Cole

The 944/951/968 doesn't cost any more than any other high performance or classic German auto to maintain. I've got 6 of them now and have had a dozen over decades.

People think its expensive when comparing to the beater Chevy pickup they sold to by one.


My 951 has cost far less than some of my modern German autos to upkeep.

Geldfalle 944

As a VW, Audi and now a Land rover tech, working on my 944 is a vacation in comparison!

MAGK944

Actually I assume most of the crowd here would rather tinker with their cars than watch tv and would find working on a 944 more entertaining and satisfying than any tv show. To put it in tv terms we are not the Wayne Carini lot, we are the Wheeler Dealer crowd, and just like Ed China we don't count the labor we put in.

odurandina

see, it's a cult dammit!!

while this might not be the most exaggerated, outrageous, inaccurate statement ever spewed on this forum, it's up there.....

wouldn't it be great if we could RUN THE GAUNTLET and run a secret poll/questionnaire that wouldn't just include the current owners, but the thousand or so departed off the forums/who-no-longer-drive their 944/968/lovers of the breed ??

that would be spectacular !!

multiple 4 cylinder P-car owners might be the greatest offenders of exaggerating or concealing the truth about their cars....

IN THE HISTORY OF HARD DRIVING AND AUTOMOTIVE RECORDS KEEPING !!

endlessly scrounging used parts, shopping around for bargains, and doing all the wrenching..... all adding up to a significant/HUGE proportion to having them on the pavement and putting the high commuter/highway miles on...

they blur/conceal/obfuscate the downtime vs driving time because the cars spend so much time sitting between significant punishment of daily driving events.

the truth is the T-cars and 968s indeed cost more than your typical German car.

over time they cost a small fortune to maintain and daily drive....

but i'll agree, that the 944 n/a's can be a good deal much closer to the cost of a typical German car.....

the problem I have with them:

the cars are grossly underpowered. not much faster than a typical Honda, suffer horrible electrical problems,
bent valves, headgaskets -- and $3,000 clutch jobs (closer to $3,500 in Massachusetts).


all these cars chronically run hot... when you daily drive them and begin to pile on the miles, they begin to slowly kill off their owners with endless electrical, fuel mixture/engine management, leaky seals, gaskets, and ps steering systems, costly nickel and dime until you're dead serpentine/timing systems maintenance, head gasket nightmares, and other issues.



this is fair and accurate. overall, the engine blocks, are quite good.

my 968 has mostly been a fine running car all it's life. no major failures, save for the head-gasket issue around 150 k miles.

the first owner drove his car 77 k. and his cost of maintenance and repairs were $13.5 k. and he was part of the 2nd Gen of 968s which, enjoyed for the most part, no pinion bearing failures. so he escaped that nightmare...

over the next 120 k, my maintenance and repairs, and looking ahead at things that now would need to be done, amounts to just over double that (of the original owner)......

add that up, and you're just around $40 k in maintenance and repairs to drive my 968 1/4 of a million miles.

no discounting or obfuscating the true cost of ownership by having cars sitting and doing all the wrenching at my own convenience.

but 2 owners semi-daily driving, then daily driving for 20 years... seems to me, 2 rather typical car owners. in my case, changing the oil, minor wrenching, tune ups, fuel filters, shopping around for discount parts, using independent techs and people from the RL community to do the more involved parts swapping at mostly a significant discount....

this shouldn't come as much of a surprise. I would imagine the doubling of maintenance and repairs $$$ during the 2nd 100 k miles would be about normal for most cars -- when more and more stuff has worn out.

Cole

So now you're calling me a liar?

Your B.S. has no end does it!

Such poor form dude!

We've had Porsches in our family since 1976!


I currently own 6 German cars, including 2 other Porsches, Audi, Mercedes, VW (also BMW and KTM motorcycles) and have had my 951 for 7'years!

There is nothing outrageous or different about maintaining a 944/951. Nothing.


Get over yourself!


Here is an easy example for the complainers. A timing belt kit with everything in it from Pelican is $239 for the 944. For my 2004 Audi S6 its $500+ (depending on a choice of belt it goes to $600) but also requires removal of the whole front of the car. Easily twice the labor as a 944. The timing chains and guides that need swapped on an Audi S4 V8 are $1300 and you have to remove the transmission to change them.


My VW van needs the timing chain and guides swapped out. Sure you only have to do it once every 100k miles. But the shop rate to do it is about $5,000 only $300 of which is the parts.(which even the parts are more expensive than the 944)



You are still too stubborn or stupid to understand that the shear definition of reliability is a 30 year old car with 150-200k on it!! These cars all have that. You also seem to be missing that there are tons of happy long term owners here that dispute your B.S. post after post after post. You are the one that is wrong here. Just give it up man!!

You are RUINING this forum and every thread post where people need REAL information not preached to about how they need to bastardized their Porsche with a Cheby.

odurandina

I'm not calling you a liar. but you aren't being forthright about what daily driving a 944, 944T, or 968 truly involves.

if you wrench, ownership is going to look a lot better. no one's arguing that.

if the cars have the opportunity to sit, while you hop in your other ride, whether that be a 996, or a Toyota Tundra,

everything's going to look better.

but that's not what the op is asking.

overall, I'm fine with your point of view, because I recognize, you're at one extreme of Porsche 944/944T/968 ownership.

and God knows I wish I had your wrenching skills, and the time set aside to do what you do.


but I'm not fully at the opposite extreme either.


then who is?

it's that guy who tunes a 944T for moderately more power and then daily drives it for the next 120~150 k miles, and charges/adds $80 for each shop hour, including his own to the total cost of ownership.


with my 968, i'll have to agree to disagree with you that my numbers are a closer representation to that guy.


