a person in my neighborhood who noticed that i took a liking to 944s has offered to sell me his s2. im not sure what year it is but its black with black interior , has 117,XXX miles on it and a manual trans. i havent had a chance to ask him about maintenence and recipts but the interior and exterior of the car seem to be in pretty good shape. my questions are... what could this car be worth? what are the typical problems with s2's? are there any specific things i should look for?

i bought a 86 n/a about 6 months ago and its been nothing but trouble (like ive driven it about 2 miles) and i want to be a more educated buyer this time so any help would be greately appriceated.

T (very much) IA

freshlax944

 

the ususal, belts belts belts and belts, clutch age, blah blah blah. study the faq, look at the car and report back.

 

thats what i thought. dont worry ill report back, and if were lucky... with pics.

freshlax944

 

i guess it can be said that the 944 achillies heel is rubber. rubber clutch, rubber belts. the rest is pretty durable. keep us posted.

 

Chain tensioner to, if I am not mistaken?

 

Yes, the chain tensioner pad needs to be checked and probably replaced at 117K miles. The procedure is not hard (search around or read on), and comprises of pulling the cam cover off, pushing down on the chain on the tensioner, and sticking a small allen wrench into the hole on the tensioner piston to keep it down. Once there, you can move the chain out of the way and see what sort of condition the nylon pad the chain is dragging on is in.

If this pad has a crack, don't even start the car!

If the pad breaks loose, the chain will grab the steel tensioner piston end, and rip it right out of the head mounting, so now you've got a 2-3 lbs piece of steel rattling around in your aluminum head, banging on your cams, and your intake valves going out of timing with your pistons, which will probably collide in the process as well.

Can you say $5K to fix all of that? Didn't think so.