Up in Canada the price for 944s has remained failry high so you dont have every regular joe buying one. In the states however they can sell for next to nothing sometimes and with a lowclass price comes lowclass buyers who do not have the money to keep one of these cars running. It all starts with the previous owners as well though. I'm a big believer in fizing any problem that occurs. If a switch breaks fix it, if there is a leak repair it. Don't put it off because eventually all the problems willl start to snowball and before you know it you're left with a heep. I dont think that issues such as this are 944 specific either though. I have seen my fair share of beat *** 928's and 911's. Where the 944 will nickel and dime you to death the 911 although less complicated will 5 dollar and 10 dollar bill you to death as any problems that occur with those cars are usually much more serious.

 

Serge, you beat me to it. If he can't control even his own anger over a 944 repair, a 951 will cause a meltdown.
That 951 will wind up in the "parts" bin. Anyone care for a friendly wager on this?
My outlook does not seem encouraging? I'm just going by what I read.
Rock, to think someone started a thread to help get you parts for your car after you busted it up. And you still can't still can't control your rants!

 

Rock I appreciate you saying this. Man you have just had terrible luck overall. The yellow car has a strong motor/tranny and the exterior is pretty nice, but it does need some other help. You will get it man, just gonna take soem work. Sorry for my somewhat angry post. You will let me know if you need anything, or want some help wont you?

 

David,
100% agreed, esp. is the case with 930's!!!!, overall in my opinion a mechanically good condition 930 just seems rarer than a mechanically sound 951 that is all. Just from my personal experience. But this going to very GREATLY on a case to case basis.

 

Glad to hear that!

I let you drive my car last nite to show you how nice these cars can drive, and look if properly maintained and loved on. My car turned 20 years old last month (BOD of 4/10/1985). I hope that helped!

Get with me next weekend and we'll do that work we talked about on your car.

Take care,

Jeremy

 

ken whats the take over on your cobra payments? what color? PM me.. the only problem i ran into was insurance with the cobra when i was 22.. im 25 now (and pay 1100 a year for my porsche, dodge aires (sigh) and my 99 suzuki katana) so PM me when you get a chance with more details

 

Yeah!!! Jeremy let me drive his car! IT WAS AWESOME. It was sooo nice inside and out. The brakes were amazing.

Anyway thanks for all the input guys, im back to my old 944 obsessed self again. I actually had a nightmare last night. I let two of my buddies borrow the yellow and they drove it then got out and beat it for some reason. The whole front was all dented up and i was angry. Then i woke up! Woo.

 

Hey Rock,

That's great to hear that the dark clouds have blown away.

I read an interesting review of the 944 series in a magazine called "Practical Classics" from the UK. They rated the car as being very well built etc. and talked about the usual areas of needed upkeep and the relative high cost of parts etc. But the most interesting line in the article was when they were summarizing the engine and said (I'm paraphrasing, as I don't have the article handy): "The engine is typical Porsche: Follow the maintenance requirements diligently and it will have tremendous longetivity, however, if you let it slide, it can be turned into scrap in 40000 miles."

The more time goes, the more I believe that that is very true. It sounds like your yellow car is fundamentally OK from the mechanical point of view, you will stick with it and get it to that point of being sorted and reliable. It may take longer (and cost more $$) to do everything right, but it will be worth it. Better to wait a month or two to get the funds together to complete a job with all the right parts than to try to compromise to get it done faster/cheaper (only possible if you don't have to rely on it as a daily driver). I'm sure you know all this, just reminding 'ya.

P.S. Each time you go through this, it helps for the next time you get really frustrated. You will reach the point that when something really $#&@s up, you'll just calmly walk away for a few days. I have always found it is a mistake to work mad. Oh, and keep sledge hammers and other "ultimatum" tools far away!

Take care.

 

Good to hear all your steams out now. Someting that makes me feel better about the whole thing is total cost of ownership (it also comes in handy justifyng it to my lovely wife).

One of the reasons I bought my S2 was cost. I never like to spend too much on cars if I can help it! At the same time I bought my S2, I bought a minivan. Over the last 2 years, the S2 has cost me about $2500, mainly from replacing the cam belt. Other than that its been no trouble (it has had some really caring previous owners). The 'riceburner' minivan (Nissan) has cost me about $800 for bits and pieces.

Seems the minivan is cheaper? Not so. I'm about to sell the 'van and I'll get about $4,000 less than I bought it for. If I sold the S2, I'd probably lose about $1,000 on the sale.

I always tend to buy 'good' classics. Can't comment on the older 944's, but my S2 seems to be built rock solid, not a hint of rust and has been utterly reliable. I had an older Merc SL and same story. I was considering buying a new 'performance' car, but I was looking at at least $10,000 per year depreciation/interest charges. Ooch.

I'll be keeing my Porsche thanks. But if it goes wrong and starts eating my money, I too have sledgehammers a-plenty (and gas and matches and a lake nearby and some dodgy mates).