*I think Lart's ownership history of the 944T would also be an interesting study.

pick up a non-running car, get it running with LART'S PARTS, tune it to 320 whp, beat the crap out of it, part it, and make your money back.


Lart,

if you're out there, and I'm all wet, then please AXXXEPTT my apologies for my biased view of your world.

GO LART !!

Cole

I'm being totally 100% honest about it! Why can't you get that through your head?

You seem to think people are being dishonest when FACTS don't line up with your myths

This is true for any car. But I know for a FACT that the labor to maintain any other German car is going to cost you the same or more.


Mileage is mileage and years are years!

You act like those that have a second car are driving 5k mile 944s on the weekends. They are not they are still driving 150-200k 944s that still run fine!

All cars are actually better when used, so the fact that the cars can sit and be run is even more of a testament to reliability.



Actually, that seems to be exactly what he is asking. He has another car! just like the dozen or so people here that daily their 944 and own another car. But I guess all their posts about actual real experience just fly over your head!

What extreme? My wife drove it daily in the warm months for the last 7 years. (Using her AWD S6 in the snowy months) and after fixing the abused parts of my 951 7 years ago I haven't touched it outside regular maintenance since.


It also sees a few track days a year, and I drive it as often as possible year around.

Cole

Fwiw, I will happily disclose what I've got in my car from bringing it back to life and maintenance.

I had to fix a ton of abused parts. Not just neglected, but flat out abuse.

Once the junkyard car was brought up to running condition. (The condition most buy theirs in) The running costs have been extremely low. Less than 2 oil changes a year and 1 new timing belt (maintenance) in the last 7 years. I've put a couple of sets of brake pads on it because I track the car. The street pads cost $22 and last forever!

I replaced the vacuum and fuel lines as part of 30 year old car maintenance. $150ish.

I did do the clutch and TT. But only because the PO was dumping the clutch It had a broken throwout bearing in it which is not a normal failure on these cars. To get it back on the road really only required a throwout bearing. I spent a bunch doing crazy upgrades BECAUSE I WANTED TOO! NOT BECAUSE THAT IS WHAT WAS NEEDED TO DRIVE IT! So now it has a cup II clutch plate, KEP pressure plate, custom clutch fork, all new throwout bearing and associated parts. None of which was "needed" but it's also a track car.

I did the ball joints because the PO drive them until there was no joint left. I wanted "racier" parts otherwise this would be normal maintenance. Cost about $100.

I've got a fancy light weight gear reduction starter, but only because there was a group buy going in when I had the clutch out.

My car required 1 valve be replaced when I bought it because the PO had severely neglected the car and the water pump seized, taking out the timing belt. When I pulled the head I discovered it had a $2000 custom head on it, custom exhaust, waste gate, etc. So NOT A STOCK CAR!! The guy I bought it from just abused it. A taken care of STOCK OR STOCKISH car would have been fine.

Once I sorted the abuse out, it's been flawless as a driver since. The things I had to fix were due to abuse, not even age, a taken care of car wouldn't have had these issues.

V2Rocket

Since 2005, my 944 has cost less than $15,000 to maintain and mess with, including purchase price, full engine rebuild, 951 transmission, crash repair + paint, seat reupholstery, complete AC replacement, and all the other little parts for making it roadworthy and making me happy with it...including the supercharger.

Now it just needs $30-40 gas every two weeks or so...and $30 of oil every 3-4 months.

If you just do all the maintenance on time and all the "while you're in there" stuff, it's a lot easier/cheaper in the long run.

As far as "pricing in your own labor", why would you do that if you're working on your own vehicle? Changing the timing belts on an NA takes the same amount of time as mowing the lawn on a decent-sized property, or a large load of laundry.

Time is worth something, but dicking around on a weekend to change your alternator, is that time worth $100+/hr to you, when you'd otherwise be eating nachos on Netflix? As a 944 wrench for several years, I only count the hours when it's someone else's car...

Cole

Just for some perspective. This is how abused my car was when I got it!

So not a good example of someone buying a running car.





These are some recent pics of the car. I've got about $7k total in it. (Including purchase price and crazy upgrades) I also don't "always" do my own work. I do take my cars to a German car specialist shop. It's the only way to keep up with 6 of them.

Voith

+1

+500

Geldfalle 944

Cole, who painted your car? My 944 has been repaired a couple times and by the absolute cheapest bidder, clear coat peeling/peeled off and need to fix a few dents.

Cole

My paint is not what I would consider good either. Just good enough that it looks okay from 20ft or in pictures. Most of it is old paint just polished out a bit.....bit only some of it

Geldfalle 944

I have been contemplating Stuttgart auto body.

Cole

I honestly know nothing about them, other than their location.

I know many people in the VW /Porsche/Audi community here like M&M in Aurora or SVE in Broomfield.