Cole

Again, at what age? A 30 year old car with only 75k or less on it suffers from unique issues. It can sit so much that grease meant to be regularly spread around dries up and fails to to gravity.


I rebuilt my TT because the previous owner was a fan of dumping the clutch, which broke the throw out bearings sleeve, that rode on the shaft splines wearing them smooth over who knows how many miles. But the bearings were still good at 140k+

pontifex4

These and the odometer gears were what I was going to mention, too. You could also argue that the timing chains on the 16v motors (where no maintenance interval is specified) are a weak point, but knowing about that is the cure, and most do now. I guess you could complain about the hatch glass materials choice, but I'm not sure anything better was available at the time anyway.

Oh, and the one design failure that I can point to for sure is on the doors of early cars: they get that crack in the sheet metal by the trailing edge of the door frame from repeated opening and closing.

xschop

The Driveshaft harmonics dictate which TT bearing takes the most vibes. From experience it is the very rear one. I have my own solution for that issue now.

TexasRider

My 86 951 is like yours and only 27 years old in just a few days.

In 2010 I decided to go all through it and make it as good as it could be because there are so few good 944 and 951's out there. Yes it cost more than a little bit, but the car deserved it and I wanted to do it. Besides I had thought about putting it in the Targa Newfoundland and I wanted it , and would need it , at near 100%.

I used mostly Porsche parts and a fair number of guys told me I could use less priced parts. True enough. But you know what - those Porsche parts lasted and were still rolling after 25 YEARS of use! So darn sure good enough for me to go back with again .

I dont know if it true, but I read somewhere that it is estimated that only around 2,000 excellent 951 and 944 examples remain. Of course they all live here on RL.

Hoses, belts and the cooling system require attention on these cars other than consumables like tires, brakes, rubber goods, and suspension etc.

Mine is still riding on its original Konis. I have intended to change that but if I am getting a new Cayenne for the wife and picking it up in Germany it may have to wait a bit longer . And maybe a new clutch one day too just to complete my refresh. Better check that torque tube too .

With the head off of mine the bores and pistons looked great. I did of course go with new rod bearings just because, but they were as good as new as far as I could tell coming out. The head gasket - well it was not so good and needed replacement. Before I did it too.

People buy these cars thinking they are going to be perfect, built by Porsche after all , 20, 25, or 30 years old, and there are going to be things that ANY car needs and breaks in that time.

Mine rolled out the door in September 1985 for $36,000 and the bank had to be sure I could pay for this EXpensive car. If I asked $20,000 for it now guys would pop a gut and say they can get one cheap, less than $5,000. It happens at every car show. I always say " Hey that's great. Let me know how that turns out."

But you do have to keep an eye on belts, hoses, and cooling or bad things will happen.

And a lot of these cars have had bad things happen to them. For a while. Like abuse, neglect, and punishment from a series of owners. And generally they soldier on with some new love and attention.

Without getting too bold, I believe I could put the key in mine today and drive it to just about anywhere here in lower 48, and back to Texas, without any problems. And do some sporty driving along the way. Could I break the car if I wanted to - sure - with 20 years of racing behind me I can break about any of them. But the point is to enjoy it without breaking it.

I had a new 1981 Buick Regal, then a 1984 Olds Cutlass, and then a hot 1986 Volvo 760 Turbo. It would truly be something to see how these as a group compares to the 951 here now in 2012. I am betting that not a single one of those cars survived no matter how much maintainance they had. I know the Volvo was working on its third or fourth turbo when I last saw it around 1994 or so.

Are these the end all of the best cars ever built - Nope. But they are better than you might think in a lot of ways.

Any of you done any air cooled 911 motor rebuilds , or better yet any 930's in a while LOL LOL. When you start with $10 or $12,000 in parts you know it could get expensive fast. One of best buddies made me scream laughing the other day about the 911. He opened up my 911 factory service manual for the 951 and pretended it was a 911. Page One he says " Remove motor from Car." Ane he repeated that for all subsequent items " Remove motor from car" It was hilarious.!!

Enjoy these cars while you can is all I can say.

divil

Thread can't be closed - you haven't posted a pic of a V8 yet

Cole

Not if it has reached it's lifespan. It would be unrealistic to expect the same life out of every application and material in a car.


I disagree for the following reasons. The use of the friction material is not directly proportional to the use of the rubber center and the two materials age differently.

For example a driver that drives in city traffic with a fresh rubber clutch will wear the friction material much faster than a user that does all highway miles where the rubber can simply age.

This is an excellent example. But we need to look at "Why" the speedo gear crumbles. Obviously the material technology at the time of production did not make a speedo gear that withstood decades of exposure to the elements.

So what is the average age and climate of these speedo gear failures? Mine was bad, but I scavenged a good one out of a higher mileage older car So it must have lived in a different climate?! (Or was garaged, etc)

Once replaced with a modern material there are no repeat failures! So this seems to be an aging, weathering related failure of the material design. But could kinda be argued that if you "took care of the car" it might not have happened.