 

An 85 Carrera in show room new condition vs 85.5 944 in show room new condition. 85.5 944 is much more modern and solid car.

Problem is that average 85.5 944 has been beat to hell and back where as the Carrera has been garaged all its life and probably well kept.

Just remember that the Carrara's were relativly primitave cars back in the mid to late 80's. What keep them going was not how great of a car, but their character. Simply few cars every produced have the character of a 911. However they are still an evolution of an early 1960's design which it self evolved from a 50's design which traces roots to a 30's design. Talk about long in the tooth. Please don't take this to mean a 911 is crap. It is certainly not. A mid 80's 911 is bordering on a "vintage" car while a 944 especially the 85.5 is bordering on a "modern car".

 

Reminds me of the Toyota 4 runner stater motor.

Well my Sister-in laws 2000 4 runner had bad battery. So I changed it. Easy. Turns out that starter motor was dying too. That caused the batter to fail in the first place. So I ask her run over the auto parts store and get a starter motor. $150 buck for a rebuilt one. We I crawl under and spend 30 min just trying find that damn starter. Then 30 min trying to figure how it will get to it. Another hour getting it loose. Then 1 hr trying to get it out of the engine compartment with out removing the entire front suspension and steering. The 1 hour putting it back it after I failed.


Turns out I need to remove the motor mount on one side to crank the engine far enough from the frame to pull the starter.

On my 944's a stater motor is 45 min job (1 hr if you include jacking up/down and a beer to celebrate).

 

ALL cars have their problems. I had a '70 Mercury Montery "Ploiice Cruiser" that I bought at a California Highway Patrol auction for $900.00, and the first thing I ran into was I could not get to the last two spark plugs unless I disconnected the motor mounts and jacked the engine up. I don't even want to think about working on a front wheel drive transvers engine. Yeeeeecccchhhh!

As far as Porsches go, it has been my observation that generally the 911s are in much better shape because of how the owners treat them. 911s get babied, pampered and get to sleep in covered climate controled garages, while 914s, 924s, 944s and 951s get no respect at all.

In Rock's case, I'd wager that he fell in lust (just like I did with my '84) and got in over his head. There is a lot of "shoulda, woulda, coulda" advice available, but generally first time buyers haven't done their homework, so they have no idea what to expect. BTDT, burned the T-Shirt.

On the other hand, Rock can turn these "lemons" into some lemon aide.

If I were in Rock's shoes I would decied which car to focus on and get that one up and running. Then decide what to do with the other car. He can fix it, part it, or sell it.

If he decides to fix the second car, he will have two to drive. If he decides to either part or sell the second car he can roll the money into the first.

This is what I did with my '84 and '87.

When I bought the '84 it had a lot of problems, but with some cash and elbow grease I had that car purring like a kitten, and I put over 40K miles on it.

Then I bought an '87 with 240K on the odometer. This car had a busted starter, missing teeth on the starter ring gear, no speakers, cracked dash, bad shocks, weak brakes, no A/C, and some cosmetic issues. I got the car running with a new starter and ring gear, fixed the A/C, and installed new speakers.

When I sold the '84, I took the cash and bought shocks, sturt inserts, water pump, head gasket kit, belts, rollers, caliper rebuild kits, dash cover, ball joint re-build kits, and some other odds and ends. Once I had all of that work done, I once again had a reliable daily driver.

Then I bought an '86 951. This car had (and still has) some issues, but it was in better shape than the '87NA, and it is a turbo, so I thought the 6 grand was a fair price.

The first thing I did was replace the tires. Then I started on some of the minor issues, until #2 exhaust gasket blew. What I didn't know was that one of the exhaust studs was cracked, so when I went to take the exhaust mainfold off, the stud broke. This simple gasket replacement turned into a full blown head gasket job.

The downside was that I really didn't have the cash to do the job right away, but the upside was I had another car to drive, and while the 951 was down I got to do a lot of cleaning, painting and polishing.

After all of that work and expense I have two cars to drive, NO CAR PAYMENTS, and I know every nook and cranny of both cars. The are reliable, don't use a lot of gas, and both are fun to drive.

 

I'm with Rock.. these cars are f'n headaches. I have never babied a car as much as this. I can honestly say if you don't know a thing about fixing cars than don't even bother buying a 944 because it will always be at your mechanic. My friend has over 170k miles on his MR2 turbo and that thing has never given him a problem once! Not once! He beats on that car all day long and it takes the abuse like no other car ive seen.

But thats the reason I'm getting rid of my car. I can't deal with fixing it anymore.

 

A friend (who has a showroom 928, beater 944, and a 924 he is 60% through making electric for a tax break), and I were having a conversation the other day about one of his students wanting to becoming a mechanic. We figured instead of going to school, he could just buy a Porsche. The kid would either learn how to fix cars really quickly, or go broke having someone else fix it for him!

 

V944...

Do consider that you added over 100 more hp to your 951 (50% power increase).

Do that to ANY car and more crap will break than you kept it at stock power levels.