Cole

A few years back I picked up my 951 with nearly every system in the car broken. It had nearly 140k miles on the broken odometer.

When I dug into the car I noticed not a single "design issue" that contributed to its condition. EVERYTHING that did not work was either neglected, abused, poorly modded or simply old and weathered(due to sitting in the Arizona sun covered with bird crap for 26 years)

If you do a little research you will discover that Porsche is regaurded as one of the most reliable deign firms on earth and other manufacturers task stuff to them to design. The reason Porsche cars are more pricey is partly because they strive for performance and reliability.

When you read about the 944/951/968 historically it is often referred to as a reliable car. Which is easily proven when you take a look around you at how many miles are on most of our cars. I personally know of at least 5 200k+ cars that are still driven, 2 300k+ cars, and almost everyone else has at least 150k ish. These cars got this way because they run, period.

The cars have come and gone and come again in popularity! So like any car of the 70s/80s once they had fairly high miles on them, many of them sat still until a new enthusiast came along with interest in the car.

So here is the question! and I ask you to put some quantifiable thought into this before answering.


What on a 944 is actually "unreliable"?

Now think about this for a second! If the part lasted 26 years or 150k miles before YOU happened to be the guy replacing it. Does that actually make it unreliable, or jut that you were the one that ran into the problem?

Rubber center clutch discs for example! Many of the original ones lasted easily 100k or longer with normal driving! Do we as a new generation of enthusiast want a more durable one we can abuse? Of course!! Does that mean that the stock one was actually an "unreliable part?" No, not for its original intended purpose and lifespan!

Adam K

Fantastic thread. I'm eager to see the responses, being a new '87 944 owner myself.

xschop

Nikasil has a short heat cycle life compared to regular alloy casting. Watch the bolt threads in the block and pay close attention to torque values.

Other than that, the grease seals in the power racks have a mind of their own.

Cole

None of the cars I mentioned above with 200-300k have rebuilt motors Few of the Renlisters cars have had rebuilt motors And I would bet most of them are 100k-200k cars.

So unless you can point to some specific failures of STOCK cars with low miles that did not sit with no oil moving for 20 years then this does not sound like a reliability issue.

ditch68

In my observation (opinion), the biggest thing is the timing belt issue, and a lot of that reputation was and is fuelled by the early failures and Porsche's reaction to the issue. I have to admit, no matter how many miles I have ever had on a set of belts, I still secretly worry constantly about thier failure, and wince when I get near redline (though it doesn't stop me from driving hard).

I know that in reality, the car and engine were in fact built to handle incredible strain with all kinds of forged internals and on and on. More strain than I give it, but like I said, I don't drive it like a regular car, it was definitely built to be driven aggressively.

You make good points on the reality of part longevity. I think the cost of parts and the difficulty in getting to some components due to the cramped engine compartment makes any maintenance job seem bigger than it is, and hence these cars again suffer from a percieved need for a disproportional level of work and expense to maintain. Especially turbo models.

Im sure most here agree its all worth it, especially if you can do your own work and enjoy that sort of thing.

My 951 is the right car for me, and when properly maintained, every bit as reliable as other cars I have owned, and I have owned a lot of cars.

xschop

Alarm
ECM
ECM Relay

Over the years I've seen more 944's abandoned/parted due to these three items.

As Odu once put it, this forum is just a used parts swap meet.

Cole

At what point did these failures occur? Mileage? Age? What condition was the rest of the car in?

It's certainly not been one of those "not if but when" issues. Not every car has the issue. More details are needed. Were these due to age and/or corrosion?

I personally know guys that have called a car unreliable and sold it because they got a couple of flat tires in a row

Cole

Agreed! My perception on this is that many of the owners use this as their first wrenching project. So they are surprised at the parts cost and space constraints. (Or their other projects were simply very simple cars)

I LOVE working on the 951 relatively speaking since it is so easy to get to things and parts are cheap compared to my Audi S4 and S6 So this is definitely a perception issue.

xschop

Ok. I bought a pristine 87 944 NA in Norman Oklahoma a few years ago and another previously on a crackhead budget (>$500) because the owner thought the head was cracked. It was a $0.34 O-ring fix on the water/oil echange housing. Luckily for me it was oil in the water and not the other way around.

catamax944

Mine is a DD and has never let me down in the 6 years i have owned it, it's as reliable as it gets.
There is however one part that has constantly caused me grief over the years , the ICV .Changed it 3 times to no avail ,still acting up to this day , one was new and faulty off the shelf.

odurandina

the 944 would be extinct if it wasn't for used parts.

you can close the thread now.

Reimu

#2 bearing is my biggest issue

For most other problems we have solutions but it seems that this is an inherent design flaw and everyone just kind of assumes bandaids for it.

Van

I'll be the contrarian here just for fun.

It might be said that any part that fails "prematurely" - and by that I mean before other associated parts - is unreliable. It doesn't matter if that happens at 20k miles or 120k miles. If the rubber clutch center fails before the clutch material has worn to its minimum useful dimension, then the clutch center is unreliable.

If the speedometer gear crumbles apart while the car is still running, than it's unreliable.

How about things like clutch slave and master cylinders? How about clutch forks breaking? How about that dreaded rubber timing belt that needs replacing every 10,000-90,000 miles (depending on different sources and personal preference )

Has anyone ever had a sunroof stop working? How about a sun visor clip break? The HVAC linkage clip break?

On a more serious note, what were the recalls or TSBs on the 944? Was anyone here an original owner? And can you report on if the car had any problems for the first 20k or 40k miles?

xschop

I've sold a couple different 944's with less than 75K on the clock because I heard the rear Torque Tube bearing starting to complain heavily

+2 on the busted 951 clutch fork.....cast iron crap WTF. I spent an entire weekend on the Bridegport making one out of 4140 and another weekend putting it all back together

Cole

WTF does the source of parts have to do with this thread?

So what you're saying is that since not one single part gets old or wears out. Cause if it did then you wouldn't be able to keep other cars running with the parts from wrecked or parted cars.

I've see lots of good running cars parted out on these forums because people think they can make more money parting them than selling whole. That really has no bearing on their real reliability. Just a market demand of people wanting to restore an old car.

I bought a fan set from a parted car for mine. Not because mine had failed, but because the previous owner had run into something and broke the fan housing. So my need for a replacement fan was not an issue of reliability but one of care. Lart who sold me the fan buys cars running or not to part out cause that's his business. Not that he had an unrepairable car that he did not know what to do with so it got parted