Tom R.

Besides wash and detail it. Please don't turn this into a pissing contest.

When I bought my red S2 in Sept. 2000 I had already looked at a few dogs. The car was at a dealer. I brought my friend who was a mechanic and my wife met us at the dealer. It was raining hard.

The car was inside, he looked under the car, played with the half-shafts, wiggled each wheel, poked around the belts, looked and smelled the fluids. I was looking at the paint under the fluorescent lights, comparing vins on the body panels, using the dealer's paint gage to see any variances.

You get the idea. The belts were just done by the dealer's wrench.

A few days after I bought the car the clutch went. I took it to the dealers mechanic, told him to fix the clutch on the dealers dime (we split the cost), and change every fluid on my dime.

I had an appointment with my wrench to change the fluids when I bought the car.

When I bought the gray S2 this past May, AndyK and Dave went with me. After the three of us gave the car a thorough up and down, I had Andy drive the car first to see if the pickup was as good as his S2. I guess thats a redneck compression test, no insult intended.

I drove the car home, parked it, then drove it to my mechanic to have the belts changed. They had something like 8k on them but were 4 or 5 years old. My mechanic changed the belts, coolant, and gave the car a thorough look over. a PPI as in Post Purchase Inspection.

When i bought the Z28 I drove it home (80 miles) then a few days later drove it to my mechanic. He changed the oil, and gave the car a thorough looking over and gave the car a PPI, he said I was getting ready for brakes at the next oil change.

I've owned well over 25 cars in the last 25 years. It seems like I went through this routine on just about every car. I didn't do it on the Legend Coupe I bought from my elderly neighbor when it came off a 4 year lease and had 10k on it. But that was because I took it to my mechanic every year for its oil change and inspection.

What is your routine? I hope the younger members will read this and learn from us.

Jason-85944

I looked at the car and said do I really want to sign the title over into my name or sell it? Of course it was free so I've decided to work out the problems.

This bad boy was rough!!!!

SD Porsche Fan

New belts, rollers and distributor. Purchased parts to fix sloppy shift lever but haven't installed them yet. The car was pretty well cared for. Just a lot of little things I need to do.

bloodraven

the red car..first thing I did was listen to it purr for a bit...then drove to my girlfriends house...then, the first thing I did was the power steering belt....

the grey one...first thing I did was put the k&n air filter in...soon to be putting in turbo pump, expansion tank, doing belts, possibly getting the intake off and doing myswiss kit, and the headers

RMills944

DROVE IT!!!

dgz924s

Flew to Dallas and drove it home to Iowa in 10 hours then 3 days later I participated in my first DE at MidAmerica in Omaha area. Caught the fever and proceeded to SPEND A TON OF CASH setting up for racing. A year and 3 months later I was signed off to race.

Z-man

I bought the car on June 18-2001. Two days later, I took the day off, washed & waxed it, registered and inspected it. That week, I replaced the after market rear licence plate bracket. That August, I swapped out the Blaupunkt head unit with a Blau CD unit.

Less than a month later, on July 15th, I took it to it's first autocross.

Then a couple months later, on September 14-15, 2001, I took it to it's first DE event at Lime Rock.
It needed a quart of oil after the event.

It was only in January, 2002 that I brought the car into the shop for a full-on 'overhaul.' That included the following:
1. Cam chain guide/tensioner
2. All belts, rollers
3. All gaskets and seals
4. Radiator fluid and tranny fluid flush
...

Since then, just about everything mechanical on the car has been touched! Drive it hard, and your'e gonna have to spend a little more $$ on maintenance and repairs... (Last big bill: replace cracked head - cost: ~ $5500.00. )

-Z-man.

sweanders

In Sweden we have to have an annual safety and emissions inspection for the car to be road legal that goes through all the important areas like lights, brakes, tires, suspension, rust, door handles, glass, window wipers and squirters and emissions. They also check the originality of the car and if it has been modified from stock they control that it is correctly done. Since I have bought most of my cars from other countries this has had to be done before I start using any of them under Swedish registration.

I also have a habit of taking the cars to a mechanic that I use for most car work and have him go through and we sort anything that might show when the car is on a lift. I wouldn't dare driving a car that wasn't properly inspected unless it was brand new.

Scott at Team Harco

Drove the car home and parked it for six months while I went through nearly everything to get it into realiable mechanical condition.

0) Bought a Haynes manual, Vertex catalog
1) Drained all fluids and replaced with fresh (new oil filter of course and fuel filter).
2) Belts, rollers, waterpump, etc
3) Distributor cap, rotor, plugs
4) Rebuilt calipers, new rotors and pads, new master cylinder and reservoir
5) New clutch master and slave cylinders
6) New Koni shocks all round, front sway bar bushings
7) Front wheel bearings, wheel spacers (to keep front tires from rubbing on the struts - due to wrong offset wheels)
8) Light bulbs, battery, alternator rebuild, rf turn signal assembly

Drove car for a couple of days and stripped 3-4 teeth off the pinion gear.
Another six months while I rebuilt the trans and did the clutch.

But hey - what do you expect for a $1000 car? Good thing I know how to wrench. I'd be in the poor house if I had to pay for someone else's labor. Also a good thing I enjoy working on cars.

Techno Duck

My car looked very similar to a unripe tomato. It sat outside for close to five years. Amazingly however the interior was great, no dash cracks. I spent almost an entire day polishing, clay baring, waxing and buffing the paint. I brought most of it back to life except ofr a shoddy respray with crappy paint on the hood (considering repainting it). I still need to work on smaller areas of paint around the door's window frame. The rest of the day was spent cleaing the interior.

KuHL 951

Both cars got fresh oil, coolant, and trans fluids. On the 83 I re-tracked the AFM to solve a funky throttle response. Next was recharging the AC with R-12. The 951 needed a little fender rolling and to replace the slider on the pass. seat. Other than that just the standard detailing and constant search for nuisance leaks. Both cars have been pretty reliable with down time for a 83 clutch the only long term project so far.

Porsche-O-Phile

944 - drove it home from San Fran. I had to stop & put gas in it, figure out how to work the lights (it was getting to be nightfall), bought a bunch of accessory stuff for it (a notebook to track mileage, gas, maintenance, etc., some glass cleaner wipes, some epoxy to re-attach the rearview mirror that the bonehead P.O. didn't fix, a tire pressure gauge, etc. I got intimately familiar and comfortable with it over the next 6 hours or so it took for me to get it home. I was hooked. Very shortly thereafter I discovered Pelican & Rennlist.

951 - saw it parked locally with "for sale" on it. Talked to guy; he ended up selling it to me through a used car dealership. Lots of problems initially - most have been solved.

BigRed

Rebuilt the brake calipers and replaced the brake pads...there were no brakes to speak of when I got this car. That was #1...

hacker-pschorr

Drove it home - almost hit a 12 point deer at 70mph, 10 minutes after buying it.

The Saturn in front of me was destroyed (well, all the rubbermaid on the front clip was ripped off).

Other than that, didn't do much but detail and drive the car (first speeding ticket about 1 month later) until the water pump blew 3 months later.

Porsche-O-Phile

Actually, the 951 didn't even make it the three miles home. It gave me that dreaded "!" light immediately after picking up the keys. I went to put gas in it and there it died. No battery. Turned out the alternator belt had snapped due to a siezed a/c compressor clutch pulley. The first of a host of "it's been sitting too long" problems. I do love her though. . . many hours of wrenching later.