a week for 37k which equates to UK list price but he can get it straight away and it won't matter about warranty since hes exporting the car in the future.
Alternatively, I'm trying to convince him to spend that little bit more and get a second hand 3.6 997.
Whilst i'm here I might as well ask, just about residuals for cars, is my uncle right in thinking that the Cayman is likely to hold its value best in three years time, or will a similar condition 911. By hold its value I mean lose the smallest overall cost when it comes to selling.
Thanx, Tony
Went to the Porsche dealership and the cheapest cayman s they had cost 47k. They said they were getting a demonstrator cayman in which he could buy in December for list price but I think it'll be a highly specced one.
Then just been searching around on the net and found you can get a brand new import cayman in less than a week for 37k which equates to UK list price but he can get it straight away and it won't matter about warranty since hes exporting the car in the future.
Alternatively, I'm trying to convince him to spend that little bit more and get a second hand 3.6 997.
Whilst i'm here I might as well ask, just about residuals for cars, is my uncle right in thinking that the Cayman is likely to hold its value best in three years time, or will a similar condition 911. By hold its value I mean lose the smallest overall cost when it comes to selling.
Thanx, Tony
qwertyford said:
Whilst i'm here I might as well ask, just about residuals for cars, is my uncle right in thinking that the Cayman is likely to hold its value best in three years time, or will a similar condition 911. By hold its value I mean lose the smallest overall cost when it comes to selling.
I would have thought the percentage loss would be about the same, so the 997 would lose more in actual value. But at the end of teh day the Cayman is still a new model so who knows? Our first Boxster was a C98 from Autobahn in Coventry. There wasn't a cost saving and I still believe they sell cars for list.
The car didn't have Porsche Assist but it did have a full 2 year warranty, although Porsche GB said it was 2 yrs from the day it landed in Cyprus and not when it was registered. That is something that Autobahn contested but that left us before I had to get to a stage where that would have been a problem.
I got the shock of my life when it went in terms of depreciation, all allegedly because it was a C98 car. Having said that I then discovered what a C16 would have fetched with identical spec and there was nothing in it. So I concluded the fact that I got a brand new Boxster immediately outweighed the difference.
Autobahn sell 250 new imports a year, so there are certainly a lot of people out there buying them. Indeed when I look back 2 years ago and think about their stocking levels and compare then to now, they must be selling an awful lot more cars because of the numbers they have (currently around 20 911's I think)
I did think about going back to them, but then decided to buy the demo car I now own, which oddly came with a saving.
The car didn't have Porsche Assist but it did have a full 2 year warranty, although Porsche GB said it was 2 yrs from the day it landed in Cyprus and not when it was registered. That is something that Autobahn contested but that left us before I had to get to a stage where that would have been a problem.
I got the shock of my life when it went in terms of depreciation, all allegedly because it was a C98 car. Having said that I then discovered what a C16 would have fetched with identical spec and there was nothing in it. So I concluded the fact that I got a brand new Boxster immediately outweighed the difference.
Autobahn sell 250 new imports a year, so there are certainly a lot of people out there buying them. Indeed when I look back 2 years ago and think about their stocking levels and compare then to now, they must be selling an awful lot more cars because of the numbers they have (currently around 20 911's I think)
I did think about going back to them, but then decided to buy the demo car I now own, which oddly came with a saving.
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