Hi all:

I am looking to buy a 1980's vintage sports car. I have it down to 924, 928, 944 or Supra.

My question is, how difficult it is to work on Porsche's in compassion to working on vehicles like Toyota's? I am not a mechanic but I have done all my own maintenance and repairs on my all the vehicles I have owned: 3 Land Cruisers (1994 has 460,000 mi when I sold it), 1996 Supra (Daily driver for 150 mi per day commute, sold) and Rav4, Camry. I found it easy to work on all of them as long as I used the Toyota Service Manuals and/or help from Internet. I have yet to have to hire a mechanic for any repair other than to charge the A/C system after I fixed the problem. Pulling a dash to fix a heater hose, rebuilding a differential, tearing into an automatic transmission are things I have done without much issue.

Are the Porsche service manuals easy to understand for a non Porsche mechanic?

Do they need a lot of expensive specialty tools to do regular maintenance and repairs?

Cruise Control and A/C is mandatory for me. I tend to drive long distances for fun and commuting (when I do have a job that requires commuting). Can adding CC be a "do it your self" job to add Cruise Control to a Porsche that doesn't have it?

 

The 944 and 924 series are no harder to work on than a Toyota for many maintance items. As with any car there are some jobs that are more difficult. Lots of help here, on YouTube and clarks garage website.

The 928 is a bit more complex but still manageable for maintance.

Many 944's came with cruise and air. Some even still work. I topped up my ac 4 years ago and it still works great. I had to replace my cruise computer and it has worked perfect since.

 

The AC works well in the later cars (85.5+), and cruise control was a common option. Best to just buy an example already so equipped rather than trying to retrofit one.

They're actually (IMO) generally pretty simple cars to work on. The non-turbo models, at least. The Turbos are of course the top of the heap in terms of performance, especially modified, but there's a lot less room to work in the engine bay and more complexity.

They are very reliable cars for their vintage, assuming they're kept up to date on maintenance. I wouldn't hesitate to take mine on a long road trip even though it has well over 200K on it at this point.

 

You shouldn't have a problem working on an 80's Porsche. You'll have a good excuse to buy a few more tools.

For when you buy one, here's a video I found recently on repairing the 944 cruise control.