Simple and cheap enough fix, also one that does not leave you on the side of the road.


What about them? Old rubber seals dry up when sitting. Maintenance item.

Most, not all, of these are with upgraded clutch components. (Heavier clamping force pressure plates)

However, Porsche did modify the design and the later cars and factory replacement part are heavier duty and I have not seen one of those break with factory parts. (Or even the upgraded parts)

FWIW, I broke a clutch fork. On an early turbo, with a KEP pressure plate and race track use

How often has a heathy regularly maintained belt failed? (And with maintained associated parts)

This is a maintenance item. Fail to maintain it, let it get old and weathered and you could suffer the consequences. Same with Audis, Nissans, Hondas, etc.

This is the type of thing I'm thing about. Most of these cars have made it hundreds of thousands of miles when maintained. The failures seem to come from failures to maintain. Timing belt broke? When was it last changed? Oh, the car sat for ten years and developed rust in the waterpump or tensioner bearings and you were surprised that they failed and tore your timing belt?


Again these seem to be age, use and weathering issues most of the time.


This would be the real thing to know now wouldn't it? What were the issues for the first, real, owners as they put the first hundred thousand miles on the car in say the first ten years

ZR8ED

Wow and no one has mentioned the one that Porsche admitted to! Fuel line recall to avoid catstrophic failure and possible death. (my tongue is in my cheek here folks.)

Design "Flaws" not very many. Poor design "choices" possibly. ie interference heads that use rubber belts. Yes they are designed to last 30K. I say a poor choice when 100k intervals are possible with the use of chain, or at least design a non interference head (like Ford's 2.3 4 cyl) so if the belt goes, simply put on another and keep driving.
But you can't argue the choices a car company made 25 yrs ago. There are a million reason that go into why a part is designed that way..hindsight is 20/20 ya know.

xschop

Control arm longevity is directly proportional to number of pothole encounters.
Most used 944's I've bought have the strut top mounts sagging almost guaranteeing control arm ball-joint service/replacement.

divil

Everyone seems to have the same experiences with the cars, just a different definition of "reliable". To some people it means "won't break", to some it means "didn't break while I had it" and to others it means "doesn't break within it's intended life span".

How long should odometer gears last? If the manual had a replacement schedule for things like this, we'd say it was ridiculous - on the other hand it's ridiculous to expect them to last forever. They lasted longer than the manufacturer needed them to. The truth is that all 944s are living on borrowed time. How long was the warranty originally on the car? That is how long the manufacturer cares about it! When you buy a car there is an implicit understanding that nothing will go catastrophically wrong for a certain time. 20 years down the line, all bets are off in my opinion.

xschop

Flat-tappet camshaft design and a rediculous double-sump lifter design...tic,tick,tick,tick....

Most people don't have a clue that these engines were designed for high Zn-P oils, just like motorcycle engines of the time. So either the cat is clogged or bearing journals/cams/lifters are worn out before 100K

Cole

That is kind of a good one. This is one point I can think of where a part you really would not expect to replace as maintenance has an issue.

Are they breaking under "normal" use, probably. It's just a door. Although, the crack is really cosmetic since they don't really prevent you from using the door

Yeah. Like stated above my bearings weren't bad. I did take apart 3 TT to get a good shaft and enough bearing carriers for my rebuild. All of the bearings were in different spots, no consistency between them. (Laid doesn't the shafts side by side and compared the wear marks). In the end I rebuilt mine with 5 carriers/bearings instead of 4 to help spread the load.

Cole

Suspension components are always a wear item, no matter what car you have. How "often" are these items being replaced? My guess is that most of us doing the replacement now, on 27 year old, high mileage cars, are replacing the factory parts.

So here would be a Maintenance issue, proper oil? And again, at what year and mileage is noise developing? This noise isn't preventing cars from running most of the time.

Most of the lifter failures seem to be on cars that have sat, a lot! Letting the oil eventually work it's way out of the lifters. Probably not an issue if the car has been constantly driven.

xschop

If you don't re-passivate the shaft at the wear points you'll be back in the same boat in no time soon. I'm not sure what material Porsche originally used for the bearing inserts but it's not very steel-wear friendly.... Knowing their design module it's probably not Galvanic neutral either. But that could have very well been their plan all along.....planned obsolescence anyone?

TexasRider

I hate Porsches decision to use a timing belt on these cars - I do. But there are issues with noise, with lubrication, and with what happens when the chain gets long to drive everything then maybe the belt is more reliable in some applications ( this probably aint one them) , and then what happens when it breaks too. Most of it had to be for costs - but I still hate it.

Cole

Which wear points do you choose? Which of the three shafts would you consider right? None had "grooves" in them, just surface polishing. That is why I put 5 bearings in it, space equally, all on fresh surfaces. I rebuilt my shaft about 4-5 years ago and it has been flawless as a near daily driver and track cars since.

You can still buy many 944 parts brand new (including a new body tub) so I doubt Porsche has planed obsolescence. They are very proud of their longevity and the number of cars still on the road.