Mister Quickie

Moving and can only keep/maintain one car.
Immediate thought was to sell the 944 but high mileage modded 944s so for pennies.
Was thinking of selling the A4 and just using the 944 since I've done a lot of DIY stuff on it and I know the car.

Anyone here use a 944 as their only car and if so, are things working out well in terms of maintenance, reliability, frequency of parts failing, etc.

V2Rocket

I daily-drove my 944 as my only vehicle from 2006-2015.
Things happened along the way but nothing too major that required a period of extended downtime (aside from a few months of crash repair... )

Having a lot of spare parts on hand certainly helped, though.
In 2009 I blew up my transmission while cruising the highway in the afternoon, luckily was only about 20 miles from home where I had a spare trans on the shelf...I had a drivable car by night time.

2 years ago I bought my Subaru to be my main car and now drive the 944 on random evenings and weekends when the mood strikes, or if the Subaru is being worked on.

MAGK944

As long as you start with a well maintained car, and keep on top of the maintenance and repairs, the 944 will perform the daily duty. If you are the sort of person who doesn't fix things straightaway or puts off maintenance, it's not going to end well.

There is nothing worse than being stranded, towed home, having to rent a car to get to work and spending all your free time in the evenings and weekends fixing your only means of transport. Been there, done that, will never go there again....





....though I do admit my current fleet of eight cars is overkill.

phast930

I daily drove a 944 turbo for years with no issues, just keep up with your maintenance.

odonnell

I drive my NA most days. But I have a 4Runner as my dedicated Porsche support vehicle, so if I want to work on the 944 (or have to..knock on wood), there's no logistics games or schedule gymnastics. Although i trust this car to be a daily, having a 2nd car is ideal. I had this NA as my only car for 3 years and it worked out. I learned a lot very quickly and I always had buddies if I needed a ride because of my broken car. Which happened a lot because of wiring gremlins.

FRporscheman

My general advice would be to keep the car that has had better maintenance and is more mechanically solid.

(In general, I'd also say don't rely on an Audi as an only car, I speak from experience, LOL)

I daily drove a 944 for most of my university days, and I've been doing it in a 951 for the last year. They're very reliable cars as long as you do the wrenching on time. I do own other cars but they're not driveable... I have total confidence in the Porsche.

951Dreams

.... I would never have ANY 20+ year old car as my ONLY driver. Most of the time I own 4 cars, most of the time 2 at least are working well enough to get around.

Having taken a 944 down to the bare block (and a couple of years reading the forums), I can say the 944 is at least as reliable as any other car it's age. The timing belt change interval may be a little more important than others, but as long as you do it every 3y/30k it shouldn't be an issue.

There are cars out there that were simply poorly made pieces of junk, Porsche isn't one of them.

SloMo228

My 944S was my DD for several years, even through the winter and on several long road trips. It did the job just fine, but if you're like me and can't resist modding your cars, it's much better to have another so that you can take your time on working on the 944 instead of having to rush and work past midnight to re-build the suspension over the weekend so you can drive to work on Monday morning.

But yeah, if your car's up to date on maintenance, and you can resist the temptation to always have it taken apart for improvements, I wouldn't hesitate to have a 944 as a DD again.

Voith

Nice 944 yes, stripped interior, neglected, everything wrong 944, no way.

pfarah7

While not a daily driver, I put over 7,500 miles on my 84 last year alone with no problems. Just maintain these cars...

Flammulator

For most of the last 18 months, my 944 was my only car. I've put about 17,000 miles on it, and it's never given me an issue that prevented me from driving it. I'd definitely hesitate to recommend it as an only car if you don't have tools and interest to perform most of the maintenance on it. Many of the plastic/rubber components haven't aged well, and every couple months I've found myself repairing something small and slightly annoying, but if you don't mind that, and can find one that's been well treated, it could be far worse.

I figured that during the last year owning my 2005 Jetta TDI, I spent more money keeping it on the road (had to hire out for most of the work) than I did buying, insuring, and maintaining my 944 myself for a year.

I would be lying if I said it hasn't given me peace of mind to have a back-up vehicle (2002 Tacoma) now, though. It's nice to know if something happens with the 944, I don't need to drive it, and it's okay if it takes replacement parts time to get to me. That said, so far, the 944 has been more reliable than the Tacoma...

Flammulator

...and reading over your post again, it's clear you know how to do some work on the 944.

Our experiences with VW/Audi may differ, but my vote is for the 944 staying.

austin944

My '84 has been my only car on and off for the past 16 years. However I only drive it about 7K miles per year. About once a year it requires a major repair and I need to find alternative transportation for a week or however long it takes me to repair it. Last year was the steering rack and the year before the water pump blew.

Around here, we have "car2go" which is a rental car program where the rentals are picked up and dropped off on the street anywhere within a prescribed boundary in the city. You just show an ID car to the electronic box on the dash, get in and drive off. Otherwise I might take the bus and/or the train to get to work. If I drove more or didn't have access to public transportation, I definitely would get a second car.

Kwazii

Reseal/replace as much rubber as possible, replace vacuum lines, new wire harness. If you really want to step it up, switch to a modern standalone engine management (which would also take care of the wire harness)

Edit: this was supposed to be in the "Making a 944 Reliable" thread but ended up here by accident...

Christopher Zach

My 944S was my primary car for 20+ years and over 200k miles. Worked well. These days the 928S is the daily driver which allows me to fiddle around with the 944S and fix all the annoying stuff. Otherwise they can pile up.