I bought a Boxster… on eBay
Yep, it’s true. I just won the auction for a car I’ve never seen and never driven. And it’s not even a cheap, disposable car but a black, 2002 Porsche Boxster S with 54,000 miles.
Yes, there’s a story behind this. Do you have a few minutes?
First, I should admit that I have wanted a ‘new’ car for some time. It need not be a showroom-new car, but new for me. Something nicer than the Explorer, smaller and sportier. More comfortable, too. And, I had a plan, a simple plan: When we had a third child, Kelley would get a new minivan and I would get the BMW 540i wagon. That would do nicely. I enjoyed driving the 540i, as did Kelley, but she would need more room to cary three kids plus all their paraphernalia, right? It was settled, or so I thought. Then last October, someone ran a red light and ran into Kelley as she was coming home from dropping Emma off at school. The BMW was totaled.
With Margot on the way, we started shopping for a new vehicle. Should we get another SUV or wagon? We started looking at wagons and SUVs, trying to find one that was roomy, comfortable and roomy. We found some good candidates, but nothing we were really thrilled with. While looking at Honda SUVs, we also looked at the Odyssey and were impressed enough that we decided that was the way we wanted to go. But this shot my well-laid plan all to pieces. Kelley now had the minivan, but I still had the Explorer and no BMW anywhere on the horizon.
I was able to put the idea of a new car out of my mind for a few months, but by the summer of this year I was out prowling through dealers’ lots on Sunday afternoons. I looked at everything—station wagons, SUVs, trucks, coupes and everything in between. At a local Mercedes Benz dealer, I found a C230 coupe and things started to click—this was more what I was after. I wanted a small, light car that I could use to go back and forth to work and maybe have some fun doing so. I didn’t want another SUV or a truck or even a sporty station wagon (although we were very close to buying a Volvo V70R, but that’s another story). I wasn’t planning on carrying much stuff or many people, that’s what we have the Odyssey for. A few dealerships later and I found a Boxster.
Now, I should say that when Porsche introduced the Boxster back in 1998, I wasn’t impressed. That’s being kind. I thought that they had really dropped the ball with the styling, it was too flat-sided compared to the curvaceous 997-series 911s which I thought were the ultimate expression of Porsche styling.
Still, here I was, standing in a used car lot looking at a Boxster wondering if this would suit my needs. It was small, light and fun. Best of all, it was a convertible. I hadn’t given it much thought before, but hadn’t I always wanted a convertible? It was just like a motorcycle except you don’t need to wear a helmet, you can carry stuff, and you can stay dry when it rains. I had warmed to the styling over the years, and it was a real Porsche, not like those 914 and 924s. Hmmm…. this might work.
Turns out that the dealer wanted too much for the car that I was looking at so I started scouting around on eBay. Not most people’s first choice for a place to buy something like a car, perhaps, but good deals can be found if you know what you’re looking for and are patient. I was looking for a 2002 Boxster S and I had a good idea of the colors and options that I wanted, but the car had to be in good shape, and it had to be affordable. (Affordable Porsche, now there’s a true oxymoron.) I didn’t need to wait long.
I found a 2002 Boxster S with 54,000 miles in Buffalo, NY, in under a week. Better still, there was no reserve on the auction. High bid would win, so I could bid what I felt comfortable with and not worry about meeting a reserve. I called the seller and asked some preliminary questions. I was satisfied with the answers enough to do a bit more research about the car. I found that it may have been sold by the Porsche dealer in Nanuet and was owned by someone from New City. I also found out that it was involved in a minor accident, but couldn’t find out more. So I called the seller back and asked him to go over every inch of the car to find any signs of collision damage and to check for a few other problems that are known to crop up. The seller, Jim Cleary, went over the car and said that it looked like the rear bumper may have been repainted, but that the car didn’t show any signs of collision work, even underneath. He gave me a list of things he knew were wrong with the car. The front bumper had a number of stone chips and could due with being color sanded and re-sprayed, and the tires needed to be replaced.
Jim and I spoke more over the next couple of days, and I also talked to my bank to find out about financing. I finally called Jim back just before the end of the auction and offered him what I felt was a fair price. He checked with his business partner and they agreed to my offer. The hitch was that I needed to bid on eBay, even if the winning bid was over our verbal agreement. Jim said he would stand by our agreement, regardless of what the final bid was, so long as I actually won the auction. I didn’t have anything in writing, not even so much as a handshake, just the word of someone who was 350 miles away and wanted to sell a car. Not promising, you say? Perhaps, but I felt that Jim had been open and honest and decided to trust him. I entered a bid that was well above our agreed price, one certain to win the auction.
And win I did. I spoke with Jim again after the auction closed and he’s already started to make out the paperwork with our agreed price. Now I just need to get some funds together and fly up to Buffalo to pick up my new used Porsche.